Psychological Keys to Student Success

The Psychological Keys to Student Success (PK2SS) will teach you studying skills and the most important thinking skills and personal characteristics you need to achieve at a high level in college. You will get advice about how to study and how to maximize your learning. The emphasis of this book is teaching you HOW TO THINK. Thinking skills are NOT the same as studying skills. Thinking skills will make your studying skills more effective. 

Earning a college degree is hard work. It requires a lot of effort, some serious concentration, and a stick-with-it attitude. Students need to develop many skills in order to keep up with the rigors of a college education. Decades of psychological research show there are consistent differences between students who do well in college and those who do not. Each Psychological Key to Student Success (PK2SS) is a thinking skill or personal characteristic that can greatly improve students' academic achievement and chances for college success. In this book, students will learn about the importance of motivation, beliefs about school, explanations for success (and failure), goals, interest, confidence, thinking and thinking errors, self-control, and culture. Students get advice about studying skills like reading, reviewing, memorizing, making flashcards, highlighting, and summarizing all the time. However, if students want to maximize their learning, they need to learn HOW TO THINK. Thinking skills are NOT the same as studying skills. Thinking skills make studying skills more effective. The Psychological Keys to Student Success address the thinking skills and personal characteristics students can develop in order to thrive, not just survive in college.

I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota but I grew up in Canada. I lived in Canada for 26 years and completed all of my schooling there. In 1996 I graduated with a Master’s degree in Psychology. For the first 7.5 years of my career, I worked as a psychometrist at a children’s mental health agency, providing psychological assessment and treatment services to kids, teens, and families. In October 2003, I moved back to Minnesota and shortly after I began teaching psychology classes in the community college system in the Twin Cities. I am passionate about helping students achieve their academic, career, and personal goals. In my personal life I enjoy traveling and playing and listening to music. I am a self-taught drummer and just started trying to learn the guitar in 2014. I am a huge fan of 80s hard rock and “hair” metal. That’s pretty much all I listen to. Yes, this college prof ROCKS! Check out my website. www.psychologyrocks.com