Win an NCLEX-RN Review Scholarship Package from Rachell Allen

It's less than a week before the new year and our friends at Rachell Allen are in the mood for gift-giving! To start the new year with a bang, Rachell Allen will be giving away a review scholarship package to a lucky reader of Pinoy R.N. worth Php 25,000.

The review scholarship package includes free enrolment to the award-winning Rachell Allen 25-Day NCLEX Integrated Review Program, an unlimited access to the exclusive Rachell Allen online review, Rachell Allen workbook and guidebook plus 3 months supply of Rachell Allen Brain Booster.

Interested? Here's what you need to do:

1. Write an article about Pinoy R.N. and Rachell Allen's 25-Day NCLEX Integrated Review Program.

2. E-mail the article to at least 15 people. If you have a blog or website, you may opt to post the article to your blog/website. Just post a comment here pointing to the URL of the blog post/article.

3. Include (CC) our e-mail address [reviewscholarship@yahoo.com and rachellallenreviewers@yahoo.com] when sending out the e-mails (So, we get to read your article.)

The most creative article (chosen by Pinoy R.N. and Rachell Allen) wins the review scholarship package! The winning entry will also be posted here.

The contest will run starting today until January 15, 2008. The winner will be announced the following day. Happy holidays!

Contest Rules:

1. Applicants must be residents of Metro Manila or neighboring provinces such as Rizal, Bulacan, Laguna, Cavite and Pampanga.

2. Review package is not convertible to cash.

3. Article must be original and must not contain copyrighted, illegal, or libelous material.

Rachell Allen Offers Free WiFi Access

NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION -- Rachell Allen USA announced today that it will offer free wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) service for its students across the nation.
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Rachell Allen is the first in the Nursing Reviewer industry to offer comfortable coffee-style reviewer lounges equipped with free Wi-Fi service using the latest internet technology.

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By 2008, Rachell Allen students will enjoy fresh coffee, loose-leaf tea, brain-booster drinks, gourmet snacks and tantalizing pastries in a lounge-style, comfortable ambiance with wireless hook-up.

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Rachell Allen NCLEX Lounges were designed to serve the needs of the vast majority of its students who want to study in comfort, sit back and relax, hang-out with fellow students and enjoy a great cup of coffee or tea.
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Prof. Rachell Allen, Founder and President said in an interview, "We are proud to offer Wi-Fi internet service with the most innovative security offerings as a way to provide an excellent experience to our students while they prepare for NCLEX. Many of our students integrate laptop technology into their mobile-computing lifestyle and by providing Wi-Fi at our reviewer lounges, our students can truly enjoy an added convenience for both reviewing and comfort purposes."

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Connecting to the Wi-Fi service will deepen the student's relationship with Rachell Allen by utilizing a Rachell Allen exclusive homepage where students can register and access a bundle of online NCLEX resources such as BRAIN RN Learning Course, NCLEX Secrets Revealed - Multiple Choice Strategies, exclusive online Rachell Allen articles, study guides and other readings students can't find anywhere else.
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Prof. Allen added, "by offering free wireless, Rachell Allen USA virtually eliminates the hassle of credit card registration and payment processing. Our students can easily opt-in for more options online in a state-of-the-art advanced environment. We understand the convenience desired by our customers."
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Rachell Allen USA is committed to be at the forefront of providing NCLEX studying conveniences, brain-booster drinks and comfortable atmosphere that make each experience at Rachell Allen memorable. For more information, visit Rachell Allen website at http://www.rachellallen.net/ and http://www.rachellallen.com/.
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About Rachell Allen

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Rachell Allen Reviewers USA is one of the world's leading healthcare educational provider. Rachell Allen conducts NCLEX review conferences worldwide and operates NCLEX coffee-style lounges in the Philippines, the first of its kind in the nursing review industry. Coined as Rachell Allen Reviewer Lounge, it is more than a review center. It serves as a social hub and a great place where nursing students sink in comfortable couches and enjoy coffee or tea. Rachell Allen Lounge's signature characteristics revolve around creative, innovative staff, providing world-class services in a positive environment. The company's objective is to establish locations around the world that provide a cultural hub for students, encourage social interaction and provide high-quality educational services that are recognized and appreciated by the medical disciplines. For more information, visit Rachell Allen website at http://www.rachellallen.net and http://www.rachellallen.com.

Rachell Allen Reviewers - Kalaw Branch Opening Soon

Another Rachell Allen NCLEX Review Center in Manila will open at the TM Kalaw Center next month.

As the leading US Reviewer for NCLEX, Rachell Allen Reviewers USA brings yet another world-class branch to the Philippines. Acclaimed as one of the country's most reliable educational providers in the healthcare industry, Rachell Allen Reviewers USA has created the 25-Day Integrated Review Program, the most innovative NCLEX review program yet in the history of NCLEX education and BRAIN RN™ which teaches revolutionary easy-to-follow study techniques that could get ordinary students pass the NCLEX.

The newly-remodeled facility is a trendy centerpiece with its own signature interior style that features state-of-the-art lounge, spacious classrooms, dedicated computer room and internet access. It will open on October 2007 at 5th Floor, TM Kalaw Avenue near the Manila Doctor's Hospital at the TM Kalaw Avenue.

This class "A" mid-town building is prominently located near the UN Avenue LRT station which offers easy access to student commuters. The high profile, high traffic location is on one of the busiest traffic arteries in Manila. Kalaw Avenue almost stretches from end of the city to the other and is the major nursing students commuter corridor into the downtown core. The avenue is also known throughout Metro Manila as the medical students hub and it is one of the most recognized street names in the country.

The new flagship branch will be the perfect review center for NCLEX students. It will provide the same excellent NCLEX education through the many programs offered including the award-winning 25-Day Integrated Review Program, BRAIN RN™, NCLEX Exam Secrets Revealed - Multiple Choice Strategies Course, Rachell Allen Q & A, Final Coaching and other exclusive Rachell Allen resources.

For more information and reservations,please visit the website at www.rachellallen.com

NCLEX Techniques in 5 Easy Steps

By Prof. Rachell Allen, RN, MSN, NP

Because of the long emphasis on traditional NCLEX learning, the science of learning involving the brain has long been forgotten, bypassed or overlooked.

There are lots of books out there giving you all the inside scoop on how to succeed in nursing. They tell you exactly what your professors tell you. Keep up on your reading, don’t miss a class, review your notes, study, study and study.

The bad news is that NCLEX students often find that preparing for the test takes a lot more time and effort than just making a stack of index cards and staying up a couple of nights a week. A typical full-time review program is about 45 hours of work in and out of class. That’s why it’s called “full-time” – it’s the equivalent of a full-time job. Surveys have shown that students who claim to have studied intensively often report 11 hours studying for a course per semester. So you ask, “that’s how much time it takes to learn one chapter in a typical textbook?”

So Why Is Reviewing For NCLEX a Problem?

Mostly because a lot of these students feel they need to know everything all at once.

Suppose you have an exam on let’s say, Pharmacological Agents in the Care of Patients coming up next week. What do you do? Chances are, you make a list of drugs to memorize, put them in your index cards until you can rattle off each list flawlessly. Now this may help you in this particular exam, but a week later, when you need these same information to learn the next chapter, you can’t perfectly recall them. You may even find that you did not retain as much in your memory.

So why, you ask.

The Science of Learning

Because real learning is not just about index cards and memorizing. You may already know that your brain is divided into front and rear lobes. The rear deals with passive sensory stimuli and memory retrieval (looking back). The front explores, learns new things and makes hypotheses. The interesting thing is that when new information is learned, it travels back and forth in a loop. This simply means that if you can recall what Cushing’s Syndrome is, then learning has effectively taken place. If not, you will have to re-learn it again. This is exactly the part of the loop that most nursing students focus on. Trying to learn over and over again by shuffling index cards. A little knowledge sticks here and there, but it should be clear by now, why most does not. Learning never occurred in the first place.


Learning Techniques in 5 Easy Steps

So how does learning take effect? There are countless ways to learn information and for the purpose of this article, I will only outline five of these:

Make it interesting.
Our brain has limited capacity for processing loads of information when learning. Its attention span is extremely selective and the only information that does get retained are those it sees relevant and enticing enough.

Interesting helps. Can you recall the plot of the movie Titanic? If you’ve seen the film, you can, because it is interesting enough. I use “interesting” in my lectures all the time. The concepts become alive in the sense that they are fun to learn and therefore relevant and memorable.

Remember, not Memorize.
You may now have probably realized why a deck of cards didn’t work the last time you took a major exam. Because all you did was memorize so you can quickly store the list in your brain. The bad news is that when the finals came, you were back to zero. All that time and nothing showed.

Somehow, we still need to get that information from your short-term memory into long-term memory. This is what I call “remembering” not memorizing. And the good news is that you never lose anything from your long-term memory, just the ability to retrieve it. Remembering is connecting information with what you already have in your brain. Memorizing is learning information as is, like disconnected items. Do you see the difference?

Whenever you learn something new, you need to try to find a connection to whatever you already know. Because you won’t retain that information very long unless you see the relationships and the overall picture.

Use Memory Devices.
You might have recalled someone’s name by giving him a pet name like Jake Fake because his name is Jake and he wears mostly fake accessories. If it works for you, be my guest. You’re welcome.

The human brain’s attention span is extremely selective, therefore it must depend largely on memory aids and shortcuts if it is to learn the desired information effectively. That’s why in my lectures, I use elaborate memory clues, mnemonics and some other variants to make nursing terminologies easier to understand and remember. Their relevance hook is that they are attention-grabber, funny and memorable.

Reduce Information Overload.
I mentioned previously that our brain has limited capacity for processing data. When confronted with a truckload of information, it becomes extremely discriminating.

Good news? It is easier for a learner to focus their attention on a subject if there is minimal information. Reducing information is reducing noise for the brain and therefore reduce the risk of experiencing information overload.

So if you are studying the full chapter on let’s say, Blood Administration, you should highlight only the key areas that would most likely come out in the NCLEX test. For example, a 25-Day Integrated Review Program on NCLEX would do just that. Safely assuming that you’re planning on passing the NCLEX, I suggest you take those out that’s not necessary to your learning goals. Highlight what’s most important when you review for NCLEX.

Use Top-Down Learning.
I personally find this an interesting technique to a better, longer memory retention. I use this method by pulling out concepts from my student’s past experiences and existing knowledge first before learning new topics in nursing. It accomplishes two things: First, it reinforces the long-term memory. Second, it fosters the new learning process.

In my class, I usually make it a priority to discuss what my students already know about a certain subject before introducing the new ones. If you haven’t used top-down method in your review preparation for NCLEX, I suggest you make an effort to make this a habit.



NCLEX Techniques in 5 Easy Steps is based on BRAIN RN™, the copyrighted work of Rachell Allen, RN, MSN, NP. Brain RN™, also a trademark of Rachellallen.net is an extremely powerful study method that teaches memory tricks and devices for easy learning and better memory retention. It is offered as part of the author’s 25-Day Integrated Review Program for NCLEX. For more information, visit at www.rachellallen.net