Back in June (yes, I’ve been procrastinating) Arthur Levine posted an interesting piece discussing how many of our institutions such as banking, healthcare, and higher ed were designed to function in the industrial era and now need to be refurbished and retooled to meet the needs of a global information based economy.

I agree with many of his arguments about institutions needing to advance new andragogies (pedagogy is the wrong word!) as well as the need to explore some less traditional methods of seat time and standardized scheduling. At least I agree to a point.

Digital natives do employ technology as a learning medium and they are use to a 24/7 world with information at their fingertips. However I don’t believe they understand technology as a tool or a learning platform. I also believe that we should not assume that all millenials have the basic technology skills to deploy technology as a tool. I say this not only as a student affairs professional, but also as the parent of four millenials. Technology is often an advanced toy or communication device.

Gen Xers, like me, can remember being told “get off the phone” because our parents were waiting for a call. The phone for us was an entertainment device. We knew how to use it to talk to our peers or order a pizza, but how many times did we get in trouble for not taking a proper message or answering the phone incorrectly? (Come on – I know it wasn’t just me!)

Digital natives need to be taught to deploy technology as a tool and not as a toy. Formatting emails, accessing LMS, even using Word. I often find myself taking a step back with my students and teaching them how to format a document, attach a file to an email, or locate information, things that as  ’digital natives’ I presume they would already know.

So we can begin to develop andragogies that include technology, but we also need to remember that we have to teach the technology as well.

From my wonderful Career Coach Sean Cook. I have been thinking about my potential a lot lately.

A big thank you to all of you for following along!

I also want to thank my pal Jeff at BreakDrink for letting me cross off one of my goals. Which was to have the Learn blog mentioned on Break Drink!

Groundhog Day, Procrastination, and You!

Welcome to February! The semester is well under way and while I am looking forward to some signs of spring the winter weather can keep me from springing into action! So in this month’s email I want to talk about downtime, dawdling, lingering, loitering, postponing, stalling… you know . . . the big P. . . PROCRASTINATION!

Merriam-Webster defines procrastinate as: to put off intentionally and habitually. Sometimes we must intentionally put things off, but when ‘habitually’ enters the definition it can be troublesome.  So what does procrastination have to do with Groundhog Day? Well, groundhogs burrow underground dens that have many chambers and more than one entrance, and in an effort to quash habitual stalling it is also helpful to have many ‘entrances’.  And, like Bill Murray, in the movie Groundhog Day developing healthy new habits may require several tries!

So here are several tips for motivating past the procrastination tendency.

Eat the frog first. “If you eat a frog first thing in the morning that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.” – Mark Twain Do that most dreaded task first before you check your email or turn on the tv. Make it the first thing you do today, before checking email or anything else.

Get rid of all distractions. Including turning off the Internet, the cell phone, the TV, the IPod, and any other distraction that you have control over.

Just get started. Nothing is worse than the first few sentences of a long paper, or a stack of reading that seems endless. Diving in and getting the first few sentences done, or the first paragraphs read, can go a long way in decreasing your dread and improving your motivation.

Tell yourself you’re just going to do 10 minutes. This rule is most useful for tasks that are necessary but that you really don’t want to do. You will not only make 10 minutes worth of progress when you return to it the negative connotations of “starting the dreaded task” will be gone.

Forget about perfection. Turn off spell check and grammar check; do not search for synonyms or additional resources. Put pen to paper, or use a simple word pad, to focus only on getting the gist of the assignment done.

Spread out your work. Marathon sessions are impossible to sustain, and if you do sustain them the quality of your work is sure to suffer. Start early, work in short focused bursts, and schedule reasonable amounts of time for the task.

Tell everyone. Make a HUGE deal out of how tough this task is and how you are dedicated to completing it. Tell them what times you’ve set aside for working on it and what progress you intend to make. Taking your goals public not only provides everyone with an opportunity to support you it also makes it harder not to complete the task. How embarrassing would it be to talk it up and then have to report a lack of progress!

Even challenging tasks can be made lighter by a positive attitude!

Verbalize your excuses. Literally speak the excuse out load. Something that sounds acceptable in your head can seem ridiculous when said aloud.

One more thing is similar to “just get started”. If you’ve been working hard at a task and are feeling like you can’t possibly get it completed make a deal with yourself to do just “one more thing” before you take a break or put the task on your calendar for another day.

A few reminders:

The class schedules for Summer 2010 and Fall 2010 are now available online. Registration begins March 1, 2010. Be sure to make an appointment BEFORE your registration date! Delays can result in classes filling before you have an opportunity to register!

The registration period is as follows:
Earned 55+ hours – register beginning 8 a.m. Monday, March 1
Earned 35+ hours – register beginning 8 a.m. Tuesday, March 2
Earned 0-34 hours and new students – register beginning 8 a.m. Wednesday, March 3

I hope your month is productive and happy! Remember what Phil said “Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.”

J

References:

Facts about groundhogs

Dead simple guide to beating procrastination

Seven powerful steps to overcoming resistance

The Science of procrastination

Learn to want it

Three rules to fight procrastination

Don’t interrupt me, I’m procrastinating

Bauman, M. (2009). The mobilization and return of undergraduate students serving in the National Guard and Reserves. New    Directions for Student Services, 2009 (126),  15-23. DOI: 10.1002/ss.312

This article by Bauman covers the three phases of the stopping-out process experienced by students serving in military reserve unites and the National Guard. The author interviewed 24 citizen soldiers from two institutions to provide a snapshot of they experienced as they were mobilized to active duty and returned to civilian life. The three phases, as described by Bauman, are pre-mobilization, separation, and return.

During pre-mobilization the students prepare to separate from employment, family, friends, and their educational institutions. It is a time of anxiety without a true deadline for mobilization. Interviews with students indicated that it can be difficult to make definitive plans at this time without the knowledge of an actual deployment date. However, planning does begin in this stage as drills and connectedness with the military unit increase.

The separation phase begins when mobilization orders are received.  This is the longest of the three stages, and by many student accounts the most emotional. Most students make a clean break with their educational institution during this time. Bauman also states that this is the stage during which faculty and staff at the institution can make a “profound difference” (p. 19). By maintaining contact with the students during their deployment staff and faculty can ease the transitions that students experience.

Phase three is returning to civilian life. Students during this stage experienced mixed emotions. They were elated to return home to friends and family, anxious about the changes that had occurred during their absence, and uncomfortable with the lack of a clear purpose that they felt. Many did not want to face returning to their education due to the fact that many of their peers would have graduated or be ahead of them in the curriculum. There are many other emotional and social aspects that can make the return difficult. It is important for institutions to have staff available to help returning veterans navigate the administration of the educational benefits they are entitled too.

In the summary and recommendations Bauman encourages campus leaders to explore ways of supporting student veterans socially, emotionally, and administratively. One of the ways I believe we can do this is to support our student soldiers through all phases of stopping-out, including making the effort to stay in contact while they are deployed and encouraging them to return to our institutions by providing the best possible services upon their return.