The Student Mindset
A 30-item toolkit for anyone learning anything
- 160 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
In The Student Mindset: A 30-item toolkit for anyone learning anything, Steve Oakes and Martin Griffin provide clear, effective and engaging tools designed to help students plan, organise and execute successful learning.
Successful students find a way to succeed. They get the results they want. And they achieve this not by superior ability, but by sticking to habits, routines and strategies that deliver those results.
By cutting through the noise surrounding academic success and character development, bestselling authors Steve Oakes and Martin Griffin have identified the five key traits and behaviours that all students need in order to achieve their goals: vision, effort, systems, practice and attitude (VESPA).
These characteristics beat cognition hands down, and in The Student Mindset Steve and Martin provide a ready-made series of study strategies, approaches and tactics designed to nurture these qualities and transform your motivation, commitment and productivity.
The book's thirty activities, while categorised thematically under the VESPA umbrella, have been organised around six key phases of learning so that you can recognise which phase you're in before choosing from the range of tools and techniques to help you get through it. The six co-existing key phases are: preparation; starting study; collecting and shaping; adapting, testing and performing; flow and feedback; and dealing with the dip. At each phase you'll experience challenges and discover new ways of working, and this book's activities have been designed to help you gain control and become a better learner by sharing workload management tactics and revision strategies associated with calm, purposeful study and ultimately getting good results. These tools include a range of effective prioritisation, stress reduction, procrastination-busting and mindset development approaches all neatly packaged into this outstanding practical guide to becoming a successful and confident student.
Suitable for all students.
Shortlisted for the Non Obvious Book Award.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Preparation
Questions:
Key elements of the VESPA model in this phase:
1. Vision Activity: The Learnerâs Manifesto
1 | Discard fear of failure; instead expect it. |
2 | Be comfortable with âI donât knowâ. Your mind is ready for new thoughts, not rehashing old ones. Get comfortable with âthat doesnât make senseâ. Turn it into âthat doesnât make sense yetâ. See if you can hold opposing, illogical ideas in your head for long periods. Itâs safe to assume that youâre going to study something that might not make sense for a week, a month or even longer. Disregard âcommon senseâ preconceptions or âwhat I thought was trueâ. Most peopleâs early education has dealt in strategically simplified versions of the truth. |
3 | Seek out divergent thinking. There are many possibilities and many answers, not just one. Others may have persuasive opinions; you donât need to wholeheartedly agree with them. |
4 | Be curious and enquiring. Replace âIâm dreading this!â with âI wonder what this will be like?â Focus on questions rather than answers. |
5 | Psychologist Abraham Maslow said we should try to think âwithout fashions, fads, dogmas, habits or other pictures-in-the-head of what is proper, normal, ârightââ. Instead, we should be âready to receive whatever happens to be the case without surprise, shock, indignation or denialâ (Maslow, 2000, p. 194). |
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Preparation
- Chapter 2: Starting Study
- Chapter 3: Collecting and Shaping
- Chapter 4: Adapting, Testing and Performing
- Chapter 5: Flow and Feedback
- Chapter 6: Dealing with the Dip
- Conclusion: Ten Final Thoughts
- References
- Copyright