SQ3R Is Not a New Star Wars Character

It is about that time in the semester when we begin to notice a pattern developing. We have assigned reading for our students and reminded them that it should be done before the class so that they can come with prepared questions. Yet they don't seem to have grasped the concept and so we fall back into presenting the entire reading material during class rather than using our active learning teaching interventions that promote deeper learning. We have shared some teaching interventions that work in this blog before. Dr. Dimple J. Martin offers us another process that she uses that may work for you as well. Dr. Martin writes, "First, let’s acknowledge this universal epidemic. College students despise reading textbooks and e-books that cover content with academic information. Fortunately, I discovered a cure for the reading plague that only requires five teaspoons of ingestion: 1) survey 2) question 3) read 4) retrieve and 5) review. In my class, I have found the SQ3R Method to be a step-by-step approach to learning and studying from textbooks. Although it took my students time and practice to master this method, it has been valuable in regards to preparing students for more content-driven class discussions, increased retention and understanding of information, strategic study skills, and test preparation." You can read the entire article here.

This is the time of year when we can smell the fear in the air. It is the end of the semester and that means that finals are just around the corner. Our students anxiety levels are raised and some of them begin to panic. But it doesn't have to be this way. Maryellen Weimer posted a letter to students about finals back in December 2016. It is still a great piece and the relevance echoes throughout higher education. I also found it very useful in teaching College Success Skills (CSSK 1023) as we spend a good amount of time on helping students figure out how they learn best. Weimer begins where we also begin in CSSK--start with a plan. Very often students jump into finals prep with no game plan and that is surely a recipe for disaster. One of my favorite parts of the post is this gem: "Believe in yourself. Your brain is plenty big enough to handle any question I might toss at you. You’ve just got to get the information stored in a place where you can retrieve it. Build connections between the new material and what you already know. Short-term memory is like a sponge—once it gets full, it drips. If you truly understand something, it’s much less likely to leak out." I strongly encourage you to share this letter with your students. We have sent it to the student who are participating in study groups and have received some positive feedback from them as well (letting your students know it is peer-endorsed may get them to read it). You might also remind them that the Academic Learning Center provides assistance for all students and the Long Night Against Procrastination is occurring on May 2 from 4:00 until 10:00 pm in the Magnolia Building on the Mid City Campus.

CHANGING HOW WE THINK
We have shared research here in the past about how the brain learns. Rachel Barry explains that she spent her summer reading John Medina's Brain Rules. She writes, "This book helped me to understand how our brain works and how our societal norms tend to go against the natural inclinations of the human brain. I also never realized how much I was creating my own frustrations: in work, school, and life. This book both confirmed and contradicted some of my beliefs and practices, providing years of research and clear examples to back their opinions." Click here to learn more about her thoughts on the book.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TIPS
It is about that time in the semester when some of our students discover that missing class is very detrimental to their grades and success. They often ask to meet and talk about how they can catch up. My answer is always the same. Get organized. I then help them do just that by showing them how to create a schedule on their cellphone or in their planner. I encourage them to spend some time writing down everything that they do during the week. I do this to help them discover free time that can then be used for studying. I also do this to illustrate that they are usually overestimating the time they thing they are spending preparing for classes. That is another thing. We need to remind them from time to time that the reading we require is actually a big part of their learning process and that class time should really be more about questions for clarification. Earlier this week I sent you a student success tip that I called the Weight Watcher approach to time management. I encourage you to take another look at that especially when your students come in and complain that they don't have enough time to be successful. Everything is a teachable moment.

WHAT IS TEACHING AND LEARNING
Dale Schlundt asks us to "consider the lessons we learn without being fully aware they are taking place. Take something simple, such as walking into a new building for the first time. With everyone and everything you observe, your mind is giving you feedback based on a multitude of judgments. These impressions, while sometimes incorrect, come to us with little effort. Yet they could loosely be considered teaching and learning without calling it either. I have found this to be a fruitful concept from a pedagogical standpoint. How many of us actively question this point to ourselves, “What am I teaching students, and what are they learning?” To continue reading his post, click here.

ENCOURAGING STUDY GROUPS AND EXAM PREP
Do you spend class time on exam reviews? Dr. Maryellen Weimer provides a concise list of ways you can handle this efficiently during class. She writes, "Here are two frequently asked questions about exam review sessions: (1) Is it worth devoting class time to review, and (2) How do you get students, rather than the teacher, doing the reviewing? Instead of answering those questions directly, I decided a more helpful response might be a set of activities that can make exam review sessions more effective." If you don't have the extra time in your classes, you should suggest that your students form study groups. They can book a study room in the Academic Learning Center or the Library. If they let you know when and where they are meeting, you can even stop by for a 15-minute check-in to see if they have any questions.

DIGITAL DISTRACTIONS ON THE RISE
Have you noticed an increase in the amount of time students spend on their electronic devices, even during class time? A recent study showed that on average, students use their devices 11.43 times in a typical class.  The digital distractions research also tried to determine student's motivation for using their devices during class when it obviously can cause them to miss important material. The study even asks them about what they think the consequences should be for students caught using their devices despite being warned or banned. You can find an overview of the study here.

IS A BLENDED CLASS IN YOUR FUTURE
As our online program continues to grow both in numbers of students and in the courses we are offering, the progression to hybrid or blended classes is a natural progression. We are already offering some hybrid classes but would certainly like to grow the number. The great thing about hybrid class (identified by classes that meet mostly online but have a few face-to-face sessions) is the student success rate is usually higher than either fully online or traditional face-to-face classes. Here is an interesting story about the growth of this type of delivery method. If you are interested in learning more about offering a hybrid class, please contact Susan Nealy.

COLLEGE SUCCESS SKILLS THAT WORK
With no classes scheduled for the next two weeks, things should be slowing down at BRCC, right? Not so, because this is traditionally a time for graduating high school seniors to start their college orientation process. We have held a number of sessions already with more to come. I was asked to participate and give the orientation crowds a ten minute version of how to succeed in college. Impossible you say? Not really, I say and here is part of what I tell them. College and high school are different. The clearest way to send this message is to talk about the 80/20 and 20/80 rule. In high school 80 percent of the information students learned came from the teacher. That means that 80 percent of what a student may need to pass a test is being provided in carefully crafted learning experiences that do not require any active learning to occur. In college, that role is (or should be) reversed. Students must realize that their professor will provide about 20 percent of what they need to be successful in the course. The rest of the information needs to come from other reliable sources like textbooks, journal articles, personal research, and most importantly, application of the basic knowledge. This process, usually described as critical thinking, is what sets the college experience apart from high school. So how do we get our student to shift from the 80/20 to the active learning model? First by having them understand the difference by talking about it and having them think about it. Next, talk about the college experience, your expectations, and the effort that is required to be successful (or strongly encourage them to take the College Success Skills class that we offer). Finally, talk about how the college experience and the approach they learn to apply here will benefit them for the the rest of their lives. The "real world" requires them to think critically, write well, and work with others. These are all of the skills they learn in college. At the end of my presentation at orientation, I challenge the incoming students to begin to write their own story. I ask them, "Who do they want to be and how will they get there?" I close by reminding them that making the decision to come to college infinitely increases the chance that their future will be bright.

EXPECTATIONS VERSUS ABILITIES
In a classic survey of campus faculty, Browne and Osborne noted a large discrepancy between faculty expectations for incoming students and incoming students’ perceptions of their own abilities. In particular, faculty expect college students to: critically think, manage their time, monitor their own stress levels, solve problems, clearly articulate what they do and do not know, and prioritize tasks so more important tasks are afforded more time. In this same poll, however, first year students cited the following areas of weakness in their own preparation for college: poor time management skills, ineffective methods for coping with stress, frustration with communication abilities, and poorly developed critical thinking skills. It may not surprise you that this survey was released in 1998. So here we are sixteen years later and not much has changed. The good news, according to Browne and Orborne's research, is that the process of critical thinking can be taught and modeled well enough in one semester to initiate some long-term change. Even with a model for critical thinking in hand, however, student success is not guaranteed. Students need ongoing and frequent practice with applying the critical thinking model, and they need practice with applying the model in diverse ways. Discipline-specific applications on the process of critical thinking may be less effective in the long run than requiring students to implement critical thinking in ways that are relevant to their daily lives. As you begin to plan your learning experiences for next semester, remember to look for ways to help students develop their critical thinking skills. Take another look at the survey list above at the beginning of your next semester. If your class is filled with first-time students, who were most recently in high school, they may not have all the skills your expect. That means you have to change your approach but in the end it will create less frustration for you. Remember to keep calm and be engaged.

GO BACK IN TIME
Before you leave for the summer (if you have decided not to teach during the summer term), you might want to request a copy of the updated Active Learning Manual. It is filled with active learning strategies that can be used in any type of class. There are even some suggestions specific for those teaching in the online environment. You might also want to take another look at this post on active learning. Can you spot a good learner? Revisit this post and match the list with the students in your class who had success. Is the article validated by what you observed? If you are looking at a course redesign project over the summer, take a look at this information to help you stay focused.