By Whitney Oliphant, Staff Reporter
Students who are looking for a way to help manage their time, deal with test anxiety, or who need advice for taking better notes can check out the CNM free online Kick Start workshops, according to cnm.edu.
The workshops are an online resources that was created by a few of the CNM achievement coaches and by members of the CNM media production services, said Shelby Villegas, program coordinator at CNM Connect.
To access the Kick Start workshops students can visit http://www.cnm.edu/kickstart, she said.
“It gives a chance for the student to be proactive and it makes it easier to do that because it’s more accessible,” Villegas said.
There are five different workshops that are available to students that include time management, test anxiety, learning styles, note-taking, and study skills/test-taking skills according to cnm.edu.
The time management workshop offers a survey for students to fill out that will help to calculate where students are spending their time during the week.
There is also a study hour formula that will show students how much time should be spent on studying based on the amount of credit hours the student takes according to the time management workshop.
Test anxiety is a worry or fear caused by having to take tests and can cause both physical and mental symptoms, according to cnm.edu.
Students are able to take a test anxiety questionnaire through the test anxiety kick start workshop that will help students determine if test anxiety is something that they could be experiencing.
The test anxiety workshop also has a list of strategies that students can use to help them with the anxiety before taking a test, according to cnm.edu.
Learning styles is another Kick Start workshop that is available.
The Learning styles workshop can help students to better understand how they learn best.
There is another questionnaire available in the workshop that students can fill out to assess what learning style works best for them.
The workshop also provides students tips on each learning style so they can take the information they have been given and apply it to their educational process, according to cnm.edu.
Students who are looking for tips on taking better notes can check out the CNM note-taking workshop.
The workshop follows the learning styles workshop and can help students determine the best way to take notes for their previously calculated learning style.
Kick Start workshops were formally called Academic Excellence and were originally set up as in-person sessions that were available to students but with the variety of students schedules it was difficult to set up a time where everyone could attend, Villegas said.
That is when the achievement coaches decided to set these workshops up online, she said.
The achievement coaches noticed that students were coming in looking for help and improvement in a lot of the same areas as other students but they all had different schedules that made attending an in person workshop difficult, she said.
So they decided to make the Kick Start workshops online so that students could have easier access to the information that would have been provided in the in person workshop, she said.
The workshops are set up so that students can work through them at their own pace and each one is set up so that a student can chose how fast or slow they would like to absorb the information that is provided, she said.
Students are able to start the workshop and if something comes up they can pause it and come back to it at a different time, she said.
“It’s a great starting point and wonderful opportunity for the students”, Villegas said.
CNM students who are looking for more one on one time or those who would like to have more information can contact the CNM achievement coaches and set up appointments to speak with them in person, she said.
The achievement coaches are there to try and help students while assisting them on their educational journeys, she said.
The Kick Start workshops can be accessed off of any internet connected device but the workshops perform better with the use of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, Villegas said.
To take any of the Kick Start workshops students can go to http://www.cnm.edu/kickstart and if students have any questions or would like more information they can call 505-244-3186.