Student Success Survival Guide
Assessment Purpose:
The purpose of this assessment is to ensure students understand the skills required for success as a college student.
Assessment Weight:
This assessment is worth 15% of your total course grade.
Course Outcomes Covered:
As a major assessment, this assessment is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you have mastered the following course outcome(s):
1. Navigate various technologies that support learning, including the Learning Management System, e-mail, library databases, digital e-book platforms, and where applicable.
2. Assess various academic skills and choose appropriate strategies for personal use.
3. Apply productivity and self-awareness skills to maximize learning experiences.
4. Apply critical thinking to academic assignments and problem resolution.
5. Demonstrate professional orientation and awareness to guide academic and personal success.
Directions:
In order for students to be successful in college, there are common skills students must leverage to manage their course load, professional lives, and personal lives. The aim of this course is to provide you this important information. One of the best ways to learn and ensure competency is to teach; if you can teach something, you have a thorough understanding and grasp on that content.
For this assessment, you will develop a “Survival Guide” for new incoming students. The guide should consist of the content learned in this course but can also include any additional information you believe to be important for a new college student (supported with resources). While your audience is intended to be peer students, please keep in mind that this is a graded academic assignment and appropriate language/jargon is expected.
Follow the steps below to complete this assessment.
1. Create a pamphlet or poster that provides an overview of all student success strategies covered in class. Your pamphlet or poster should meet the following expectations:
a. The poster/pamphlet includes an overview of the importance of student success strategies and techniques.
b. The pamphlet or poster includes all strategies:
i. Techniques for proper use of email for academic and professional communication
ii. Goal setting techniques
iii. Time management techniques
iv. Note-taking strategies
v. Stress management strategies
c. Each strategy includes at minimum:
i. An overview of the strategy/technique
ii. Importance to success in college and either personal or professional lives (or both).
iii. At least two examples of techniques for applying each strategy (i.e.: 2 goal setting techniques, 2 time management techniques, etc.).
d. Your pamphlet or poster includes relevant images in support of the content covered.
i. Images should be appropriate and align with the content
ii. Project should include at least 2 images but no more than 5 images
e. A brief overview of the importance of digital and information literacy in academics as well as personal lives.
f. References for sources utilized to create your pamphlet or poster.
2. You will decide the top two most important strategies and then create a brief narrated presentation covering the strategies/skills in further detail in addition to your pamphlet or poster. You should approach this as a presentation to an incoming student outlining the most important things you’ve learned in this course for college success. Please note, there is no wrong or right answers as long as the strategies/skills were covered in this course. You will have an opportunity to include anything additional beyond class that was helpful in your success this term.
Your presentation should include the following:
a. A brief introduction to each strategy
b. Why the two strategies/skills were chosen as most important
c. An example of how the you have applied these two skills this semester (in this course or in other courses)
*Optional* – If you have identified additional tips/tricks that have helped in your success this semester, you may include up to two additional topics to briefly discuss.
3. Your finished PowerPoint should contain a minimum of 10 slides and follow the outline below:
a. One title slide
b. Minimum of 10 content slides
c. You must include a references slide, however, this will not count toward the 10 slide minimum requirement.
4. Review the rubrics at the end of this document to see how your work will be graded.
Other Information and Resources:
Web links are provided below to help you find and use research sources and to help you create your PowerPoint. You can access any link by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the link, or by copying and pasting the link into the search bar of a web browser.
Tips for Using PowerPoint:
• Microsoft’s Support Site provides lots of information on using PowerPoint:
o Basic PowerPoint presentations: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/basic-tasks-for-creating-a-powerpoint-presentation-efbbc1cd-c5f1-4264-b48e-c8a7b0334e36
o Revising slide layout and order: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/get-started-with-powerpoint-83824a76-a05e-4d9a-8775-c7434b15b797?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#Category=Work_with_slides
o Changing and formatting text within slides: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/get-started-with-powerpoint-83824a76-a05e-4d9a-8775-c7434b15b797?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#Category=Work_with_text
o Recording narration: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/record-a-slide-show-with-narration-and-slide-timings-0b9502c6-5f6c-40ae-b1e7-e47d8741161c
• This video shows how to record narration in your PowerPoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZp3jumnWUg
