Do you help your students learn to study?

[polly_mer]

In the past day, I've encountered two articles indicating that many students struggle because they are using ineffective study techniques:

https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/07/16/professor-gains-insight-about-academic-underperformance-after-becoming-student
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Knowing-How-to-Study-Can-Mean/246644

When I was teaching intro gen ed classes to underprepared students, I did see a lot of ineffective-for-the-subject study techniques* and made an effort to demonstrate better ones** in class.  That was less an issue when I taught majors or better prepared students.

Have you found helping students learn to be students worth your effort?

What about those of you who are working at places where the student demographics are such that one could spent 60 hours per week just helping the one class come up to college ready?  How do you balance between putting on your own oxygen mask first and helping the students who are making an effort, but need refocus or just a lot of background support as they come up to college ready?

*Highlight the textbook and focus on the definitions through flashcards were pretty popular.

** For teaching chemistry, physics, and math, working through the example problems in the book or other resources including covering the next few steps and trying to do them oneself before looking tended to help more than flashcards on, say, what Newton's second law states.

[marshwiggle]

** For teaching chemistry, physics, and math, working through the example problems in the book or other resources including covering the next few steps and trying to do them oneself before looking tended to help more than flashcards on, say, what Newton's second law states.

Not exactly "study techniques", but when I was doing tutorials for electricity and magnetism, I realized that the textbook had conceptual problems in each chapter. Instead of just using the tutorials to go through the "mathy" problems, I started getting them to answer the conceptual problems first/as well. I think those are a great addition that wasn't there in the stone age when I learned this stuff, since even good students can grind through the math without being sure they get the concepts.

[LibbyG]

I teach a bottleneck-y course that many students dread. I do a short lecture on effective learning techniques (Saundra McGuire on the study cycle plus Stephen Chew on deep learning, applied to our course) right after the first exam, together with a reflective exercise about which new techniques they plan to try. A few times later, I ask them if they tried new techniques and how they worked out.

It's not made a dramatic difference in student performance, I don't think. But it seems to have reduced attrition, and I sense it makes students feel more palpably how strongly I'm rooting for them. So that helps, indirectly.

There are still a few students that I just don't reach this way. The ones who struggle the most in that class still come to my office hours and expect me to just tell them the answers. They just don't feel any sense of control over their own learning, and I don't yet know how to help them shift their mindset.

[Puget]

Our students are generally well-prepared, but a number of them have skated through HS just being smart and not having to study much, and a lot of our international students are used to just rote memorization, so the fist exams in college come as a real shock to some.

In my large lecture course I added an extra credit assignment after the first exam where they watched a couple of good videos on effective study techniques (spaced retrieval practice, which we know from research works) and wrote a short reflection on how it related to what they were learning in class (I'm in psych, so this works) and how they planned to apply the techniques. The next exam was not exactly the same as the year before, so I can't say if grades went up, but it certainly cut back on the number of times I had to repeat the same advice in office hours (and let me have more detailed conversations then building on what they had learned from the videos, or call them out on complaining about their grades while not doing the extra credit to help them).

Next time I teach it, I think I'll try to make this assignment early in the semester, with perhaps a second chance to complete it after the first exam. I'm also thinking of posting a more explicit check-list of what to do before and after each class, weekly, and in the run up to each exam. They may or may not use it, but it would give me the power to start grade grubbing conversations with asking if they had done everything on the checklist.

[downer]

I used to teach a first year experience course, and we spent a lot of time on learning skills then. Maybe it helped.

These days I might make a few comments about what they can do to help themselves, but I put no significant time into it, because it isn't what interests me and there are no particular directives to focus on that. Schools offer all sorts of support services and if students want, they can take advantage of that stuff on their own initiative. Generally speaking, the problem is often they lack the initiative, or are overwhelmed with other things, and nothing I can do is going to change that.

[Conjugate]

At my institution, we are encouraged to wait until after the first exam, and give a lecture on "metacognition." This is a fancy name for the study techniques that my mother taught me back in The Ancient Days, but it seems to help.  I can't find the recent book that points to research right now, but the idea is that instead of describing them as "the same study techniques your grandmothers knew," referring to it as "the new science of metacognition" makes students pay attention.

The techniques themselves—things like "try to explain it to someone else," or "make up your own problems to try"— are old hat, of course, but evidence shows that they can make quite a difference.

[spork]

A few years ago I taught a seminar course for first-semester students. I used The New Science of Learning by Doyle and Zakrajsek as one of the books, and included assignments that forced students to read it. For those who are unfamiliar with it, each chapter gives a simple overview of basic habits beneficial to learning, as supported by cognitive science and psychology research. For example, "get a good night's sleep," "exercise regularly," and "eat breakfast."

Even though students read the book, wrote about the book, and discussed the book in class, I doubt it changed anyone's behavior. The students who came to college with good study skills did well in the course, those that didn't didn't.

[Caracal]

When I talk about the exams, I give some suggestions about studying. In particular, I emphasize trying to focus on the big picture and understanding a lecture rather than just writing everything I say down. Really, though, there's only so much time I want to spend on this stuff. I can give some direction, but students are going to figure this stuff out on their own or not and if I spend tons of class time talking about it, I'm going to suck the life out of the class and bore everyone to death.

[the_geneticist]

I used to teach at a SLAC and would write a note on any exams that earned a C or lower to "please come talk".  Most students would think I was going to tell them to drop the course, but instead I'd start by asking them if they had earned the grade they wanted (everyone said no) and then asked "Tell me how you study".
I learned that most of these students:
  didn't have the book and didn't use the free copies in the library
  didn't attempt the practice problems or just skimmed them and looked at the answers in the back of the book
  either didn't take notes or would try to write down everything said in class
  didn't have any peers to study with
  thought that "good students" will "just know this stuff"

These were sophomores and juniors.  They all had to take one of those Freshman study skills classes so they knew what they ought to do.  I think it can take hitting an "oh crap, my current strategy doesn't work" moment for students to change their behavior.


had no idea that the "good students" in the class

[Puget]

I'd start by asking them if they had earned the grade they wanted (everyone said no) and then asked "Tell me how you study".

This is what I do, and I nearly always get the same answer, involving mostly passive study techniques (re-reading and highlighting) rather than active retrieval practice, and generally also lack of spacing (i.e., cramming). Most also admit to not having looked at the study tips I put on the first study guide, which go over all this (some probably didn't look at the study guide at all). Some students apparently need to learn the hard way before they will use the resources we give them.

[JFlanders]

I've experimented a fair bit with teaching study techniques, but I've found it's important to recognize that they are, in themselves, material to be learned.  Students don't magically understand them just by hearing about them, and they don't practice them if they're not incentivized. 

Also, in my classes at least, suggesting novel study processes seems to add substantially to the perceived effortfulness of the class; a lot of students end up irritated that they can't just tackle the material the old way, rather than grateful to be shown a new way that works.

[Conjugate]

I've experimented a fair bit with teaching study techniques, but I've found it's important to recognize that they are, in themselves, material to be learned.  Students don't magically understand them just by hearing about them, and they don't practice them if they're not incentivized. 

Also, in my classes at least, suggesting novel study processes seems to add substantially to the perceived effortfulness of the class; a lot of students end up irritated that they can't just tackle the material the old way, rather than grateful to be shown a new way that works.

Yes, and they return to the old ways once the current difficulty has passed, in many cases.  It's annoying, but there's only so much you can do on your own if the students won't meet you halfway.

[MaterialIssue]

I increasingly think that "grading" note-taking (having them send in notes from lectures, readings, etc.) and building in class time for study practice and instruction is essential. My university has a huge number of 1st gen college students so they may need it more than the average student, but, I am committed to the idea that you can't expect them to understand and practice something you don't teach them. And, as an earlier poster noted, these techniques and approaches will often differ by discipline though some approaches remain consistent.

[downer]

I increasingly think that "grading" note-taking (having them send in notes from lectures, readings, etc.) and building in class time for study practice and instruction is essential. My university has a huge number of 1st gen college students so they may need it more than the average student, but, I am committed to the idea that you can't expect them to understand and practice something you don't teach them. And, as an earlier poster noted, these techniques and approaches will often differ by discipline though some approaches remain consistent.

Sounds like a great idea. But (1) how much extra time does that take you? (2) how much less of the course material do you not cover because you are teaching students learning techniques? (3) are there objective measures of what difference doing this makes?

[polly_mer]

I increasingly think that "grading" note-taking (having them send in notes from lectures, readings, etc.) and building in class time for study practice and instruction is essential. My university has a huge number of 1st gen college students so they may need it more than the average student, but, I am committed to the idea that you can't expect them to understand and practice something you don't teach them. And, as an earlier poster noted, these techniques and approaches will often differ by discipline though some approaches remain consistent.

Sounds like a great idea. But (1) how much extra time does that take you? (2) how much less of the course material do you not cover because you are teaching students learning techniques? (3) are there objective measures of what difference doing this makes?

I didn't grade notes per se, but I did make most quizzes, exams, etc. open note.  Students did markedly improve in some intro gen ed classes with explicit note-taking instruction along with feedback on notebooks on evident effort (e.g., blank, might as well be blank, has notes from both in-class and out-of-class efforts).

Students provided feedback that they liked the open note aspect of the class because they felt like they could learn more by having the backup of notes so not everything was memorized.