(a) As the semester progresses, keep track of key dates: tests and exams, project submission deadlines, term breaks, etc.Enter these dates into a physical or digital calendar.If you choose to use a digital calendar, I recommend Google Calendar.(b) Schedule a fixed time every week where you review your upcoming events over the next two months. Mark down when you’ll start preparing for that Math exam, working on that History project, or writing that English paper.(d) Next, note your commitments for the coming week, e.g. extracurricular activities, family gatherings, extra classes. On your calendar, highlight the blocks of time you’ll have for schoolwork.This planning process might sound time-consuming, but it’ll typically take just 15 minutes every week.This is a wise investment of time as a student, because the rest of your week will become far more productive.This way, you’ll be studying smart, not just hard!Rule #2: Be organized.Ever had trouble finding your notes or assignments when you needed them? You probably ended up wasting precious time looking for them, before you finally asked to borrow them from your friend.Many students tell me that they keep all their notes and assignments in one big pile, and only sort them out before their exams!Being organized – it’s easier said than done, I know.

After two tumultuous years of intermittent school closures, parents and caregivers are claiming their power within the education system in a new way. It ain’t always pretty. Recent board meetings across the country have devolved into chaos as families argue with officials—and each other—over mask and vaccine mandates, critical race theory, and reopening plans.DO WE ACCEPT THAT THE INTERSECTION OF HOME AND SCHOOL MUST BE CHARACTERIZED BY THE SAME PARTISANSHIP AND RANCOR THAT PERMEATES SO MANY OTHER ASPECTS OF MODERN AMERICAN LIFE?Remote learning granted parents unprecedented visibility into their children’s learning and required caregivers to be hands-on in their kids’ day-to-day schooling. Activated and emboldened, families are coming forward en masse to voice their opinions. However, politicians are seizing on parents’ efforts and anxieties to stoke arguments that only serve to factionalize adults and do nothing to help children. As a country, we have to make a choice: Do we accept that the intersection of home and school must be characterized by the same partisanship and rancor that permeates so many other aspects of modern American life? Or, do we forge collaborative partnerships that better serve families, educators, and—most importantly—students?THE NOTION THAT AMERICA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM IS FALLING BEHIND IS NO LONGER ABSTRACT TO PARENTS.When it comes to kids’ learning, families have long been in the dark. According to research from Learning Heroes, nine out of ten K-8th grade parents think their child is performing on grade level in reading and math, despite the fact that barely one-third of students are actually meeting those standards. With such limited visibility, it is exceedingly difficult for families to be savvy and demanding advocates for their children’s learning needs. Overnight, school closures turned the lights on. For more than a year, Zoom and Google Classroom transported tens of millions of families into the classroom on a daily basis. The notion that America’s education system is falling behind is no longer abstract to parents. It’s in front of our eyes, and it’s personal. Our children’s future hangs in the balance, and we now see it first-hand.In many ways, this awakened a sleeping giant. The political right has capitalized on families’ angst for partisan purposes. “Parental rights” has become a clarion call to galvanize voters around lightning rod issues. Conservative PACs, for the first time, are pouring resources into school board elections, which have historically largely managed to avoid the crucible of politics.BEHIND THE SHOUTING MATCHES AND CLENCHED FISTS AT SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS ARE IMPASSIONED PARENTS DESPERATELY SEEKING ANY AND EVERY MEASURE TO GIVE THEIR KIDS A BETTER LIFE.Indeed, parents can be a formidable political force. However, there’s nothing partisan about parents’ desire to advocate for their kids. That is a natural instinct forged by millions of years of evolution. Our love for our children is a bottomless well, a renewable resource among the most powerful in nature. Behind the shouting matches and clenched fists at school board meetings are impassioned parents desperately seeking any and every measure to give their kids a better life.We can’t allow our love to be co-opted to win political arguments that focus more on the needs of adults than children. We must find productive ways for families and educators to join forces in service of everyone’s common interest: student learning. It will take intentional planning, tools, and collaboration, but there are already solutions out there to help cultivate these partnerships.One example is Family-Educator Learning Accelerators (FELAs). These are 5-10-week cycles during which teachers and parents team up to help kids reach learning goals. At the outset, educators and families build a relationship, set a goal, and make a game plan together. Over 5-10 weeks, teachers and parents convene weekly or biweekly to share skills and support each other’s efforts. On a daily basis, students work toward their goals by practicing with their teachers, practicing with their families, and practicing independently. At the end of the cycle, each child’s progress is measured and celebrated. Whereas remote learning felt isolating, amorphous, and interminable for so many families and teachers, FELAs are collaborative, winnable, and timebound. Small wins lead to big wins, helping families, teachers, and students crystallize a new habit: setting and achieving goals together.KIDS NEED THE ADULTS IN THE ROOM TO WORK IN TANDEM, RATHER THAN IN OPPOSITION.The FELA method—and other tools like Academic Parent-Teacher Teams and Family Playlists—offer student-centered alternatives to political skirmishes. Groups like the BELE Network and Danielson Group are working to design policies and standards that center family and community partnerships in schools. Collectively, these efforts will create a more positive and sustainable experience for teachers, who are leaving the profession in droves, and for families, who are struggling to find fruitful ways to engage in their children’s education. But more importantly, these methods will serve students, who are facing an uphill battle to recover from pandemic-induced learning setbacks that may follow them for a lifetime. Kids need the adults in the room to work in tandem, rather than in opposition.The pandemic has presented an opportunity to reshape the American education system so that families and educators collaborate in service of student learning. Let’s not squander that opportunity by allowing parents’ well-meaning energy to be diverted into cantankerous fights. Let schools be a bastion in which we eschew politics in service of a greater purpose: helping children realize their full potential.

Living a productive and meaningful life is a balancing act. With the pressures of today’s demanding and high paced world, most people struggle to find a reasonable balance. We can easily be drawn away from our priorities when one aspect of our life consumes the bulk of our time. To a large extent, it is much like walking a tightrope. When we drift too much in one direction or the other, we become unbalanced.  To sustain what we value most in our lives, we must constantly maintain our equilibrium as we move forward to achieve our purpose and goals.Are you dedicating enough time and energy to the most important aspects of your life? Or do you find yourself focusing on one major area at the expense of the others?Commit to finding your balance in life.Take a good look at your life. Do you feel consistently stressed, physically exhausted, mentally drained or emotionally devoid of happiness? Are you dropping the ball with key responsibilities in your personal and professional lives?  Do you neglect your own well-being for the sake of others? If your answer is “yes” to any of these considerations, you may be out of balance. To find your balance, make a commitment to work through these next steps.Here are some useful techniques on how to balance your priorities in life: 1. Determine your priorities.Set aside time to define what you would consider to be the most significant aspects of your life. Do they include such priorities as family, friends, work, community, and self? How do your priorities factor into your life? Which of them consume the most time, energy, and financial resources? Which ones are the most rewarding to you? Overall, how do they add and subtract value to your spiritual, mental, and physical well-being? Focus on creating priorities that are achievable and make the most sense to you.2. Establish and execute an implementation plan for each priority.You have a finite amount of time and energy in any one given day.  In response, how do you plan to implement your priorities? To develop your plan, establish specific strategies for each priority and tie them to your overall plan to maintain balance.  If one priority is to care for your father with Alzheimer’s, how can you accomplish this goal when you are working full-time with two teenagers? What specific steps will you take to manage your efforts? As you execute your implementation plan, align your actions to your words. Your priorities will be revealed to others by how you live.3. Evaluate your progress.Take time to periodically assess how well you are carrying out your priorities. Acknowledge your accomplishments and areas in need of improvement. If you continue to feel unbalanced, be willing to adjust your priorities or implementation strategies to bring you back into alignment. As your priorities change, alter your implementation plan to sustain your balance. This will be an ongoing process if you wish to keep moving forward.4. Stand your ground.You own your priorities and how they balance your life. No one else can determine what is best for you even when they may try. Be prepared to walk away from difficult situations and to say no to unreasonable requests that ultimately compromise your balance. Consider it a personal victory when you have the strength and courage to protect what is important to you. Don’t relinquish your power to the unreasonable demands of others.5. Allow yourself time each day to center yourself.An essential part of balancing your life is to take time for yourself. Make it a daily habit to spend some quiet time during your day to relax and let go. Turn off your cell and other distractions and just check out for even a short period of time.

The corporate world is slowly stepping into the dimension of Artificial Intelligence. This technology is transforming their training at an accelerated pace. To leverage this technology for improved employee performance, the industry needs to understand its benefits and drawbacks. AI-Based Learning is not just about skill development as it adds to the context, relevance, and personalization of the learning experience. It does have the potential to make a high-risk environment safe. With the cooperation of an online employee training system, this technology can be very well served in the corporate sector.Investment in AI-Based Learning will exponentially increase in the coming years. Learning is not just about instruction, but it’s about the flow. Artificial Intelligence allows your employees to learn at their pace, most productively. Gyrus’s employee training management system makes sure that AI technology is taken into account for better efficacy. It allows the workforce to handle more complex tasks with this advanced technology.How is AI-Based learning making a change in employee skill management systems?Artificial Intelligence is one of the innovative techniques that customize the learner’s experience. It’s transforming the way of learning and teaching, making its way into the corporate sector. The environment that exists in the industry today is way more diverse, uncertain, and demanding as compared to previous times. Approaching this technology has become a need rather than a want for professionals. Gyrus understands the urgent need for AI-Based Learning in corporations and makes this available in the online employee training system.Here know why AI-Based Learning is the future of Corporate Training:Personalized Learning: Imparts right content to the right person at the right timeArtificial Intelligence is such a potent technology as it helps to find out the learner’s skills and creates a personalized study schedule considering the knowledge gap. Personalized or adaptive learning is the need of every employee. The data-driven approach continuously tracks their performance to analyze results. After this step, it formulates content depending upon their expertise and preferences. It is so easy for the workforce to master a new skill with AI-Based Learning. This technology will continue to adapt the resources and difficulty levels till they have not mastered the concept. When the employees are equipped with relevant topics, it improves their time efficiency and motivation levels.Also, the process is not the same for each learner. One student may find it easier to grasp the content and implement it in their work process, while another finds it hard to follow the same procedure and may be good in other skills. Onboarding AI on the online employee training system is a step forward to effective corporate development. It is a dynamic, flexible, and personalized training approach that adapts to the needs of employees, enabling them to be the leader of their learning.Improved Engagement Rate: Learners Support with Advanced FeaturesWhat makes an e-learning program show its desired results? When employees’ grievances and their queries are handled on time in their learning process. Since AI makes learning content more concise, personalized, and relevant with its advanced features like chatbots, virtual assistants, and much more, it leads to better completion rates. The learners will go ahead with an online course only when it interests them and provides the resources or knowledge as per their skills and demands. Gyrus AI-Based learning in employee training management system identifies the current obstacles and delivers guided walkthroughs to save time for the employees. It can be integrated into an LMS to track how they are engaging with the in-app guidance.Create E-Learning Programs: In less timeLeveraging Artificial Intelligence is the best thing for corporations as it creates courses in a much simpler, faster, and more agile way without sacrificing the quality of the content. The automatic translation and localization feature in AI offers more speed and efficiency to the learners while they upskill themselves in this platform.It is challenging to create useful content in multiple countries or companies working with remote areas that carry different languages. Fortunately, AI has made it possible to develop multi-language content or create courses as per the need and abilities of the user. Gyrus integrates different sources to automatically deliver the best content to our learners where they don’t have to search for it.Facilitate Better Decision Making: With Advanced Analytic FeaturesAI-Based Learning enables the company’s instructors, the learning and development department to get detailed information about employees’ performance, strengths, improvement areas, and other specific issues. It becomes comparatively easier for the management to make informed decisions and take an on-time action before the employee stops getting motivated to leave the course. Now, Corporate leaders can create and manage their e-Learning content to get updates about student progress with the help of powerful data analytics.The top focus point of AI is it helps Learning and Development leaders to gain access to key insights such as how and when employees learn effectively. It also provides valuable feedback and guidance to increase learning productivity.In the future, many processes that today rely on people will be held on artificial intelligence. It creates the possibility to pursue the up-skilling objectives no matter where the learners are present in the world. There is no need to worry about the restrictions that arise in the learning process. AI has no limit to intelligence. The same can also be created in the employees for better productivity and self-confidence.Harness the power of Artificial Intelligence with Gyrus employee training management system that offers the companies personalized learning to save both instructors and employees time, allowing them to work on key tasks. It can solve general, undefined problems far better than a human being as it is the primary contributor in making systems more agile, automatic, and reliable. Although strong AI will only be possible after years of development, it is very potent even now. The above-mentioned functionalities are the proof. Take a smart step and approach AI-based learning in your training mechanisms now.