Teach Students How To Learn

Co-published with and Miriam, a freshman Calculus student at Louisiana State University, made 37.5% on her first exam but 83% and 93% on the next two. Matt, a first year General Chemistry student at the University of Utah, scored 65% and 55% on his first two exams and 95% on his third—These are representative of thousands of students who decisively improved their grades by acting on the advice described in this book.What is preventing your students from performing according to expectations? Saundra McGuire offers a simple but profound answer: If you teach students how to learn and give them simple, straightforward strategies to use, they can significantly increase their learning and performance. For over a decade Saundra McGuire has been acclaimed for her presentations and workshops on metacognition and student learning because the tools and strategies she shares have enabled faculty to facilitate dramatic improvements in student learning and success. This book encapsulates the model and ideas she has developed in the past fifteen years, ideas that are being adopted by an increasing number of faculty with considerable effect.The methods she proposes do not require restructuring courses or an inordinate amount of time to teach. They can often be accomplished in a single session, transforming students from memorizers and regurgitators to students who begin to think critically and take responsibility for their own learning. Saundra McGuire takes the reader sequentially through the ideas and strategies that students need to understand and implement. First, she demonstrates how introducing students to metacognition and Bloom’s Taxonomy reveals to them the importance of understanding how they learn and provides the lens through which they can view learning activities and measure their intellectual growth. Next, she presents a specific study system that can quickly empower students to maximize their learning. Then, she addresses the importance of dealing with emotion, attitudes, and motivation by suggesting ways to change students’ mindsets about ability and by providing a range of strategies to boost motivation and learning; finally, she offers guidance to faculty on partnering with campus learning centers.She pays particular attention to academically unprepared students, noting that the strategies she offers for this particular population are equally beneficial for all students. While stressing that there are many ways to teach effectively, and that readers can be flexible in picking and choosing among the strategies she presents, Saundra McGuire offers the reader a step-by-step process for delivering the key messages of the book to students in as little as 50 minutes. Free online supplements provide three slide sets and a sample video lecture.This book is written primarily for faculty but will be equally useful for TAs, tutors, and learning center professionals. For readers with no background in education or cognitive psychology, the book avoids jargon and esoteric theory.

Following up on her acclaimed Teach Students How to Learn, that describes teaching strategies to facilitate dramatic improvements in student learning and success, Saundra McGuire here presents these "secrets" direct to students. Her message is that "Any student can use simple, straightforward strategies to start making A’s in their courses and enjoy a lifetime of deep, effective learning." Beginning with explaining how expectations about learning, and the study efforts required, differ between college and secondary school, the author introduces her readers, through the concept of metacognition, to the importance and powerful consequences of understanding themselves as learners. This framework and the recommended strategies that support it are useful for anyone moving on to a more advanced stage of education, so this book also has an intended audience of students preparing to go to high school, graduate school, or professional school. In a conversational tone, and liberally illustrated by anecdotes of past students, the author combines introducing readers to concepts like Bloom’s Taxonomy (to illuminate the difference between studying and learning), fixed and growth mindsets, as well as to what brain science has to tell us about rest, nutrition and exercise, together with such highly specific learning strategies as how to read a textbook, manage their time and take tests. With engaging exercises and thought-provoking reflections, this book is an ideal motivational and practical text for study skills and first year experience courses.

The authors of Make Just One Change argue that formulating one’s own questions is “the single most essential skill for learning”—and one that should be taught to all students. They also argue that it should be taught in the simplest way possible. Drawing on twenty years of experience, the authors present the Question Formulation Technique, a concise and powerful protocol that enables learners to produce their own questions, improve their questions, and strategize how to use them. Make Just One Change features the voices and experiences of teachers in classrooms across the country to illustrate the use of the Question Formulation Technique across grade levels and subject areas and with different kinds of learners.

Praise for How Learning Works "How Learning Works is the perfect title for this excellent book. Drawing upon new research in psychology, education, and cognitive science, the authors have demystified a complex topic into clear explanations of seven powerful learning principles. Full of great ideas and practical suggestions, all based on solid research evidence, this book is essential reading for instructors at all levels who wish to improve their students' learning." —Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice chancellor for educational development, University of California, Berkeley, and author, Tools for Teaching "This book is a must-read for every instructor, new or experienced. Although I have been teaching for almost thirty years, as I read this book I found myself resonating with many of its ideas, and I discovered new ways of thinking about teaching." —Eugenia T. Paulus, professor of chemistry, North Hennepin Community College, and 2008 U.S. Community Colleges Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education "Thank you Carnegie Mellon for making accessible what has previously been inaccessible to those of us who are not learning scientists. Your focus on the essence of learning combined with concrete examples of the daily challenges of teaching and clear tactical strategies for faculty to consider is a welcome work. I will recommend this book to all my colleagues." —Catherine M. Casserly, senior partner, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching "As you read about each of the seven basic learning principles in this book, you will find advice that is grounded in learning theory, based on research evidence, relevant to college teaching, and easy to understand. The authors have extensive knowledge and experience in applying the science of learning to college teaching, and they graciously share it with you in this organized and readable book." —From the Foreword by Richard E. Mayer, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; coauthor, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction; and author, Multimedia Learning

Memory is inextricable from learning; there's little sense in teaching students something new if they can't recall it later. Ensuring that the knowledge teachers impart is appropriately stored in the brain and easily retrieved when necessary is a vital component of instruction. In How to Teach So Students Remember, author Marilee Sprenger provides you with a proven, research-based, easy-to-follow framework for doing just that. This second edition of Sprenger's celebrated book, updated to include recent research and developments in the fields of memory and teaching, offers seven concrete, actionable steps to help students use what they've learned when they need it. Step by step, you will discover how to actively engage your students with new learning; teach students to reflect on new knowledge in a meaningful way; train students to recode new concepts in their own words to clarify understanding; use feedback to ensure that relevant information is binding to necessary neural pathways; incorporate multiple rehearsal strategies to secure new knowledge in both working and long-term memory; design lesson reviews that help students retain information beyond the test; and align instruction, review, and assessment to help students more easily retrieve information. The practical strategies and suggestions in this book, carefully followed and appropriately differentiated, will revolutionize the way you teach and immeasurably improve student achievement. Remember: By consciously crafting lessons for maximum "stickiness," we can equip all students to remember what's important when it matters.

Looking at curriculum design, assessment, and instructional practices, this book describes how teachers can optimize teaching and learning strategies no matter what grade level or subject they teach.

50 Techniques for Engaging Students and Assessing Learning in College Courses Do you want to: Know what and how well your students are learning? Promote active learning in ways that readily integrate assessment? Gather information that can help make grading more systematic and streamlined? Efficiently collect solid learning outcomes data for institutional assessment? Provide evidence of your teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure review? Learning Assessment Techniques provides 50 easy-to-implement active learning techniques that gauge student learning across academic disciplines and learning environments. Using Fink's Taxonomy of Significant Learning as its organizational framework, it embeds assessment within active learning activities. Each technique features: purpose and use, key learning goals, step-by-step implementation, online adaptation, analysis and reporting, concrete examples in both on-site and online environments, and key references—all in an easy-to-follow format. The book includes an all-new Learning Goals Inventory, as well as more than 35 customizable assessment rubrics, to help teachers determine significant learning goals and appropriate techniques. Readers will also gain access to downloadable supplements, including a worksheet to guide teachers through the six steps of the Learning Assessment Techniques planning and implementation cycle. College teachers today are under increased pressure to teach effectively and provide evidence of what, and how well, students are learning. An invaluable asset for college teachers of any subject, Learning Assessment Techniques provides a practical framework for seamlessly integrating teaching, learning, and assessment.

Engage diverse learners in your classroom with culturally responsive instruction! This new edition covers standards-based, culturally responsive lesson planning and instruction, differentiated instruction, RTI, and the Common Core.