Benefits for the potential apprentice

The benefits for you as the potential apprentice are the fact that all of your first year subjects are completed. This means that your employer will have to option to finish your apprenticeship early- assuming you do the rest of your study straight away.

The other benefit is work experience. Work experience makes you a valuable employee, because you already have experience and are more ‘work place ready’ when you start your apprenticeship.

Doing the work experience component for the pre-vocational course is great if you’re not 100% sure that this is what you want to do. It means that you can ’sus out’ the job, with no strings attatched!

Benefits for the employer

The benefits for the employer are similar to the benefits for the potential apprentice. All the first year subjects are already done- which means that they don’t have to pay you to go to TAFE.

Another benefit is the fact that the employer has had to opportunity to see your apptitude for the job, before you start.

The ONLINE pre-vocational Course

Pre-vocational courses traditionally include 4 days a week of training at TAFE, and one day a week work experience. eLearning Australia is providing an online pre-vocational course in 2009 that will allow you to study flexible- at home, any time you like. The one day a week work experience is still compulsary, but can be changed to blocks to suit your individual needs. For more information on this contact Talia from eLearning Australia, or sign up here!

I found this post, which has some great tips for apprentice electricians.

Becker, Stevenson, and Spillios

Caboolture Exams:

Woods, Matthews

Brisbane Exams:

Scheepers, Christison

So WHY do people procrastinate? Well, there are lots of reason, but some of them are:

1. Difficulty: What you’re doing might be just too hard for you with your current skill base.
2. Fear: If you’re afraid for whatever reason that you might fail, then you might procrastinate doing the task.
3. Priorities: Maybe when it’s a Thursday night you would rather go out with your friends then stay at home studying, which is fair enough, but which is going to get you to your goal?
4. Perfectionism: Maybe you think that you simply HAVE to get 100% on the exam, and so you put off doing it because you know deep down you won’t make it there.
5. Confused?: This is the one that stops me sometimes- I just don’t know where to start!! (tip: the beginning is always a good place to start- thanks Maria).
6. It justs sucks: You just don’t like what you have to do.

Want to know if you’re a procrastinator?? Well, saying yes to five or more of these means you are.

I often put off starting a task I find difficult
I often give up on a task as soon as I start to find it difficult.
I often wonder why I should be doing a task.
I often have difficulty getting started on a task.
I often try to do so many tasks at once that I cannot do any of them.
I often put off a task in which I have little or no interest.
I often try to come up with reasons to do something other than a task I have to do.
I often ignore a task when I am not certain about how to start it or complete it.
I often start a task but stop before completing it.
I often find myself thinking that if I ignore a task, it will go away.
I often cannot decide which of a number of tasks I should complete first.
I often find my mind wandering to things other that the task on which I am trying to work.

So you’ve found out that you are a bit of a procrastinator, and you know WHY you do it, but what can you do to stop??

1. Motivate yourself. Realise that it’s okay to make mistakes, and that with our course, there’s always a second try.
2. Reward yourself. Maybe you need to say to yourself, if you finish a chapter of study, then you can go our with your friends, or treat yourself to a pizza while you study the next chapter.
3. Break it down. Can you swallow an entire steak without taking a bite? I think not. You cut it up and eat it slowly. So the same with your study. Work on a learning outcome at a time.
4. Commitment. Be commited that if you start a task, you will finish it. This way you have a much higher moral because you know you are actually achieving things.
5. Get Help. Not sure how a question is meant to be worked out? Send us an email, or come see us for help! Or if you know someone who’s doing the same subject as you, or has already done that subject, as them for help!
6. Rotate. If you do a hard task, do an easy task next, then a hard one again, etc. etc. This will help you to acheive without being really over, or under whelmed.

Your learning style.

Are you visual, aural, reading, or kinesthetic? Find our here.

Your emotional intelligence. People say that this test is a better indicator for success then an IQ test!

The multiple Intelligences.

And more here!

Survey:- Similar to a brain storm, surveying is putting together everything you already know about the topic. This will help you focus on the subject, so that you’re mind is ready to learn about it. Have a look through the chapter you’re about to read and take note of the titles of sections, and spend time viewing the pictures. This will allow your mind to start processing the information before you get to it!

Question:- You need to know what you’re looking for! When I was in high school, for Ancient History, we had to have a main focus question, and then several questions underneath that were more detailed and specific to what we wanted to know. When you’re working on your focus questions, make sure you cover the who, what, when, why and how. You can form these questions based on the topics in the text book, which is easier.

Read:- Read through the chapter or section and answer the questions you’ve made. Remember to BE FLEXIBLE. If you can’t find the answer, then maybe you need to look for it at alternate sources, or you might find that you need to change the question, or make it into several questions.

Write:- This is obvisously writing down the answers to the questions you’ve made. A recommendation would be write down all the information, not just the main words. What makes sense to us while we’re reading a text book doesn’t always make so much sense when we’re re-reading it later! Also make sure that your handwriting is legible, and that you have answered the questions properly.

Another free tip is to go through the SQRW steps chapter at a time. Don’t brainstorm and write questions for every chapter you need to cover right at the beginning, or you will end up forgetting it, or becoming confused.

Question:- Look in the problem and identify what the question actually is.

Write:- Write a list of the facts you need to answer the question. If the question gives you information, write it in, and if the question has extra information not needed for working of the answer, then cross that out.

Question:- Question yourself- “What formulas will I need to answer this??”

Compute:- Apply the formula, and compute!! Make sure you check your answers for accuracy.

Questions:- Ask yourself, “Is the answer I got possible? Is it probable?” If the answer is no to either of these, then check through it again.