ON COURSE: STRATEGIES FOR CREATING SUCCESS IN COLLEGE AND IN LIFE, 8th Edition, empowers students with the tools they need to take charge of their academic and lifelong success. Through short articles and guided journal entries, Skip Downing encourages students to explore and develop eight non-cognitive qualities that help them make wise choices and create success: personal responsibility, self-motivation, self-management, interdependence, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, lifelong learning, and self-esteem. Unique to ON COURSE is the CORE Learning Process that guides students to employ study strategies that greatly enhance their learning. The new "Toolbox for Active Learners" helps students identify and implement the effective study skills that they need to excel academically. The 8th Edition also features expanded coverage of interdependence (including discussions of co-dependence, dependence and independence) and self-management (avoiding procrastination) as well as a "College Smart-Start Guide" that will help students make wise choices in the first week of college. The Annotated Instructors’ Edition guides instructors to relevant exercises and materials in the newly revised ON COURSE Facilitator’s Manual.

1. GETTING ON COURSE TO YOUR SUCCESS.
2. ACCEPTING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.
3. DISCOVERING SELF-MOTIVATION.
4. MASTERING SELF-MANAGEMENT.
5. EMPLOYING INTERDEPENDENCE.
6. GAINING SELF-AWARENESS.
7. ADOPTING LIFELONG LEARNING.
8 DEVELOPING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.
9. STAYING ON COURSE TO YOUR SUCCESS.
STUDY SKILLS: A TOOL BOX FOR ACTIVE LEARNERS.
*BECOMING AN ACTIVE LEARNER.
*READING.
*TAKING NOTES.
*ORGANIZING STUDY MATERIALS.
*REHEARSING AND MEMORIZING STUDY MATERIALS.
*TAKING TESTS.
*WRITING.
*TECH TIPS: STUDY SKILLS.

ON COURSE: STRATEGIES FOR CREATING SUCCESS IN COLLEGE AND IN LIFE, 8th Edition, empowers students with the tools they need to take charge of their academic and lifelong success. Through short articles and guided journal entries, Skip Downing encourages students to explore and develop eight non-cognitive qualities that help them make wise choices and create success: personal responsibility, self-motivation, self-management, interdependence, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, lifelong learning, and self-esteem. Unique to ON COURSE is the CORE Learning Process that guides students to employ study strategies that greatly enhance their learning. The new "Toolbox for Active Learners" helps students identify and implement the effective study skills that they need to excel academically. The 8th Edition also features expanded coverage of interdependence (including discussions of co-dependence, dependence and independence) and self-management (avoiding procrastination) as well as a "College Smart-Start Guide" that will help students make wise choices in the first week of college. The Annotated Instructors’ Edition guides instructors to relevant exercises and materials in the newly revised ON COURSE Facilitator’s Manual. Understanding the Expectations of College and University Educators. This essay and related journal entry help students better understand how to succeed in the culture of higher education. In this section, they learn "Eight Key Expectations" and "A Dozen Differences Between High School and College Culture." This information helps students quickly understand which behaviors they can continue doing and which they will need to modify, change or abandon. Tech Tips. Many websites and apps are available to help students achieve greater success. Each chapter now contains a Tech Tips section that provides suggestions for free websites and apps that can help students employ the soft skills of personal responsibility, self-motivation, self-management, interdependence, self-awareness, lifelong learning, emotional intelligence, and believing in oneself, as well as hard skills related to effective studying. Discussion about Avoiding Procrastination. Procrastination is the bane of many students’ success. This discussion helps students understand why procrastination is so tempting and offers specific methods for not putting off until tomorrow what they would benefit from doing today. Included in the discussion is research from Dr. Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. A Sign of Maturity. This discussion offers an explanation about the various kinds of relationships in which people engage: dependent, co-dependent, independent, and interdependent. Advantages and disadvantages of each are explained, and students are urged to use college to develop independence but also to recognize that there are many occasions when choosing interdependence is a true sign of maturity (not to mention improving one’s chances of achieving a goal or dream). Increasing Happiness. This new article and accompanying journal entry explore the emotional intelligence skill of maximizing happiness. Drawn from the scientific research of positive psychologists, students learn a number of choices they can make to increase their happiness. This topic has recently gained much interest on college campuses. For example, when a course in Positive Psychology was first offered at Harvard University, it immediately became the university’s most popular course. Toolbox for Active Learners. Many ON COURSE instructors asked that the study skills be presented in one section (instead of distributed throughout the book). Unlike texts that present a long menu of study options, ON COURSE organizes study skills based on the logical learning steps as identified by research on the brain and effective methods for learning. This section begins with a presentation of the CORE Learning Process, the four principles that— consciously or unconsciously—all good learners employ that lead to deep and lasting learning. Students learn how to use these four principles to create their own system for learning any subject or skill. In doing so, they learn effective techniques for reading, taking notes, organizing study materials, rehearsing and memorizing study materials, taking tests, and writing college-level assignments. Study Skills Self-Assessment. This edition heeds the request of experienced ON COURSE instructors to place all study skills in one section. It also offers a new Study Skills Self-Assessment. Students can take this self-assessment before learning about study skills and discover areas in which they are weak. At the end of the course, they can retake the test to see where they have grown as learners and where they may still need to improve. Students have the option of completing the assessment in either the text or MindTap®. Seven new "One Student’s Story" Essays. A popular feature in earlier editions, these short essays —now numbering 28 in all—are authored by students who used what they learned from this book to improve the quality of their outcomes and experiences in college and in life. Videos of student-authors reading their essays may be viewed in MindTap®. Conversation with the Author. Since the first edition of ON COURSE more than two decades ago, many students have contacted the author with thoughtful questions. This section includes some of those questions and Skip Downing’s answers.