 Hello. This workshop, Return to Study, Harness Your Strength as a Mature Learner, was developed to help CDU's mature students get started in their new academic life. This recorded version has been adapted from live workshops. Much of the live workshop involved a lot of discussion amongst the student participants. You should pause the video to think about your own answers to the questions that come up while you watch. Charles Darwin University acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we're meeting and pays respect to elders, both past and present, and extends that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Today I'm working on Larrakeer land. Whose land are you on? To warm up your brain, you may like to pause here to look at these images and consider these three questions. Who are CDU's mature learners? And what strengths and challenges do you think they have? How about you? Today, now that you've had a chance to consider the issues, we have two goals. We will first identify the life skills that you already have that you bring to your studies, and then we will address the challenges that students have raised at the live workshops. CDU has a student body that is quite unlike some other universities. What percentage of students do you think are distance learners? Or mature aged? That is over 25 or part-time. As you can see, the numbers are quite high. It's important for you to remember this. Many new students commence their studies thinking that they're the only one in their class who is older and juggling other commitments. But the reality is that mature learners are common at university. Your peers are not all going to be school leavers living with their families. And this is important to remember, especially when the mindset gremlins attack. One common gremlin is imposter syndrome. That is when we feel we don't belong or that other people are more clever or knowledgeable. The reality is you probably know just as much as your peers and you probably have more skills than you think to think of mature learners as having superpowers. What do you think are these superpowers? Pause here to put these letters in order to solve the puzzle. What are your superpowers? You have transferable skills that you have developed through your life experience. You probably have certain personal attributes. You may feel that your academic literacy or your numeracy or your knowledge of your discipline is lacking. But you will develop those at uni. That's what uni is for. Students on previous workshops came up with this list of their own attributes. Now let's look at a couple of real life examples. Consider Kim. Pause here to read about their life. What skills and attributes do you think Kim already has? Okay. Compare your ideas with what students at the workshops brainstormed. You may have come up with similar. As you can see Kim will arrive at university already quite well equipped with the skills she needs for success. Take another example. Consider Sasha. Pause here to read about their life. What skills and attributes do you think Sasha already has? Again, compare your ideas with what students at the live workshops brainstormed. As you can see Sasha already has useful skills and attributes. Here's a list of useful transferable skills. Pause here to think. How many of these skills do you bring to CDU? Now that we've established that you're probably already quite skillful, let's move on to part two of the workshop where we address the challenges. What challenges do Kim and Sasha and possibly you face? The students at the live workshop brainstormed a list of challenges that we will look at one at a time. Challenge number one was having a place to study. What advice would you give someone who doesn't have space in a crowded home? Pause here to think. Okay, some of the students at the live workshops had this problem and they came up with a range of ideas. Most importantly, they felt that it was important to try to carve out a little bit of space of your own that the kids can't use. I personally used to study in the laundry. They also suggested other places to study such as the library at night or cafes. They suggested strategies for blocking out family noise and apps that you can use for studying on the go like Quizlet. Challenge number two was finding the time to study. What advice would you give someone who's already very busy? Pause here to think. The students at the workshops discussed a range of ideas. Besides strategies for planning study time, such as calendars on whiteboards, it's important that your study load is realistic for your circumstances. BDU has a useful tool to help you calculate the amount of time you have available for study after you meet your other commitments each week. Use it to help you decide how many units you can enroll in. Keep in mind that you will need about 10 or 11 hours each week for each unit that you study. In the workshop, students also brainstormed ideas for finding study time when you need to care for kids. Play date exchanges with other student parents was a popular idea. That's what I used to do with another single parent student friend. We also looked at four time management techniques. For example, the Pomodoro technique involves setting an alarm so you can work in 25 minute chunks of time. The Eat That Frog technique involves making a to-do list and then doing the worst jobs first to get them out of the way. The time blocking method involves making daily plans in 30 minute time blocks, while Parkinson's law involves reducing the time you have available to do a task. My favorite idea is working on a laptop without plugging it in so you have to get your work done before the battery dies. Challenge number three was understanding what you need to do in assignments. For many mature students, things have changed a lot since they were last in a classroom. What advice would you give someone who's new to uni? Pause here to think. The students at the workshops discussed a range of ideas. What came up most often was the advice to ask questions. Don't wait for someone to come to you and offer help. You need to ask for it and ask for it early. Don't be embarrassed about your questions. Many other students will be grateful to you for asking. Also, the students at the workshop talked about how important it is to be patient with yourself. It takes time to learn how to do new things and don't forget to use the resources available to you through the library. Challenge number four was being able to cope with the pressure. What advice would you give someone who feels overwhelmed by all their commitments? Pause here to think. In the workshop we did a task. Pause the video and make a list of everything you need to do in the next 10 days. I've started mine so that you have some ideas to add a useful decision matrix. You need to consider how important a task is to you. Important tasks are tasks that help you achieve your long-term goals or maintain your good health. Next, you need to consider how urgent a task is for you. Urgent tasks are those with close deadlines. It will help you decide where a task should be done now, scheduled to do later, given to someone else, or simply deleted. We need to look at our task list and honestly consider how important and how urgent each task is. Pause here to think about your list and place each item on the matrix. Here is my matrix. In the workshop students compared theirs in breakout rooms and discussed common issues such as delegating tasks to partners and kids. It might help you to share your matrix with the people in your household as a way of sharing the load. One more point before we move on is that you are likely to experience stress as a student. In the workshop we discussed how you need to be kind to yourself and not expect perfection. Most importantly prioritize your health and seek help early. CDU has a range of support options as you can see so make use of them. The last challenge is not knowing other students. This is often the case for students who study distance or part-time and this can make seeking the support of your peers a bit trickier. What advice would you give? Pause here to think. The students in the workshops recommended using unit discussion boards to form study, reading or discussion groups. Also remember CDU student life arranges events both face to face and online. CDU has a range of student groups that you could explore including one for virtual students. Don't forget that students often organize unofficial groups and chats using social media. These are a great source of support but don't rely on them to be accurate. Always go to your lecturers or to CDU for important information. This workshop has aimed to help you unharness your mature student superpowers. We've explored the skills that you already have and we've discussed strategies for managing your challenges. Don't forget language and learning support is available with a range of options to help you during your study. Get the most out of this workshop reflect on what you've learned. Put pen to paper and write down what you want to remember and what you want to try. Good luck for your studies.