Institute/Session Summary:

Many students, especially developmental students, have difficulty managing their time when they begin their college careers because they were accustomed to having someone else manage their time for them.  Teachers, parents, coaches, and bosses told them what to do and when to do it.  Instead of being in class for eight hours a day, many first year students are in class only two or three hours per day.  How they spend the remainder of their time is up to them.  Unfortunately, many of our students make poor choices about how to use their time.  For many years now, I’ve had my students do a time log as one of their course assignments.  The results are startling.  Rather than spending about one third of their time on sleep, one third on academics, and one third on the rest of their lives (a good balance of time use), many of my students spend 70 to 90 hours a week (of 168) on the rest of their lives.  They also spend about 50 to 70 hours sleeping.  This results in very little time being spent on academics.  Some students report that they spend only two to five hours a week completing study tasks.  How can they succeed when they can’t manage their time?

Many students don’t have realistic expectations of how much time they should be spending on various activities.  In the first of three workshops, students have an opportunity to discuss how much time they think students should spend on various academic and non-academic activities.  After completing the activity, they can gain some perspective on how to better balance their time.  They can then evaluate their own time use based on the criteria that the class establishes and their own personal time use expectations.

Most students have few if any strategies for scheduling their study tasks.  Most of them follow the pattern they established in high school and try to complete all of their work in the evening or late at night.  The choices that many students make about what tasks to do and when to do those tasks result in procrastination or not completing the task at all.  By completing the second workshop, students can learn better strategies for completing study tasks.  During this workshop, they work in groups to schedule study tasks for a fictional student.  They will be given a series of tasks that Greg needs to complete and a copy of Greg’s time schedule and asked to schedule his study tasks.  In the process the students will have an opportunity to discuss various strategies that can help Greg (and themselves) avoid procrastination and learn to complete their work on time.  Feedback after the workshop can help many of the students learn some better strategies for scheduling study tasks.

A final opportunity to discuss time management strategies will occur in the third workshop as we discuss the case study.  Participants will have an opportunity to share ideas about why Lee has a history of procrastination that has led to low grades and what he can do to make changes in the way he uses his time.

Helping students learn to manage their time is one of the ways that we as learning assistance professionals can help our students become more successful in college.  These strategies can help them focus more on learning and help us better achieve our goals, too.

Presenter1 Name: Diane Van Blerkom
Presenter1 Institution: University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
Presenter1 Bio: Diane Van Blerkom teaches College Study Strategies and serves as an academic counselor/advisor in the Academic Support Center at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.  She currently serves on the Editorial Board of the JCRL and the Media Board for CRLA.  Diane has authored several articles and three textbooks on study strategies:  College Study Skills: Becoming a Strategic Learner, 5th ed., Orientation to College Learning, 5th ed., and a new text, Taking Charge of Your Learning: A Guide to College Success.