As we begin our 12 week classes today, I thought it would be good to revisit some of the strategies we can use to integrate active learning into all of our classes. The goal is to create self-guided learning. Not stressing about coverage allows us to teach our students how to learn and thus create critical thinkers for the future. Students may approach coursework from a fairly mechanistic stance: If the instructor gives me information, I will memorize it, and get a good grade. This approach to learning doesn’t lend itself well to an active classroom, which requires students to wrestle with difficult ideas in order to lead to deeper conceptual learning. The good news is that most of your students are looking for cues from you on what you expect so they are malleable to your ideas. First, you might want to reflect on your own ideas about learning? Your own implicit ideas can have a big impact on how you teach (Good, Rattan and Dweck, 2012). Do you implicitly have performance goals for your students – and yourself -- and a "fixed" rather than a "growth" mindset about intelligence? Think about the messages that you send students. Do you show your students that you want to be questioned during class, that you own up to your own errors, and that you also can learn from them? Do you praise students for their effort or their grades? Consider intentionally framing your classroom for learning mastery. You can emphasize that learning takes effort and that anyone can improve if they work hard (Dweck 2010; Good, Rattan and Dweck 2012; Anderman and Dawson, 2010). You can create opportunities for students to reflect on the process of their own learning so they become more self-directed learners (Elby 2001; Redish and Hammer, 2009; Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000). Helping students reflect on their own learning, or “think about thinking” is termed “metacognition,” a learned skill that is unfortunately not directly addressed in many college courses. Spending a few minutes in each session about metacognition can pay off in big dividends when it comes to self-guided learning.