Success in high school, college, and life requires the mastery of a set of executive function skills. Step Up Study Skills will be offered by St. Thomas High School in the summer of 2025 to prepare students for the rigors of high school and beyond. The classes are coed and open to all rising ninth grade, as well as current high school students. Five different sessions, each session with four separate class dates, will be conducted as follows:
Step Up Study Skills will be taught by Rod Takacs, Academic Support Specialist and Summer Study Skills Instructor, St. Thomas High School, and Camille Hagerty, former eighth grade teacher at St. Christopher School, as well as in the Goose Creek and La Porte Independent School Districts. Mr. Takacs can be reached at rodney.takacs@sths.org if you have questions. Enrollment includes class notes as well as access to online courses for effective follow-up and reinforcement throughout the school year.
These classes are inspired by the most well-researched study skills curriculum available, the SMARTS Executive Function & Mentoring Program. This curriculum was developed by Dr. Lynn Meltzer of the Research Institute for Learning and Development and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The program consists of five major themes in its instructional units:
Unit 1: Setting and Achieving Goals
This unit will give students the skills they need to build a pattern of success. Students begin by identifying their strengths and challenges and recognizing the best way to handle the obstacles they may encounter. Students will learn to create effective goals using our CAMP Success strategy. Finally, students will learn how to achieve their goals using strategic flexibility.
Unit 2: Getting Organized, Managing Your Time, and Improving Your Study Habits
This unit will lead students to develop habits of organizing their materials, time, ideas, and information. Students will discover the importance of planning by using weekly and monthly planners. Student learning will become much more meaningful as students build effective learning techniques to maintain focus.
Unit 3: Reading and Taking Notes
This unit will equip students with strategies for organizing thoughts in note taking. Students will be provided with the tools necessary for successfully and effectively finding the crucial information in a textbook. A variety of note taking techniques will be presented for students to choose the one that will work best for their learning preference.
Unit 4: Communication Skills
This unit will help students build communication skills so that they may become strong self-advocates. Students will learn to speak with confidence, ask questions, ask for help when needed, make requests, and the basics of public speaking. This unit is a follow-up to communication skills taught in our Pathways course for middle school students.
Unit 5: Steps in the Learning Process: Developing Critical Thinking Skills
In this unit, students will hone their “Learning Cycle” to become better self-learners by developing the critical thinking skills necessary to do so. Throughout this unit students will equip themselves with learning strategies that help them develop the ability to set goals based on the task at hand; monitor their progress toward the fulfillment of those goals; and reflect on how effectively they completed the learning task. The students will be presented with strategies to use BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER a learning task.
Success in high school depends on more than innate intellectual ability. Students must practice disciplined approaches to learning using sound techniques if they are to succeed in a rigorous curriculum.
Step Up Study Skills provides students with the foundation and tools necessary for success. There are a limited number of seats available for this innovative program inspired by the Research Institute for Learning and Development. Reserve your spot today!
