Helping Our Students Learn How to Learn

3 February 2004 and 4 February 2004
Presented by Ken Jones

What are people doing to help their students learn?  Is anyone doing anything intentional, structured?  Have you found anything that is particularly successful?

My sense is that faculty have generally seen themselves as teaching only disciplinary content.  We assume that students know how to learn – and if they don’t, they can get help from some student development area like Academic Advising.   We certainly fit that model.  I don’t know of any departments that have materials on how to study in history or whatever, but Academic Advising has a fairly extensive website offering a variety of study skill ideas.  I’m delighted that Academic Advising provides this service, but I would argue that this is a place where we as faculty need to be more directly involved. 

First, it is in our self interest to do so.  My guess is that we would all like our jobs even more if more of our students mastered more of what we are trying to convey.

My second reason why we need more faculty engagement in teaching how to learn boils down to a question of influence.  Just ask yourself, if we are going to get students to do something, who is going to have more impact – academic advising, or those of us with direct power over them.

Third, I think we need to get engaged because some approaches work better in particular disciplines.  We therefore are the ones in a position to suggest disciplinary specific modifications.

Finally, from my perspective, the most important reason why we need to be engaged is that studying, teaching, and testing all should be aligned.  We need to start by asking ourselves how we want this particular class to change our students.  From there we need to design the evaluation method – or means of assessing whether we have achieved our goal.  Then we need to make sure that our teaching facilitates those goals.  And finally, we need to help our students study in a way that corresponds to the results we expect from them. 

When I think about what I hope is happening in my classes, I am often drawn to what the psychologist Ellen Langer writes about as “mindful learning.”  In Langer’s terms, mindful learning enables the student to take the new information, link it to prior knowledge, and then use it in some new way.  They can explain it in different terms, they can manipulate it to achieve different ends, and they can apply it to distinct, novel situations.

At the other end of the spectrum from mindful learning naturally is rote memorization, where the student piles up new information, but can’t connect it with other knowledge, and certainly can’t put pieces together to do something new.  I love Langer’s description of memorization – it is, in her words, “a strategy for taking in material that has no personal meaning.”

Langer has a number of ideas about how we can move toward this heavenly state where our students learn to own the material.  I’m going to pull out a few of hers, mix in some other material, and see what comes out.

One of Langer’s arguments is that by the time we get them, our kids are thoroughly trained in a “find the correct procedure” approach to learning.  I expect most of you have done this at some point in your lives.  You were assigned a homework problem to solve in a discipline that you didn’t understand or didn’t care much about, so you looked back through the chapter until you found an example that seemed to match the homework problem.  From there it was simple.  You just plugged the information from the homework problem into the question, and mechanically cranked out an answer.  Clearly this process didn’t deepen our real understanding of whatever it was that we were supposed to learn, and it certainly didn’t generate any interest or creative thinking.

To show how debilitating this “follow the procedure” approach can be, Langer did an experiment where people in two groups were given some blocks and told to build a bridge over an imaginary river.  Each person was to build his or her own bridge.  People in both groups were told that higher bridges were better so more ships could pass under them, and those in one group were shown an example of how the blocks had been used to build a tall tower.  In the first group that had seen the example, 92% copied the tower formation they had been shown.  The 8% who didn’t came up with two different alternatives.  In the second “uninstructed” group, only 8% ended up mimicking the tower building approach on their own, and collectively that group employed ten different systems.  Langer’s argument is that if we encourage or simply present a “step-by-step method of problem solving,” then we are fostering memorization or “an essentially mindless type of success” rather than mindful learning that allows/encourages application in new situations.

To help students move to something more than rote memorization, we also need to be very clear about the bigger concepts that we want them to understand.   PLEASE NOTE:  I’m not suggesting that we just teach vague concepts at the expense of concrete specifics. What I’m arguing for is teaching the concrete specific examples in ways that they clearly illuminate or serve or support the concepts, rather than being seen as something to be learned in and of themselves.  We can do this by making our goals explicit, repeating them, and integrating them into our teaching.  In other words, we need to stop assuming that our students will make the connections for themselves (they aren’t us!) and become more intentional and obvious.  Obviously, if we do this, we need to make sure that we test what we want them to learn.  We can’t talk about the importance of concepts and analysis and integration and then give tests that require reward lots of rote memorization.

Being explicit about the underlying concepts also helps by making students more aware of the underlying scaffolding that supports and organizes all the new information they are getting.  The larger connections and first principles in our disciplines are so automatic for us that we unconsciously use them to deal with new information.  Our new learners don’t have those structures, so new information hits them like a huge undifferentiated mass that is very tough to remember or make sense of.  It isn’t that they are lazy or stupid: research shows that our brains simply can’t store/retrieve/use information effectively unless we create a scaffolding or structure for storage and retention. 

Let me just give you a quick example.

Scrambled version of the counting vowels list (1-12 only).  Have two minutes to look at and then write down as many as they can remember.   Typically students get two or three.

List in order with pattern -- set of things corresponding to numbers 1-12.  Look for a minute, write down again.  Typically students can remember 9-10 since the pattern helps us remember.

Translating this into what we are doing, what this says to me is that we can help our students if we are explicit about how a new idea ties into something the students have experienced in their lives, or into a concept covered earlier in the course.  Making it familiar, showing the connections, helps them make the knowledge meaningful.

According to Langer, we can also help students move toward meaningful learning by teaching conditionally.  By that, she means making it clear that all knowledge has been constructed.  You can still teach the same stuff, but make it clear that it is the product of our understanding in a certain context, and it is temporary in that we are always adding to or modifying it.  Langer has shown in a series of psych experiments that students who are encouraged to think this way enjoy learning more – they are more likely to see the information as interesting rather than as an inert fact to be memorized -- and they are much more likely to apply knowledge in new ways. 

Finally, we can help our students by making it clear to them that learning at this level takes time.  One brief encounter with words in a text or lecture isn’t going to result in instant mastery.  They will need to work at it.

More specifically, we need to help our students study smart.  One key to this is to move them away from the classic “cram before the exam” strategy to thinking of studying as an integrated system in which they “study” before class, during class, and after class.  Let me explain things that can occur in each component.

Before Class Studying -- Reading

We need to talk with them about reading strategies.  Typically, students just plunge in and start reading a text.  Instead, we need to help them understand the structure of what they are reading and how to get an overall picture of what to think about before they start.  If it is a textbook, this may mean reading the introduction and looking at the bold print headings and visuals first.  Once you have some sense of what the author intends to cover in a section, then it is a lot easier to pay attention to how things fit together.

Another way we can help them read more effectively is to get them see it as an interactive, thinking process rather than something mechanical.  If you watch students read, my guess is that you will see lots of them who simply turn the pages, or mark up sections with a magic marker and then turn the pages.  We need to convince them that they will learn more if their reading is more active.  They need to take reading notes or put little summaries and comments in the margins.  Or we can suggest that they read a paragraph or section of the book, close the book, write a paraphrase of the key point in the section just read.  Once they master that, then they can try doing the same thing for larger sections.

These are just a couple of ideas.  If you want more, the Dartmouth site on the handout has an extensive list of suggestions on “how to get to know your textbook” and other ideas on reading effectively.

There is lots of evidence that these approaches work because the student is more actively engaged with the material.  Langer has pushed it a step further in one of her experiments.  She had three groups read short stories.  The first group was just told to read, the second was told to look for specific things in the stories, and the third was told to read the stories from different perspectives and/or imagine different endings.  Langer found that the third group not only enjoyed the reading much more, but remembered significantly more details about the stories.

Before Class Studying – Preparation for Class

We need to encourage them to prepare for class rather than just showing up.  One way to do this is to review their notes from the last class.  What were the main points, what was confusing?

We also need to be explicit about the need to review what they read.  Rather than spending the first ten minutes trying to dredge it up, come to class with the main points in mind – as though there is going to be a quiz!

Finally, we need to encourage them to come to class with questions in mind that they hope to have answered.

In Class Studying – Discussion

Obviously, if students discuss their ideas in class, they are trying out their understanding of the material and enhancing their ability to retain and use it. 

In Class Studying -- Active Listening

Students can also “study” in class if they are encouraged to be active listeners.  By that, I mean listening for answers to questions that they had coming in, or listening for what is new, novel, or previously unknown.  Listening for something you are already wondering about creates a “need to know” response, so you are more attentive and the class will be more enjoyable.

In Class Studying – Note Taking

Note taking is a way of preserving new information obviously, but it is also an opportunity for processing ideas.  Our students need help learning how to do this because many of them either didn’t need to take notes in high school or were never taught efficient ways to do this.  The Dartmouth site in the handout has some good advice on note taking in general, as well as an example of the Cornell system, which sets aside space for later reflection on the notes.

We can not only point out good systems, but we can – if we wish – use class time to demonstrate.  When Br. Dietrich was a young faculty member and I was a young chair, I visited one of his classes in which he lectured for most of the period, and then spent the last ten-fifteen minutes showing them on an overhead how he would have taken notes on his lecture.  It had a real impact both in terms of technique and also in that it communicated his expectations for what they needed to remember.

I would also suggest that we remind students that a lot more learning takes place if they are processing what they are hearing rather than just copying words down – and that it is a lot easier to do that if they have prepared for the class by reading and thinking about the readings.  That way they can focus on what is new and how it connects to what they saw in the readings.

Finally, we can help student note taking by our methods.  We can watch our pace, provide outlines if appropriate, use the board for emphasis, and make sure that we repeat and summarize key points.

We can also encourage this kind of in class studying by how we structure the environment.  For example, we can set aside a couple of minutes at the end of class for them to review notes in pairs and ask questions.  Or we can begin class by asking for questions and/or the key issues from last class.  (This seems to me a great opportunity for minute paper.)  Or as we move in to subject, we can say “Remember when we discussed x.  What do you have in your notes about that?”  Then build from there.

After Class Studying – Reviewing Notes

Study after study has shown the importance of reviewing notes right after class.  For example, one done on a history lecture showed that those who reviewed their notes after class retained about 80% of the material with no further studying while those who just closed their notebooks and walked away remembered only about 20% of what they had copied down.

After Class Studying – Studying for tests and understanding

We need to encourage students to not only review their notes for the day, but to frequently look back over larger segments of their class and reading notes.  The goal is to see how things fit together, or as one of my favorite lines puts it, “study like a detective, always relating new learning to previous learning.” (Foundation for Critical thinking.)  These kinds of review are also critical for pinpointing things that they don’t understand.

We can also suggest – depending on the discipline – that students develop flash cards, create concept maps, or work problems without looking at the answers or examples.

Most studies show better results if this kind of studying takes place regularly.  Short concentrated sessions better, and it helps if they are separated by specific designated times for relaxation.  Interestingly, it seems that most people retain more if they study during the day.

Finally, to the question of how much to study, I’ve moved away from giving a time amount.  I still think there is value in saying something like two hours for every hour in class just because that’s not their expectation, but my fear is that saying two hours will encourage them to figure they are done after a certain amount of time regardless of how well they studied.  My preference is to tell them that they have done enough when they can explain whatever it is to someone who isn’t in the class.

My argument obviously is that we should be more active and intentional in helping our students learn how to learn, but that raises the question of how much time this takes – or when and where we should be doing this.

As for where, I hope that we don’t see this as something that can be “taken care of by Symposium.”  I think it needs to be broader than that in part because disciplinary approaches matter, and also because the only way this is really going to sink in is if kids get exposed repeatedly.  If it only happens in one place, then they will see it as something connected with that class rather than as something that can be applied much more broadly.

My sense, then, is that we ought to be doing this in lower division courses across the board – and following up with some reinforcement in upper division courses.

Please understand.  I am not talking about spending lots of time on this.  Actually, I think if we are more conscious of what we are doing, we can stimulate a lot of meaningful learning simply by changing the way we approach class.  Beyond that, though, I do believe that a few minutes here and there would have a huge impact.  But it has to be repeated, and that repetition has to occur when you have their full attention.  Saying something on the first day simply isn’t going to cut it.

One way of doing some of the basic stuff in an economical way is to direct them to various sites they can use on their own.

I’ve given you several on the handout, but I would especially like to point out the LSU center.   LSU site is at www.cas.lsu.edu   Has “Roads to Better Learning” that offers three different diagnostic tests on learning styles and gives recommendations for study strategies based on outcomes.  Also has on-line workshops on time management, reading, listening and note taking, test preparation, test anxiety, and concept mapping.  All of these are open to anyone.  Just sign in as guest.  Finally has links to lots of other sites under “Roadside Attractions.”

Sources/sites

Davis, Barbara,  Tools for Teaching  (1993)

Langer, Ellen  The Power of Mindful Learning  (1997)

Paul, Richard and Linda Elder, How to Study and Learn in a Discipline  (2003)  (This is a small booklet that is designed for students.  Some if it strikes me as silly and repetitious, but there are also some good insights)

The CSB/SJU Academic Affairs list is at  www.csbsju.edu/academicadvising/helplist.html    It has sections on time management, SQ3R (study formula), listening, note taking, remembering, test taking, and stress management.  It is more of a collection of ideas than a clear path, but there is lots of information that might prompt thought about what you want to tell your students.

For a full example of the counting exercise, see http://atech2.wku.edu/clt/vc/ at the Western Kentucky University’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

In addition to the material on reading textbooks, Dartmouth’s Academic Skills Center (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/success/index.html) has suggestions on time management, taking notes, how to study, and managing stress.  Like the CSB/SJU site and lots of other similar ones, it provides lots of ideas.

The main page for LSU’s Center for Academic Success is www.cas.lsu.edu.  To get to the learning how to learn materials, click on “Online Workshops.”  There you will find something called “Roads to Better Learning.”   This program offers three different diagnostic tests on learning styles and gives recommendations for study strategies based on outcomes.  It also has on-line workshops on time management, reading, listening and notetaking, test preparation, test anxiety, and concept mapping.  All of these are open to anyone; just sign in as guest.  Finally the site has links to lots of other sites under “Roadside Attractions.”