Sunday Workshop: Developing Your Skill in Stress and Time Management

Sunday Workshop Part I (8:30 - 9:45): Stress Management Part II (9:45 - 11:00): Time Management Undergraduate students experience excessive stress. They also may have poor skills in time management. As part of McMaster’s Problem Solving program, students experience a required 4 hour workshop for develop confidence and skill in stress and time management. Stress is related to problem solving - to the engage stage when one might feel distress when a difficult problem is encountered- and to the look back stage where the enthusiasm- that occurs because the problem has been solved - must be tempered with the need to check and double check and ensure that the correct problem has been solved. An overview is given of the attitudes successful problem solvers have, and the relationship between self awareness, self respect and self confidence. This leads to the use of the mantra “I want to and I can” and to the need for stress management. For stress management, students complete the Holmes Gmelch and Kellner Sheffield inventories to provide them with confidential feedback about their personal stress levels These are put in the context of distributions typical of other populations. Stress and distress are defined and illustrated. Practice is given in applying 11 techniques for stress management. Additional use of exam anxiety achievement information (Albert-Haber inventory) will be illustrated. For time management, the workshop is patterned after Covey’s work. Examples are given as to how to classify tasks as being urgent or important. Examples of important tasks include developing trust, keeping a balance in life and meeting goals. Examples of urgent tasks include being proactive and learning to say No!; attending to both task and morale issues, using Pareto’s principle, and anticipating and being organized. Activities to illustrate each are part of the workshop. Parts of the 4 hour workshop will be experienced in this workshop with participants practicing facilitating parts of the workshop. Students and faculty are especially invited to attend this workshop. Although the workshop is oriented toward students, other professionals usually enjoy participating in the workshop. From this workshop you will have the materials, the timing sheets and the activities for the workshop. Examples will be given of reflective journal writing. This is a workshop; no papers are being accepted for this session. References: D.R. Woods, A.N. Hrymak, R.R. Marshall, P.E. Wood, C.M. Crowe, T.W. Hoffman, J.D. Wright, P.A. Taylor, K.A. Woodhouse and C.G.K. Bouchard (1997) "Developing Problem-solving skills: the McMaster Problem Solving Program," J. of Engineering Education, 86., 2, 75-91. S. Roney and D.R. Woods (2003), AIdeas to Minimize Exam Anxiety,@ The Journal of Engineering Education, vol 92, no. 3, July, 249 - 256