Academic Excellence Tactics

What is academic excellence?

Academic excellence is the demonstrated ability to perform, achieve, and/or excel in scholastic activities. To achieve academic excellence, it is essential to create an environment that fosters the development of a community that can grow intellectually, socially, and ethically, and is therefore able to pursue successful and fulfilling careers. Consider the following guiding questions: How do you demonstrate college readiness through the use of effective study skills and campus resources? How do you apply basic technological and information management skills for academic and lifelong career development? How do you demonstrate the use of critical and creative thinking skills to solve problems and draw conclusions? How do you demonstrate basic awareness of self in connection with academic and personal goals? How do you identify and demonstrate knowledge of the implications of choices related to wellness? How do you demonstrate basic knowledge of cultural diversity? I strongly emphasize that you exhibit humility. When you are humble, you are able to get a lot of things and break the walls. The approach of being humble, patient and disciplined will make you win everywhere.However, there are a number of factors to consider to achieve academic excellence; 

The factors mentioned by some of the high flying students below are very much consistent with what the experts and gurus have put forth.

 A. ROLE OF TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS. Teachers and schools have important role to play towards learning capabilities of students. Their roles includes:

i. Promoting Active Learning Teachers in schools are the ideal people as well as in the best situation to promote active learning among students in schools. Active learning is about energizing and sustaining attention of students, who then become very interested in doing any classroom activities.

ii. Developing High Order Thinking Skills The role of teachers and schools is not just imparting knowledge content but also to develop students in solving problems, making decisions and adapting to dynamics of the environment.

iii. Creating Effective Learning Zones One of the top students said that being given the freedom to choose and do what she likes is one of the reasons that contribute to her excellent academic results. This is about doing things or even learning things in ways or styles or zones that are comfortable and conducive to the students. Comfortable and conducive zones are those with which the student identifies or has some affinity with. Teachers can create effective learning zones in the classroom by seating, for example a verbally confident student next to a reflective student, or a student strong in mathematics with a student less confident in the subject or even a student who presents work well with a student who is not so careful or creative with presentation. 

iv. Providing Effective Feedback One of the responsibilities of educators is giving feedback to students on their work and assessment tasks. Through feedback, teachers can determine whether students are success oriented, avoiding failure or accepting failure. By knowing such classification about students, teachers can tailor their teaching strategy and philosophy to suit the success category of students.

 v. Recognizing and Creating Learning Windows Teachers through experience can create or even recognize learning windows. The learning windows can be part of the day or certain days of the weeks or even certain weeks of the month. Learning windows are opportunities where students are fully attentive, interested in learning and ready to learn. These learning windows may come and go and therefore teachers must exploit the learning windows to the fullest advantage for students. 

vi. Developing Good Relationships. Students' interest on a particular subject can be influence by the teaching style of teachers. There are comments like “If only I like my teacher, I could get A in his subject”. If the teaching style is liked and enjoyed by students, they tend to become good in the subject taught. Therefore student-teacher relationship is one of the most critical factors influencing students’ performance in schools.

vii. Developing Productive Pedagogy Productive pedagogy is the “teaching” that brings out the best in students. Under such teaching style, students on their own free will start to display or show off ‘hidden’ attributes, skills and talents. If there is no productive pedagogy, students could not be bordered and would show no interest in learning under such teacher. 

viii. Motivation What and how much is learned is influenced by the learner's motivation. Motivation to learn, in turn, is influenced by the individual's emotional states, beliefs, interests,goals and thoughts. A student can be motivated by life threatening illness to his next of kin, or his belief that he can do as well as the smart student, or he wants to accomplish his ambition to somebody one day. 

B. ROLE OF PEERS Students’ friends also seem to influence their educational success. They tend to select friends with similar interests and goals. Students whose peers have higher educational aspirations tend to have more positive academic self-concepts themselves. They are more engaged in schools and have higher hopes for their life long education than students whose peers have low educational aspirations. Students who spend a lot of unproductive time with friends tend to have lower achievement levels than those who spend less time hanging out with peers. So students who wish to excel in their studies should be selective when it comes to choosing friends to hangout with.  

C. ROLE OF FAMILY 

The importance of the role of the student’s family is discussed first from the context of attitude, then socioeconomic status, and finally parenting approach and family size.i. Attitude Families play strong role in how students perform and adjust in schools. Parents’ involvement is highly related to their children success in education. Students whose parents are more involved with their schooling are more likely to be motivated to achieve excellence in school, have higher educational expectations and do better academically and go on to higher levels of educational than their peers whose parents are not involved. One of the ways parent can get involve in schools is joining the Parents-Teachers Associations of the schools.ii. Socioeconomic StatusSome bibliography of successful men and women mentioned about how terribly poor their parents were financially, economically and educationally. This state of affair i.e. low income level, poor livelihood and lowly educated is the one that motivate them to be successful in their endeavor including in education. There are now sons and daughters of very poor people who are of prominent standing in the society. Socioeconomic status is an important factor in students’ adjustment to and performance in school. iii. Parenting Approach Or StyleParenting approach also may affect students’ school experiences. Students whose parents are supportive yet provide rules and consequences tend to be more engaged in school and have higher educational expectations than those students whose parents are permissive or neglectful. Some parents even go to the extent of limiting the time their children can watch television or control their use of free time. Some parents couldn’t care less for their children or have no time set aside for their children because they are busy earning their livelihood. There are three styles of parenting. Authoritative parents tell students to look at both sides of issues and admit that children know more than parents. Students receive praise and freedom if they get good grades; poor grade bring encouragement to try harder, offers for help and loss of freedom. Authoritarian parents tell students not to argue with or question adults and tell then they will know better when they grow up.iv. Family SizeThe size of families has some effect of academic performance of students. Students who come from larger families tend to have lower levels of achievement and lower levels of secondary graduation, on average than children who come from smaller families. The argument is that parents of many children cannot afford to divide quality time with their children. Value added quality time is hard to set aside to oversee the academic aspect of the children. On the other hand, parents with two to three kids can afford the time to develop their children’s academic capabilities because their time is only shared with less number of children. 

D. ROLE OF A STUDENT 

The students themselves play critical role in making them to be high achievers. Their role is discussed from the aspects of the nature of the learning process, the goals of the learning process, construction of knowledge, strategic thinking and finally on thinking about thinking.i. Nature Of The Learning Process.There are different types of learning processes, for example, learning that involves the generation of knowledge, or cognitive skills and learning strategies. The learning of complex subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional process of constructing meaning from information and experience. Learning in schools emphasizes the use of intentional processes that students can use to construct meaning from information, experiences, and their own thoughts and beliefs.ii. Goals Of The Learning Process.Learning process has purposes or objectives like gaining value-added knowledge to excel in examinations and to be better than the others. The successful students, over time and with support and instructional guidance, can create meaningful and coherent representations of knowledge. To construct useful representations of knowledge and to acquire the thinking and learning strategies necessary for continued learning success across the life span, students must generate and pursue personally relevant goals. Personal relevant goals include self satisfaction,more fluent on the subject matter and gain confidence and respect from peers.iii. Construction Of KnowledgeThe successful student can link new information with existing knowledge in meaningful ways. They can recognize the relevant or connection of his current knowledge with new knowledge. He starts by having the trunk of knowledge and overtime his knowledge grows and spread like branches of a knowledge tree. Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to build links between new information and experiences and their existing knowledge base. The nature of linkages between the student’s current knowledge base and the new information can take a variety of forms, such as adding to, modifying, or reorganizing or reorienting existing knowledge or skills. iv. Strategic ThinkingSuccessful students use strategic thinking in their approach to learning, reasoning, problem solving, and concept learning. They understand and can use a variety of strategies to help them reach learning and performance goals, and to apply their knowledge in various situations. They also continue to expand their repertoire of strategies by reflecting on the methods they use to see which work well for them, by receiving guided instruction and feedback, and by observing or interacting with appropriate models. Learning outcomes can be enhanced if teachers assist students in developing, applying, and assessing their strategic learning skills.v. Thinking About Thinking.Successful students can reflect on how they think and learn, set reasonable learning or performance goals, select potentially appropriate learning strategies or methods, and monitor their progress towards these goals. In addition, successful students know what to do if a problem occurs or if they are not making sufficient or timely progress towards a goal. They can generate alternative methods to reach their goal or even reassess the appropriateness and utility of the goal. Instructional methods that focus on helping students develop this higher order (meta-cognitive) strategies can enhance student learning and personal responsibility for learning.

CONCLUSION

There are various factors that influence the outcome of top academic performers. These factors are categorized into teachers and schools, peers, family and student own roles. Teachers and schools play the role of promoting active learning, developing thinking skills, creating effective learning zones, promoting success, providing effective feedback, recognizing and creating learning windows, developing good relationship, developing learning pedagogy, enhancing motivation and accepting individual differences. Students whose peers have higher educational aspirations tend to have more positive academic self-concepts themselves. They are more engaged in schools and have higher hopes for their life long education than students whose peers have low educational aspirations. Students who spend a lot of unproductive time with friends tend to have lower achievement levels than those who spend less time hanging out with peers. Peers can either give academic leverage or synergy or academic doom to students. The students themselves play critical role in making them to be high achievers having effective learning strategies or styles, learning goals, ability to build on knowledge and strategic thinking.Teachers play a major interactive role with both the student and the learning environment. Group influences on students can impact many educationally relevant variables, such as motivation, orientation toward learning, and ways of thinking. Technologies and instructional practices must be appropriate for students’ level of prior knowledge, cognitive abilities, and their learning and thinking strategies. The nurturing classroom environment can also have significant impacts on student learning. Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations, and communication with others. Learning can be enhanced when the learner has an opportunity to interact and to collaborate with others on instructional tasks. In interactive and collaborative instructional contexts, individuals have an opportunity for perspective taking and reflective thinking that may lead to higher levels of cognitive, social, and moral development, as well as self-esteem. Quality personal relationships that provide stability, care and trust can increase students’ sense of belonging, self-respect and self-acceptance, and provide a positive climate for learning. Family influences, positive interpersonal support and instruction in self motivation strategies can offset factors that interfere with optimal learning such as negative beliefs about competence in a particular subject, high levels of test anxiety, and undue pressure to perform well. Positive learning climates can also help to establish the context for healthier levels of thinking, feeling, and behaving to help students feel safe to share ideas, actively participate in the learning process, and create a learning community.May the Almighty God bless your journey of academic excellence. 

Gerald Etibot,

Bachelor of Business Administration,

Business Department,

YMCA Comprehensive Institute,

Kampala (Uganda)

Tell:+256788595685

geraldetibot786@gmail.com