Syllabus - Study and Thinking Skills

Republic of the Philippines

Davao Oriental State College of Science and Technology

Mati, Davao Oriental

Social Sciences and Humanities Department

Study and Thinking Skills

Course Number: English 1

Course Description: This course is designed to enrich the students’ basic reading, writing, and research skills as elemental tools they need to face the more intensive college environment. With the topics and exercises specifically planned to be relevant and useful to their academic pursuit, students will be better equipped as they learn to approach their other courses with an improved ability to understand, analyze, and resolve problems.

Course Objectives

        General Objectives:

1.       Make students recognize the importance of language learning as a tool for a more efficient academic pursuit

2.       Let students realize that studying becomes less of a grueling task when structured and approached with the right methods

3.       Maximize the utilization of the library and computer resources in the campus to assist in problems related to research and innovative learning

       

        Specific Objectives:

1.       Relate the importance of effective reading techniques, reading comprehension skills and study skills in a wide range of subjects and situations

2.       Make use of outlining to improve reporting and writing skills

3.       Enhance vocabulary through the use of dictionary, context clues, word grouping, and morphology

4.       Discriminate secondary from primary sources in basic academic essay

5.       Utilize the web as an effective interdependent source of fun language learning exercises

References

Atienza, L. (2003). Basic communication and thinking skills for college freshmen. Philippines: Trinitas Publishing

Belen, V. et al. (2003). Effective study and thinking skills. Philippines: Trinitas Publishing

Course Requirements: Quizzes (group or individual), Exams, Satisfactory Class Attendance, Assignments, Blog/ Forum Entries, Output

Course Methods: Lecture/ Discussion, Peer Reviews, Multimedia Literacy Activities (Web exercises, film viewing, blog forum, speech drills), Exercise sheets

Classroom Policies: Criteria are set for evaluating students’ performance. Students must satisfy each criterion to pass the course.

               

Grading System: 15% Prelim, 20% Midterm, 25% Finals, 25% output, 10% Quizzes/ Assignments, 5% Attendance / Participation = 100%

Course Outline

Using the Library ·   The Dewey Decimal Classification ·   Review on Card Cataloguing ·   The Library Setup Using the Internet

Vocabulary Enhancement            ·         Using the Dictionary            ·         Context Clues            ·         Word Grouping and Morphology

Reading Techniques            ·         Skimming            ·         Scanning            ·         Finding the Main Idea            ·         Identifying Supporting Details

Reading Comprehension Skills            ·         Levels of Reading Comprehension            ·         Drawing Inferences            ·         Drawing Conclusions            ·         Making Generalizations            ·         Making Predictions

Study Skills           ·         Note Taking           ·         Summarizing           ·         Paraphrasing           ·         Text Mapping

PRELIM EXAM

Nominals and Basic Sentence Patterns

Adjectives, Adverbs and Basic Sentence Patterns

Verbs, Verbals and Modals

Preposition and Conjunction

The Sentence and its Classification

MIDTERM EXAM

The Research Essay            ·         Methods of Paragraph Development            ·         Making an Outline            ·         APA Basics            ·         Formulating the Thesis Statement            ·         Writing the Research Essay

FINAL EXAM