Glossary

This phase involves putting your plans into action. You will carry out your plan, continue to monitor your progress, and make any adjustments you feel necessary. Always ask yourself, "How am I progressing toward my goals and the course's learning outcomes? What am I doing to achieve my goals?" 

Often thought of as the foundation of meditation, this technique allows us to open up to our experiences as they are happening. Body scan meditation allows us to be in the present and is an essential technique for mindfulness.

A particular milestone in your semester or year that you are preparing for. The deadline could be an exam, assignment, competition, etc. The key idea is to identify specific timepoints using these deadlines so that you can check your progress toward your goals.

The belief that your basic abilities, such as intelligence or talent, are fixed traits that cannot be changed or developed. Someone with a fixed mindset documents their intelligence and skills, rather than actively working to develop and improve them. They also believe that success comes from talent alone, but they are wrong. Success requires effort.

The belief that your basic abilities can be developed and cultivated through hard work and dedication. Someone with a growth mindset views their basic skills and talents as a starting point, therefore creating a love of learning and resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Great learners are made, not born.

The demonstratable (outwardly visible) products of learning, which can include knowledge, skills, and values.

Metacognition requires you to think about your own thinking and is separated into two parts - knowing what you know and deciding what to do for your learning. This skill is essential for identifying how well you know the prerequisite knowledge, developing study strategies, and learning how to schedule your time.

A mindful learner has three qualities essential for self-regulated learning: they maintain awareness in the present moment, know their thoughts and feelings regarding their learning, and are not overpowered by their thoughts or emotions in directing actions. Mindful learners are able to detach themselves from unpleasant thoughts and feelings that would otherwise distract them from their learning.

Mindful qualities involves experiencing present-time awareness of thoughts, feelings and accepting these thoughts and feelings as natural products of your mind. By developing these skills you can loosen the control that thoughts and feelings have over your behaviour and better focus on your learning goals or the task at hand.

The ability to be aware of present-time and remain aware throughout your day-to-day experiences. Mindfulness is the ability to resist distraction and temptations, and to remain present and focused on the task at hand. This skill also allows you to control your emotions and respond in a skillful way to emotionally challenging situations, rather than react automatically without careful thinking or emotional control. The skills needed for mindfulness are developed through practice. You must start with simple activities to develop mindful awareness in a variety of situations. Meditation is a common activity to practice awareness and to focus on the present.

The mindfulness of body and breath meditation is designed to settle and ground you in the present moment. Using this meditation, you can take the time to notice how present you are in daily activities and strive to achieve more awareness in your everyday life.

As stated by Carol Dweck in Mindset: "Mindsets are beliefs – beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities and abilities.” Identifying your current mindset is essential to guide and take control of your learning. Working towards a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset means you will be more open and hard-working and will allow you to be more motivated and dedicated to your goals, studies, and work.

Planning involves identifying strategies and developing a plan and schedule to achieve your goals you set in the reflect phase. To plan, you will decide on strategies, plan your time, and identify the resources you need. By defining and refining your goals they will become more achievable.

Present-time awareness involves letting go of all of the distractions that are an inherent part of life and instead focusing on what is happening in the present. To be aware of the present one must push away incoming thoughts about future worries or tasks and instead focus only on what is happening in the present. To develop this awareness you will practice mindful qualities throughout the module.

Reflection involves looking back on your past experiences to identify your strengths and areas you think you need to focus on, as well as identifying your learning beliefs and mindset when faced with challenges. Reflection can be used to help refine the goals you want to achieve.

The capacity to embrace and accept failure as a part of learning and bounce back. Resiliency applies to your course work, midterms or exams, personal challenges, and other aspects of life.

Self-monitoring involves monitoring your progress towards your goals and making any adjustments you feel are necessary. This technique also involves using metacognition to evaluate your learning and decide what to do to improve your learning. Self-monitoring is key to reaching your goals and it allows you to stay on track.

Self-regulated learning can be achieved through the SRL cycle. The SRL cycle allows you to take strategic control of how you approach your goals and be prepared and willing to face any challenges and seize any opportunities that might arise as you work to make your goals your reality. The SRL cycle consists of three phases: reflect, plan, and act. Ideally, you should repeat this cycle multiple times as you create goals and tackle challenges.

SMART goals can be used in all aspects of your life and allow you to develop your goals into actionable statements that you can work towards, rather than goals that seem overwhelming or difficult. There are 5 components to a SMART goal: Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Reachable, and Time Specific.

This meditation helps to develop awareness around how you receive internal thoughts and external sounds. It is often a good follow up to the Body and Breathe meditation.

The befriending meditation introduces and develops self-compassion and the importance of caring for yourself and others. Through this meditation, you will take the time to show yourself kindness as well as compassion for those around you.

This short exercise can be used at any time during the day. Feel free to complete this exercise whenever it works best for you and your schedule. We suggest practicing this technique even when you don't need it (when you're not stressed) to develop present time awareness.