Choices for College Success, 3rd edition

For courses in Student Success or First Year Experience.

The activities and strategies in this book focus on three core principles—critical thinking, priority management, and personal well-being. These form the foundation for academic, career, and life success.

Choices for College Success emphasizes the power of personal choice and responsibility to help students maximize their talents and minimize their anxiety by building successful habits. MyStudentSuccessLab (www.mystudentsuccesslab.com) helps students to 'Start strong, Finish stronger' by acquiring the skills they need to succeed for ongoing personal and professional development.

Teaching & Learning Experience: Power of Personal Choice and Responsibility

Choices for College Success demonstrates how organized action and critical thinking will help students achieve academic success, create a healthy and balanced life, and realize their dreams. This program provides:

· Personalized Learning with MyStudentSuccessLab: Whether face-to-face or online, MyStudentSuccessLab helps students build the skills they need through peer-led video interviews, interactive practice exercises, and activities that provide academic, life, and professionalism skills.

· Critical Thinking: The RED Model for critical thinking presents an eloquently simple and practical model to carefully analyze and address school and life challenges.

· Priority Management:Provides personal assessments and activities for students to reflect and apply the strategies introduced around the “choices they make”—and take responsibility for their journey using key principles underlying student success.

· Personal Well-being: A multi-dimensional model for personal well-being and balance helps students navigate the transitions and adjustments to college life and is critical to their overall sense of balance in life. 

Note: This is a standalone book, if you want the book/access card order the ISBN below:

0321908694 / 9780321908698 Choices for College Success

0321943252 / 9780321943255 NEW MyStudentSuccessLab 2013 Update -- Valuepack Access Card

Critical Thinking

·        NEW! Critical thinking model. The RED Model (Recognize assumptions, Evaluate information, and Draw conclusions) provides a framework for students. RED is consistently applied to real-life circumstances to provide students with opportunities to determine how well they understand both strategies and concepts. (Ex. - Topic 2 through 14)

·        REVISED! “Reflecting on your current level of skills” pre-assessment activity. Each topic begins with this quick (8 to 9 items) exercise that allows students to self-assess their level of proficiency. (Ex. – Beginning of every topic)

·        NEW! Learning Styles is its own full topic. Students identify their learning styles—and apply the critical thinking model to their learning styles.  VAK helps students learn about their visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles and how these affect their learning. VAK provides: 1. A common terminology; and 2. An instrument to help students make personal connections between theory and practical applications. (Ex. – Topic 6)

·        NEW! Critically Thinking: What Have You Learned?All topics end with a review of learning outcomes and critical thinking application exercise.

·         Student case studies. Each topic opens with a student case study that provides perspectives on challenges and choices students must address in school and in life. This feature includes an assessment activity for students to reflect on their level of skill with the topic.

Priority Management

·        REVISED! Opening and closing case studies/vignettes set the stage for each main topic and are also integrated into the topic and the end-of-topic activity. Students are actively involved in solving the dilemma presented in the opening situation. Each situation is based on the author's 31+ years of teaching experiences and represent real dilemmas common to most students. (Ex. - Throughout the book)

·        REVISED! Priority Management: Non-negotiable v. Negotiable. An introduction to the terms of “non-negotiable” and “negotiable” items in life, these terms provide vocabulary for a concrete way to look at what is necessary in a student's life—and what is not--to help students assess whether they are focusing on valuable activities or jeopardizing goals by wasting time on negotiable ones. (Ex. – Topic 3)

·        NEW! Key terms. These provide a chapter organizer so students can see what important concepts they will cover (in bold face treatment for easy identification). These terms also form the “Glindex” (ie. – Glossary / Index) at the end of the book. (Ex. – Throughout the book and at the end)

·        REVISED! Activities. These give the students the opportunity to relate concepts to academic and life situations and hone priority management skills as they relate to the topics. (Ex. – Throughout the book)

Personal Well-being

·        REVISED! Well-being and balance. The first chapter introduces students to a six-dimensional model they can apply to all areas of their lives. This theme of well-being focuses on success in life as well as academics in one or more of the six dimensions. (Ex. – Throughout the book)

·        REVISED! Activities. These reflective activities teach students the value of creating effective balance between school, work, and family and see the connection between school and the six dimensions of a healthy life. (e.g., social, emotional, physical and intellectual). (Ex. – Throughout the book)

·        REVISED! Financial Literacy. This topic provides a bare-bones overview of the four concepts a financially literate person must understand: personal budgets, checking accounts, savings accounts, and loans. Also includes consumption habits vs. wealth building habits coverage. (Ex. – Topic 13)

·        REVISED! Information Literacy. Social media is an integral part of our lives, and it has been restructured and updated.

o    The first half of this topic addresses “traditional information literacy” of finding, evaluating, and using information; the second part has a more in-depth focus on “social media and communication” in the Internet Age. 

o    The topic of communication has been rewritten to include tips for creating and posting appropriate social media updates, as well as establishing (or not) an online profile. Privacy issues are explained and the concept of a "digital tattoo" is emphasized.

o    A quick-reference plagiarism table has been added. Typical student questions are posed about plagiarism. A strategy on how to avoid plagiarism follows. (Ex. – Topic 4)

·        The Civility chapter weaves in communication, and conflict resolution. This chapter provides practical strategies for understanding interpersonal dynamics and engages students in dialogue about basic habits of civility--and how those habits can build productive relationships with professors, classmates, employers, family, and friends. (Ex. Topic 10)

·        REVISED! Testing strategies are now in one topic instead of divided into two: Test preparation and Test taking (Topic 10) as requested by reviewers for a streamlined approach to testing.

·        NEW! Reading is a stand alone topic in this edition (Topic 9) and includes information on strategic highlighting.  

Critical Thinking

·        NEW! Critical thinking model. The RED Model (Recognize assumptions, Evaluate information, and Draw conclusions) provides a framework for students. RED is consistently applied to real-life circumstances to provide students with opportunities to determine how well they understand both strategies and concepts. (Ex. - Topic 2 through 14)

·        REVISED! “Reflecting on your current level of skills” pre-assessment activity. Each topic begins with this quick (8 to 9 items) exercise that allows students to self-assess their level of proficiency. (Ex. – Beginning of every topic)

·        NEW! Learning Styles is its own full topic. Students identify their learning styles—and apply the critical thinking model to their learning styles. VAK helps students learn about their visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles and how these affect their learning. VAK provides: 1. A common terminology; and 2. An instrument to help students make personal connections between theory and practical applications. (Ex. – Topic 6)

·       NEW! Critically Thinking: What Have You Learned? All topics end with a review of learning outcomes and critical thinking application exercise.

Priority Management

·        REVISED! Opening and closing case studies/vignettes set the stage for each main topic and are also integrated into the topic and the end-of-topic activity. Students are actively involved in solving the dilemma presented in the opening situation. Each situation is based on the author's 31+ years of teaching experiences and represent real dilemmas common to most students. (Ex. - Throughout the book)

·        REVISED! Priority Management: Non-negotiable v. Negotiable. An introduction to the terms of “non-negotiable” and “negotiable” items in life, these terms provide vocabulary for a concrete way to look at what is necessary in a student's life—and what is not--to help students assess whether they are focusing on valuable activities or jeopardizing goals by wasting time on negotiable ones. (Ex. – Topic 3)

·        NEW! Key terms. These provide a chapter organizer so students can see what important concepts they will cover (in bold face treatment for easy identification). These terms also form the “Glindex” (ie. – Glossary / Index) at the end of the book. (Ex. – Throughout the book and at the end)

·        REVISED! Activities. These give the students the opportunity to relate concepts to academic and life situations and hone priority management skills as they relate to the topics. (Ex. – Throughout the book)

Personal Well-being

·        REVISED! Well-being and balance. The first chapter introduces students to a six-dimensional model they can apply to all areas of their lives. This theme of well-being focuses on success in life as well as academics in one or more of the six dimensions. (Ex. – Throughout the book)

·        REVISED! Activities. These reflective activities teach students the value of creating effective balance between school, work, and family and see the connection between school and the six dimensions of a healthy life. (e.g., social, emotional, physical and intellectual). (Ex. – Throughout the book)

·        REVISED! Financial Literacy. This topic provides a bare-bones overview of the four concepts a financially literate person must understand: personal budgets, checking accounts, savings accounts, and loans. Also includes consumption habits vs. wealth building habits coverage. (Ex. – Topic 13)

·        REVISED! Information Literacy. Social media is an integral part of our lives, and it has been restructured and updated.

o The first half of this topic addresses “traditional information literacy” of finding, evaluating, and using information; the second part has a more in-depth focus on “social media and communication” in the Internet Age.

o The topic of communication has been rewritten to include tips for creating and posting appropriate social media updates, as well as establishing (or not) an online profile. Privacy issues are explained and the concept of a "digital tatoo" is emphasized.

o A quick-reference plagiarism table has been added. Typical student questions are posed about plagiarism. A strategy on how to avoid plagiarim follows. (Ex. – Topic 4)

·        REVISED! Testing strategies are now in one topic instead of divided into two: Test preparation and Test taking (Topic 10) as requested by reviewers for a streamlined approach to testing.

·        NEW! Reading is a stand alone topic in this edition (Topic 9) and includes information on strategic highlighting.

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