Last week I served on a jury in Temecula (I know…I know…scary huh?)
Reading on the Sly
While I spent most of my days frantically trying to keep up with my classes and PDP work during the hours I was not in court, I also used my downtime during the trial — waiting in hallways and jury rooms — to start reading Saundra Yancey McGuire’s Teach Students to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation.
Springboard to Our Conversation?
I will not burden you here with all of Yancey McGuire’s cool strategies (which she summarizes neatly in some very helpful jury-trial-lunch-break-friendly appendices).
Instead, I want to share the general question her work raises and see if from that we can cultivate a conversation of our own.
How Do You Teach Students How to Learn?
I invite you — by responding to this email or commenting on our Joyful Teaching blog — to share your strategies for teaching students how to learn in your class and beyond.
I will share one example from Yancey McGuire to spark some of your own memories and ideas.
Yancey McGuire teaches students a variety of ideas related to metacognition and motivation (everything from Dweck’s concept of growth mindset and a variety of self-assessment tools to thinking about diet and exercise), but one of the easiest ideas to briefly share is what Yancey McGuire calls The Study Cycle.
If you have a few minutes, watch this video about the study cycle prepared by the learning center at LSU based on Yancey McGuire’s ideas. Is this something that would help your students? Do you already have something like this — or better! — that you use and could share with us? What other ideas or materials related to teaching students how to learn do you use in your teaching and learning spaces?
Please Share Your Thoughts!
I await your wisdom and inspiration…
Gratefully Yours,
Prepostero
Please stop with your incessant emails. They are not useful, not funny and certainly not joyful. Has no one told you how annoying you are? If not, let me be the first.
In the field of Accounting, these five steps, in what they call the ‘Study Cycle’, are invaluable to student success. Fortunately, the Homework Management Systems that we utilize are extremely helpful towards this goal. Following are the steps that I use that mimic this five step cycle.
• Preview – Assign LearnSmart (learning technology) which is due prior to class lecture on subject matter.
• Attend – Points are assigned for every class period through practice work and quizzes so students must attend class regularly for these items as well as lecture/discussion. Attendance at Supplemental Instruction sessions, Tutoring, and office hours is also highly recommended.
• Review – Assign homework through our homework management system so students can continue to practice as this is key to success in Accounting.
• Study – Regular homework and practice problems accomplishes this step in the cycle.
• Check – Regular quizzes and exams accomplishes this step in the cycle.