By Kim Trejo
StudentLingo, a new series of online workshops available at College of Southern Nevada, can help students develop dozens of skills such as time management and study techniques. These come in handy as final exams approach.
“StudentLingo gives college students important skills and abilities they may not have had before entering college,” said Charlene Gibson, communication instructor who helped implement the new program at the College.
According to Gibson, there are over 40 workshops offered including the following: test-taking strategies, how to reduce test anxiety, how to succeed at math, understanding and avoiding plagiarism and reading comprehension strategies, among others. These online tools can help students study for final exams and reduce test anxiety.
Those who take StudentLingo workshops earn higher grades than those who do not, according to the spring 2015 implementation evaluation statistics. Those students who spent time increasing their skills in these workshops had success of C or better in general-education courses.
StudentLingo was implemented as a part of the Achieving the Dream initiative.
ATD started at the College in 2012. More than 200 higher-education institutions, 100 coaches and advisers, 15 state policy teams, and numerous investors and partners are working to provide equitable educational opportunities for all learners across racial, ethnic and income groups, according to ATD’s mission.
StudentLingo supports this mission as educational-learning tools are readily available and geared to specific needs of each learner.
Students have access to in-person tutoring at CSN though, according to Gibson, what makes the new program different from others is the accessibility factor.
“StudentLingo helps students learn skills in an interactive on-demand way,” Gibson said. “I believe the fact that students can access it at anytime and on their own is what sets it apart.”
The program has received a lot of positive results from students and faculty since it was implemented in 2014.
“Students love [the workshops] because it gives them practical skills,” Gibson said. “Faculty love them because the students then bring those skills into the classroom, ultimately making them more successful.”
Taylor Shaw, student at CSN, took two different workshops called stress management and test anxiety.
“Tests were so overwhelming to me and I wouldn’t do well because I didn’t feel confident and I would stress and thought that I had lost everything I learned,” Shaw said. “The past few tests I have taken I have done really well. I was confident and I was proud of myself. The workshops are truly a success.”
Working two jobs and going to school full-time caused Shaw to be overburdened and full of anxiety. “Those workshops helped me deal with my personal life problems and with stress in a positive way,” Shaw said.
“StudentLingo is really the best thing that helped me get my life together,” Shaw added.
Essence Reed, CSN student, also had a positive interaction with StudentLingo’s workshops. The two that helped her most were time management and study techniques.
“The time management one made me realize how I don’t use the little amount of free time I have usefully or that I don’t spend enough time studying,” Reed said.
She now studies ahead of time and plans for her assignments instead of leaving them until the last minute.
“Even if you don’t think you need it, I guarantee there is something new that you can learn,” Reed added.
For information on the StudentLingo workshops and step-by-step instructions on how to access them visit http://www.csn.edu/pages/4908.asp.
Coyote Student News at the College of Southern Nevada 