Damien at the Speed of Life

I am very pleased to review the education-related blog PSI: Tutor Academic Mentor.  If you ever need a academic mentor or tutor, Charmayne Paul’s blog is a great resource.  Through her high-level communication and research skills, she is able to provide her readers with truly helpful and valuable service.  For the past year or so, I’ve had her blog on my Google Reader.  It is an information portal as well as a point of contact for professional services.  The resources and posts on her blog grow every day.  A few recent ones have been:

• Boolean logic in searching  Google for your term papers
• Keeping your back healthy during long study sessions. (This particular link really exemplifies how good Charmayne is at finding relevant data on a given subject online.  Take a look at it, it’s very well researched)
• How to improve academic performance.
• and much more stuff I guarantee you haven’t seen before.

She has categories ranging from “exam prep” to “thesis and dissertation.”  Then there are many in between such as the highly practical topic ‘how to stay healthy through academic rigors.’  Her areas of expertise are many.  There are articles on a wide array of academic and eclectic issues.  I really like how she emphasizes health in the midst of academic study.  It is so important to stay relaxed and limber when you go through academic rigor.  If I were back in school, she’s the one I would want helping me through.

In her “about” section entitled “Who/What/Why?”, she talks about what her mentoring services are all about.  Here are a few quotations from the page showing what she aims to do in her mentor/tutoring work:

“…mentor adult students during their academic career. Providing much needed support to;

• Access resources
• Discuss new concepts
• Learn methods of research and critical analysis, monitoring and reflective writing
• Link concepts, methods, theories/models and schools of thought within a dicispline
• Plan academic goals, Identify steps to reach targets, Monitor progress, Implement changes, rinse & repeat
• Management of time; learning, writing & practical scheduling; critical analysis and synthesis, basic analysis of data”
• … the list goes on and can be read in full on the mentor and tutor services explanation page.

Charmayne has a page she calls “The Watercooler.”  On this page she features educational and related blogs she feels are meaningful to her mentees, tutees, and students.  This is an excellent resource for new education-niche bloggers to start building a reading list.  I get the impression through reading Charmayne this long that she picks her links carefully.  For this reason, you can trust the resources at her “watercooler.” They are all exceptional educational resources.  Based in Australia, she prides herself in being able to take on mentees from the USA and all over the world.  In other words, there are no geographical limits to her service.

Reading through PSI: Tutor Academic Mentor, I’ve come to find that Charmayne has a real passion and stamina for teaching.  I know that spreads to the many people she works with.  I give PSI: Tutor Academic Mentor a thumbs up.