4MAT 4 College: A Learner's HandBook - NEW! 
For many students their first year in college is the most crucial. Research shows that over 50% of college students will drop out before they graduate. So more and more colleges are offering first year experience programs to acclimate students to college and ensure they employ more memorable and more efficient methods of learning.
About Learning is pleased to introduce 4MAT 4 College, a 1-3 credit hour course for teaching college bound or first year college students how to improve their college experience by using the natural cycle of learning. This learning cycle is a proven process for improving learner performance and retention.
4MAT 4 College is a course for helping students learn how to learn. Students will: a) assess their learning style and examine how this might affect their study methods, b) explore proven strategies for becoming more effective learners, and c) learn to better navigate conflicts that might arise when their learning method conflicts with that of the professor.
Download our overview brochure and table of contents to learn more about 4MAT 4 College. Or call us toll free at (800) 822-4MAT, to explore the steps needed to implement this course at your institution.
4MAT 4 College Student HandBook
Order Code: 4college Price: $33.35
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We would like to extend our special thanks to Dr. Joan Nicoll-Senft for her work in authoring and field testing this book at Central Connecticut State University.
4MAT 4 College Presenter Kit
Order Code: 4College-PG Price: $99.00
If you are facilitating this new College introductory course, you will need to purchase the complete 4MAT 4 College Presenter Kit which was created by Dr. Joan Nicoll-Senft and Dr. McCarthy to provide step by step directions for presenting the course. The Kit binder includes 8 chapter PowerPoint shows, printed slide notes for the presenter, a copy of the three assessments used in this course (Learning Type Measure, Hemispheric Mode Indicator and Traveling the Natural Cycle), a Presenter Guide, the Section rubrics and a copy of the 4MAT 4 College Learner's HandBook.
Learning How to Learn: The 4MAT® Student Study Skills Series
These booklets are written for students from sixth to twelfth grades. Good readers in fifth grade can use them successfully and they can also be helpful for college study skills work.
1. Using the 4MAT® Natural Cycle to Become an Accomplished Learner 
This booklet begins with a survey designed to inspire students to appreciate themselves. Students then take the Student Learning Preference Survey, a survey that profiles their learning style. They examine successful learning strategies for each of the quadrants and determine where they excel in and where they might struggle. They complete the booklet with a graphic of their stretching needs for each of the quadrants they do not favor, listing strategies they need to develop. This booklet would be a fine choice for a teacher and student to work one on one and, of course, would be very helpful for counselors.
Order Code: SSNC Price: $13.80
2. Traveling the 4MAT® Natural Cycle: Practicing and Polishing Tips 
This booklet takes students further into the reason the cycle works. It explains the perceiving and processing dimensions of learning and how it is that people come to have a favorite place on the cycle. This is the 4MAT Learning Cycle explained. The language and the visuals are written in simple form so students can come to understand how to travel this useful cycle for all their important learning. Learning techniques are listed for each of their quadrants and the students complete a graphic template that both explains the cycle and their place on it and honors their particular learning uniqueness as well.
Order Code: SSPP Price: $9.20
3. Your Brain and Learning 
This booklet begins with a statement on current brain research and its importance in understanding how people learn. The students take the Hemispheric Mode Indicator to explore their personal preferences for either right- or left-mode processing. They then characterize the strategies their teachers use. Students will explore a list of how to develop both modes of learning and determine where they need to develop further. They then choose a current assignment and decide how to complete it using both brain processing modes. They are given a brief overview of the role images play in how their brain works. Students practice using mindmap activities and metaphor strategies for understanding concepts.
Order Code: SSBL Price: $9.20
4. Graphic Organizers: How to Think with Images Using Your Whole Brain 
Graphic organizers are powerful tools for enhancing student learning and this booklet is a hands-on introduction to these tools. Graphic organizers give students the raw material for language (we use language to describe our images) and help students to categorize and classify, ultimately enhancing the student’s ability to retain information. Students are introduced to variations on twenty different graphic organizers with practice sheets included. This booklet includes visual tools for main idea, cause and effect, comparisons and contrasts, classifying, creating sequence, predicting and concluding.
Order Code:SSGO Price: $9.20
5. How to Get the Best Results from Your Teacher’s Teaching Style 
Working with Teachers Who Stress Different Places on the Learning Cycle
Cooperative learning strategies, lecture and research, hands-on projects and performance requirements: these are the favorite strategies for teachers who stress different quadrants in the learning cycle. Students examine these different strategies and choose the ones that are their favorites and learn techniques for success in the ones that do not appeal to them. What are the coping skills for group directed, teacher directed, task directed or student directed strategies? Students work through what the different strategies entail, how the processes work, what the teacher expects and how they will be evaluated in each of the four teaching methods. The booklet includes a How Much Do I Pay Attention? Quiz. how to keep a cooperative learning log, the prerequisites for a successful lecture notebook, a field experiment log and performance review checklist.
Order Code: SSTS Price: $9.20
6. Techniques for Getting Good Grades 
This booklet works on improving memory and preparing for and taking tests. It begins with the question, “How does your brain remember?” There is a reading on the things we need to remember and how to create a notebook to get organized. Students are asked to categorize their schedule into school, home and work. How to create a daily routine of “Must items” and “Maybe if I have Time” items. There is a section for writing at the end of the day the best thing that happened, the “I wish I had” items and last thoughts for the day. Students are given help in patterning their notebook entrys after different periods of time. There is a section on how to take good notes, and memory techniques and ideas. The second part of the booklet teaches them how to prepare for and take tests using the 4MAT Learning Cycle. It includes: paying attention to their emotional state, their knowledge base, their test-taking strategies and their final checklists. Students are helped to examine key words in test questions, like: compare,
classify, define, discuss, illustrate, diagram, interpret, criticize and conclude. This booklet also includes hints for answering multiple choice, matching, fill in the blank and true/false questions.
Order Code: SSGG Price: $9.20
7. Writing Around the 4MAT® Natural Cycle 
The 4MAT Learning Cycle is explained in this booklet as a process for expression in the written word that is absolutely a natural. From starting in the inside of a person, to how it is done, to writing, sharing and revising and onto publishing in all forms—even the most simple publishing act as sending a close friend a letter. We claim at the beginning of this booklet that if a student works through it he will be able to write quality and informed exposition. We further claim that the ability to write well is the ticket for successful school experience and a rewarding life as well as the act of a highly skilled intellect. Sections include the 4MAT writing form: the beginning when you grip the reader, key images to enhance essential points, the impact on the reader and changes in possible perspectives. Additional sections deal with making your writing come alive, writing research, writing poetry, writing fiction and writing journals.
Order Code: SSWA Price: $9.20
8. Reading Around the 4MAT® Natural Cycle 
Students are introduced to a series of questions that draw them around the 4MAT Learning Cycle: the author’s intent, the thoughts and feelings of the main characters, the setting and how it affects the piece, the plot, the main idea, how to summarize the reading and how to personally evaluate it. They are taught to use a story line graphic organizer and given practice sheets to do so. They are introduced to the difference between three kinds of literature: Romance, Tragedy and Comedy. They read a section from a Mark Twain book and analyze it using the questions from the four parts of the 4MAT cycle. They learn to use a template for literature analysis and have multiple copies of these templates in their booklet for their use. They are given practice in two major graphic organizers for reading literature, the Main Idea Tree Map and the Character Qualities and Perceptions Mirror. The history reading section includes reading history with a skeptical eye. Students are given practice with a section from U S History on Homesteading in the Great Plains—what to pay attention to in their readings and what kinds of details to disregard. The 4MAT cycle requires of them that they understand the historian’s perspective, the big idea of the period, how what happened happened, and the consequences that resulted.
Order Code: SSRA Price: $9.20
9. How to do Inquiry-Based Learning Using the 4MAT® Natural Learning Cycle 
This booklet is a great tool for introducing students to the concept of Inquiry-based Learning. It opens with four stories of four people whose lives have made a great difference in the world. Each in their own way took on a major problem and had the courage to bring it to a successful solution. Students are asked to characterize the traits these four people have in common and draw a visual of that particular kind of courage. They fill out a self-assessment on the kind of work students like and gauge their own personal interest agreement or disagreement. They are then given a template for inquiry learning that takes them around the 4MAT Learning Cycle. The template encompasses the entire process and includes practice work sheets for describing the problem, their curiosity about it, decisions to collaborate on solving it, major questions, design plans and materials, their observations, their assessment plans, any changes or new hunches as they move through the process, their final solution and any new questions they have and would like to pursue further.
Order Code: SSIL Price: $9.20
10. Reading and Doing Science and Math Around the 4MAT® Natural Cycle 
This booklet guides students in their use of Science to explain their world. Science is defined and the three characteristics of a good theory are listed. Students are shown how the four quadrant questions help them examine scientific evidence with an informed eye. Some current issues in Science are introduced and students are asked to explore their possible interest in them as if they were working scientists. There are practice templates for reading science and graphic organizers to help them visualize what they read. Students are taken through the steps of the scientific method using the 4MAT Learning Cycle to help improve their experiments. There is an experiment suggested that they can conduct and a template for reporting on its results. The math section of this booklet advises students on reading math, and instructs them to read much more slowly than they would other content areas. There is advice on how to understand math graphics. A section is also included on how to create and maintain a math notebook and how to solve math problems by working through a sequence of inquiry by exploring, manipulating and summarizing, The booklet includes practice sheets and a cycle visual that helps students understand that when they do math, they are sense-makers.
Order Code: SSSM Price: $9.20
Complete Study Skills Set
Order Code: SSCPS Price: $93.59