-: From the Center for Teaching and Learning,
and it is such a pleasure to be welcoming you all to this
morning's workshop on teaching students, how to learn.
And I'm thrilled that we have such robust attendance with
people in so many different roles and from so many different
corners of campus.
We wanna thank the Kroepsch-Maurice Endowment,
this presentation today with Dr. Saundra Y. McGuire.
Today is part of the
Kroepsch-Maurice Faculty Development and Lecture Series
event and so we're grateful for that support.
And as I hope all of you know that here at the CTL
we are very interested in supporting kind of whole
instructors thinking about whole students and the ways in
which education fits into the whole experience of our lives.
And so we wanted to give you a sense of a very broad sense
of who our wonderful guest speaker is today.
So let me tell you a little bit about
Dr. Saundra Y. McGuire before she gets started.
Dr. McGuire is the Director Emerita of the
Center for Academic Success and also retired assistant
vice chancellor and professor
of Chemistry at Louisiana State University.
She has delivered keynotes or presented workshops on
effective learning strategies at over 500 institutions
in 47 states,
gotta get those last three in and 13 countries prior to
joining LSU.
She spent 11 years at Cornell where she received the coveted
Clark Distinguished Teaching Award and her best selling
books "Teach Students How to Learn"
and Teach Yourself How to Learn"
are widely acclaimed by faculty and students.
And very interestingly, there's a parent version,
"The Parents Guide to Studying and Learning,"
which was released just last month.
And in fact,
if you take a look at "Teach Students How to Learn"
the first chapter gives a really wonderful overview of
Dr McGuire's evolution from first year graduate student
getting hooked on the question of how to help students learn
better through her, the fullness of her career.
McGuire's most recent accolades include being
named 2022 Louisiana legend by Louisiana Public Broadcasting
listed in the 2020 edition of Marcus who's, in America
the 2019 Commitment to Excellence in Academic Support Award
from the Commission for Academic Support
in Higher Education.
And she was inducted into LSU science Hall of Distinction
in 2017.
She's an elected fellow of the American Chemical Society.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science and
the Council for Learning Assistance and Developmental
Education Associations.
She's received the presidential award for excellence in
science, mathematics, and engineering mentoring
in a White House Oval Office Ceremony.
Dr. McGuire received her B.S, magna cum laude from
Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
her master's degree from Cornell and her PhD from the
University of Tennessee at Knoxville,
where she received the chancellor's citation for exceptional
professional promise.
She is married to Dr. Steven C. McGuire the
James and Ruth Smith professor of
physics emeritus at Southern University.
And they are the parents of Dr. Carlo McGuire Davis and
Dr. Stephanie McGuire and the doting grandparents of Joshua,
Ruth, Daniel, and Joseph Davis.
So you can see Dr. McGuire has an interest in connections
and learning across the lifespan.
And we are just so honored to have you with us this morning,
Dr. McGuire, and I will turn it over to you.
-: Thank you so much.
And please call me Saundra.
I know I'm probably old enough to be your mom,
but we're colleagues in this space.
So yes, well again, welcome everyone.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I'm so excited to be speaking to folks at UVM
because now I can say 48,
I've spoken to faculty in 48 states because Vermont was one
of the ones that I had to tick off the list.
And now I only have, cuz I counted DC.
So it's a total of 51.
So I only have now Alaska, Hawaii and Idaho to go.
But I wanna thank everyone for joining me to talk about a
topic that I am now so passionate about
teach students how to learn.
But it's the concept that was pretty foreign to me as
recently as about 25 years ago.
In fact, the whole,
the phrase teach students how to learn was nonsensical to
me, how you gonna teach somebody how to learn.
They don't know how to learn and you teach them
how to learn.
They're not gonna learn it cuz they don't know how to learn.
And so it just made no sense to me.
But now I understand that that means that we can teach
students that learning is a process.
It's not an activity that happens the night before a test
and we can actually teach them the components of that
process and the steps involved so that they will be in a
position to become self direct independent learners,
as opposed to relying on us to tell them everything.
Oh, and I see we have a colleague from English,
a director of undergraduate writing, great.
Well, I can tell you,
I use the chat box very liberally and I ask a lot of
questions, they don't have any right or wrong answers.
I just wanna know what your experience has been and what
you're thinking.
And we also have a few polls that are coming up,
so please participate freely and you can ask questions in
the chat box, make comments.
And I have asked my host because sometimes things come
across fast and furiously and they scroll up and I don't see
it and so if I miss something,
one of our hosts is going to unmute the mic and let us know.
So you know, a little bit about me.
And so I wanted to know just a little bit,
and this is the first poll question.
I wanna know how familiar you are with my work.
I've done lots and lots of workshops before.
So you've attended an in-person workshop or participated in
a webinar or if you've read the book or both or none of the
above and I will see.
Yeah, it's interesting with Zoom.
It's different if I see the responses in the chat box that
meant that people didn't enter them into the poll,
but I know with teams you can enter into the poll and you
see them on the chat, so.
And then I see the results as they're coming in, okay.
Oh, okay, so most of us now, 83%, none of the above
and we have 29 responses.
Oh yeah.
So we can in the poll, typically we have about 30 people
and so usually when we about 25,
I'll give you the five second warning and then we'll take it
off in five seconds.
Now let me just ask, cause I almost never use teams.
Can everybody see the compose?
Yeah, you can see that in the chat box too,
can't you?
-: Correct.
-: Okay, wonderful, okay.
And so, okay, great.
So most of you are not familiar at all.
And then the next question is how much do you know about
metacognition and nothing or just a little moderate amount,
quite a lot or more than you wanna know.
And so I will see what that comes out to be.
Yeah, the first time I did a workshop in teams was about
a month ago and I hated it, it was the bane of my existence,
but now I'm warming up to teams now because I see it does
some things that Zoom does not do.
Okay, so we've got, oh, okay.
We've got 29 responses.
So that's pretty much everybody.
Okay, and so I see we have okay.
Almost nothing, or just a little bit, quite a lot
about five and then more than I care to know too.
Now I'm one of those more than I care to know.
And so I'm wondering sometimes people put that and they say,
well, that was a mistake
but then sometimes people say, yeah, no,
I have metacognition.
I'm sick of hearing that term.
And so hopefully if you're the person who said more than I
care to know,
we'll get a slightly different perspective and see how it
impacts students and hopefully make a little bit of
difference.
And so whenever I speak in institutions,
I always like to look at the mission statement and the
vision statement and you're creating, evaluating, sharing,
and applying knowledge to prepare students,
to be accountable leaders who are gonna bring to their work
dedication to the global community,
but a grasp of complexity, effective problem solving,
communication skills and an enduring commitment to
learning and ethical conduct.
And I think this is where when students understand about
metacognition, they do become much better at
solving problems and
understanding complexity and addressing that.
And in your strategic vision,
student success and experience are it really is the first of
your three strategic imperatives.
So if we're talking about student success,
then metacognition really is very important to that.
Now my personal connection to UVM started in 2002.
Because that's when you stole my favorite provost and
this is the person you stole.
And so just put in the chat box who this person is,
if you recognize the face and I'll see if anybody knows
who this is.
Okay, I don't see any, oh, okay.
Yep, there he is Dan Fogel.
Okay, absolutely.
Well, Dan was the provost at LSU before he went to UVM.
And the reason that I say he's my favorite provost, Dan,
within the first couple of weeks when I was at LSU,
he announced in a faculty meeting and almost nobody knew who
I was because I just gotten there that he was gonna give
$100,000 to the learning center for supplemental instruction
and service learning.
And I about fell outta my chair because I wasn't expecting
that and people were looking around who is this
Saundra McGuire, who's getting a hundred thousand dollars.
But it really was the catalyst to my professional
development and understanding what this increasing student
learning was all about by way of the first supplemental
instruction leader training that I went to.
And so it really catalyzed my career and he provided
resources that turned our Center for Academic Success into a
nationally award winning unit.
And I've looked at the website for your
Center for Academic Success and I think that they would,
they're very competitive for that award.
So I'm going to encourage them to look into that.
The National College Learning Center Association
recognizes learning centers with that.
Now I also like to look at the retention and graduation
rates and thank you.
I saw the hand clap there.
Your retention rate is very good.
It's 87%, the national average is 69 and
the Vermont average is 62, and so that's very good.
Your six year graduation rate is 78.2% well above the
national average of 53.8.
But this particular website that I can use that gives me
this information also gives me the expected
six year graduation rate
based on the preparation of the students
who come and it's 79%.
So you're within a percentage point of that.
But I think that with the information that we're gonna talk
about today, you will be able to improve these rates.
And I'm gonna say to get at least over 80, maybe even 85%,
but that's, if we teach students how to learn,
if we help them develop the right mindset.
And if we motivate them to implement
effective learning strategies,
which many of them come to UVM not knowing about.
And so that's all about metacognition.
And the reason that I use metacognition as the construct to
talk with students about this is
in the past before I learned this,
because I was learning center director at Cornell,
but we always talked about study skills.
We were gonna teach students study skills.
But I find that most often when students hear study skills,
their eyes kind of glaze over.
They don't wanna hear about study skills and especially the
caliber of students who come to UVM because they've done
well in high school,
they are convinced that they know how to study.
And so study skills, they are not so interested in,
but metacognition that gets their attention because they
haven't heard that term.
And so I actually, when I'm doing a student presentation,
I have them dissect the term with me
so they know exactly what it is.
And very simply put it's your ability to think about
your own thinking.
Now I know this is a very simple definition
but I find that when I'm talking to students,
if I want them to really intuitively understand the meaning
of something, then I gotta keep it simple.
And so I tell students it's as if you have a big brain
outside your brain looking at what your brain is doing.
And that big brain is asking your brain questions.
And it's saying,
does she really understand this information
or did she just memorize last night
because the test is today.
It's your ability to be consciously aware that you are a
problem solver.
So when things come up that you don't know the answer to,
or you have a question,
you don't have to rely on somebody else
to give you the information.
You can take steps to figure out the answers
to your own questions.
And for me it takes students out of what I call victim
mentality, where they say, well, oh,
I didn't know there was a test today.
Oh, I didn't know it was gonna cover five chapters.
I didn't know the paper had to be typed.
And so these kinds of things,
students will be in a position to figure out for themselves.
And I'll give you a good example of that.
So here's the next question for the chat box.
If we really think about it,
most of the questions that our students ask us about our
courses, where could they find that information?
They come and they ask us,
but if they really thought about it,
where could they find that information?
If it's something about the course, you know,
how many tests are we gonna,
exactly next, the syllabus, yes.
And so if a student, okay.
A Blackboard or exactly the LMS, yes.
And so if a student is not using their metacognitive brain,
then they might think, oh,
I wonder when the next test is gonna be.
I need to ask the professor.
And the metacognitive brain says, no,
we don't need to ask the professor about that.
We can figure this out.
And then the brain says, well, what am I supposed to do?
And the metacognitive brain says,
well, what resources did our instructor give us
that might have that information on it?
And so it leads the students to the syllabus and they look
at the syllabus and they get the answer.
And so they don't have to ask the instructor about that.
But I tell students that doesn't mean that you're not gonna
be talking to your professors because you will.
But when you talk with your professor,
you'll be asking questions and discussing things that you
really could not get the answer to yourself.
And so the discussion will be at a much higher level.
It's your ability to plan, monitor,
and control your mental processing.
So you know if you're understanding something
or just memorizing it.
It's your ability to accurately judge your level of
learning and that's really, really important
because I find that a lot of students,
their big problem is they have no idea that the level of
learning in college at the university is very different from
high school.
When I talk with student groups, I will ask them,
how many of you have ever heard a professor say something
like you're at the university now
we operate at higher levels you gotta kick it up a notch.
Well, all the hands go up.
But then when I ask them,
who thinks you can tell me exactly what those professors are
talking about when they make that statement?
Almost no hands go up and the few that do,
they'll say things like, oh,
they mean that UVM is gonna be harder than high school.
Or sometimes they'll say they mean that we have to take more
responsibility for our own learning.
Sometimes they'll say that, well,
they're gonna give us more work.
And I say, yeah, all these things are true,
but how many of you've ever heard of Bloom's taxonomy and
almost nobody has.
And so please put in the chat box for me,
would you say, is this is a yes or no question?
A lot of my questions are yes or no for the chat box,
but yes or no would you say you are very familiar
with Bloom's taxonomy or not so much, okay.
And I'm seeing some yeses and yeah,
it's changed over years when I first started doing this and
I see Rachel says, no, not a problem,
cuz we're gonna talk about what it is.
But Alexandria says yeppers peppers.
When sometimes people say I'm all bloomed out.
Oh yeah, Krathwohl version.
Yep, that's what we're gonna talk about.
And so don't worry if you're not because gonna talk about
it but when I ask students this almost nobody has.
And let me ask the other question because most of us are
very familiar with it.
So yes or no, have you actively taught Bloom's taxonomy
Krathwohl version or any version?
Have you actively taught it to your students,
spent some class time going over Bloom's taxonomy and
talking about the different levels?
Have you done that?
Give me a yes or no.
Okay, and so now the noes are coming in.
And I totally understand that because I learned
Bloom's taxonomy as a graduate student.
My PhD is actually in chemical education,
but I never taught it to students because I learned it as a
construct that we as faculty would use
to target our instruction, to target our assessments and
never taught it to students.
But when I got to LSU,
they were teaching Bloom's to students very successfully.
And so I started to teach Bloom's to students.
And the number one reaction I got from students was,
wow, I wish somebody had told me about this before.
I wish I had known about this in high school
because it makes all the difference in the world.
And I think that Bloom's taxonomy is the lens through which
students have to hear that statement that is at a higher
level because if they don't even know levels exist,
then they have no idea that there's anything other than
memorization and regurgitation.
And I say, Alexandria says,
I wish I had time flexibility to do so.
Well, what I'm gonna suggest actually is you really don't
necessarily have to take any class time.
It helps if you take class time.
And I have a section in the book that talks about that
because of course that's what most faculty say,
well, I really don't have time to do this,
but there's a biology professor who spends a lot of,
well, I shouldn't say a lot of time
because it doesn't take a lot of time.
But she introduces students to this and she revisits it
during the semester.
And I asked her, how do you have time to do this?
And so she said, well, I make time.
She says, I don't have time to do it,
but I make time to do it because I find that when students
understand this information,
I can actually spend less time going into detail on some of
the other things I do because now students are in a position
to understand things on their own that I had to
explain and detail.
But there's also a video that I'm going to recommend.
In fact, if you just Google go to YouTube, Google,
Saundra, McGuire metacognition.
There's a YouTube video that several faculty I think is now
got maybe over a thousand views,
but sometimes faculty will just assign students to
watch that video and then write a brief reflection
on how they're gonna use that information in the course.
And so you really don't have to take any time at all
out of class time, but it's really important for our
students to understand Bloom's.
I wonder if it helps students recognize that the
memorization that can be their responsibility.
Exactly, that Lennon.
Yes, that's exactly what this professor says.
And it helps the flipp classroom work so much better also
when students know what's going on.
So I'm gonna really encourage us to find a way to expose
our students to Bloom's.
And it's your ability to know what you know and
what you don't know so you don't show up at a test or a quiz
thinking, okay, I'm good, I studied all night,
I know this stuff.
And then you get to the test or a quiz and see the first two
items, it's like, oh, oh I guess I don't know this.
And there's a reason though that most students haven't
developed metacognitive skills because it really just wasn't
necessary before.
And to give you an idea about that,
these are data from the
UCLA Higher Education Research Institute,
where every year they survey first year students,
they ask all kinds of students,
students at four year universities,
research one year universities,
two year colleges and they ask a lot of questions,
but I'm particularly interested in the answers to two.
One is the amount of time that students spent doing any
homework at all in 12th grade and the average that they had
when they graduated.
And you'll notice that this number hovers in the
low forties, it started at 37.3.
Now it's about 43, but the percent who graduated with an
A average you'll notice this number past 50% in 2013.
And it is now,
in 2019, the last year for which the data were available
almost 60%.
And so what that means is that students aren't spending any
time outside of class doing any homework in high school,
but they're making A's.
And so I always say that our students are
just being good scientists.
They're using all of the data that they've accumulated up to
this point in time and their data tell them
I don't have to do anything outta class,
I'm still gonna make an A.
And so they are acting on that when they get to our
institutions and so we have to divest them of that notion.
And I got some additional information about
student behavior.
When I asked students the following questions.
And I want you to put in the chat box,
how you think most students answered.
The first question I asked was what did most of
your teachers do in high school,
the class period before the test?
And put in the chat box tell me please what you think
they said, what was the answer?
Okay, review absolutely Deborah, review
that's exactly what I thought.
I was expecting that.
And so then my second question was, well,
what did they do during the review and put in the chat box
tell me what you think they did during the review.
And I'll tell you what I thought they were gonna say, okay,
look at slides.
Okay, let me take a couple of other responses
in the chat box.
I went over material that will be on the test, okay.
And Brittany, you are,
okay, review games, et cetera.
Okay, and so Brittany right now is closest to
what they actually said.
Because actually they didn't say review material
that would be on the test.
They said,
they gave us the questions and we went over the answers.
They gave us the test questions and
we went over the answers.
Now I was shocked.
So put in the chat box yes or no.
If you realized that this is going on in high schools and
the first group of students I talked with about this were
students from Louisiana and LSU.
And I thought it was a Louisiana phenomenon,
but I have asked this question to students now all over the
country and I get the same thing.
I do trainings with tutors.
And I ask in a group of tutors I ask this and
they say the same thing.
And so what I thought they were gonna say is what you put in
the chat box, and I was all set to say yes,
but we don't do that at the university,
you have to do that yourself.
But they said, when they said, well,
they gave us the test questions and we went over the
answers, I said, oh, okay.
Well, if you had never gone to class a single day,
except just the day before the test,
and you went to class that day and you paid really close
attention to what was going on in the class.
What do you think the lowest grade you would've made on the
test that day and put in the chat box
what you think that was.
Okay, so let's see.
Is it Jerry, (indistinct), oh, Jen, okay.
He said, oh, you read it in the book, yeah.
Okay, B minus, let me get a couple of more responses.
Okay, A actually a very few students said A,
a few students said C, but most of them said B.
And so that really helped me understand why we need to help
students have a reality check to find out what's going on at
the university.
But we can't get mad at them because it's not their fault
that they don't know this because nobody's ever exposed
these ideas to them.
There was an article and inside higher ed about
how students feel about active learning.
We all are trying to increase the amount of active learning
that we do and how many of you have found yes or no?
That students tend to resist active learning.
They don't really like it so much.
Yes, if you found that your students don't really like it
and just put no, if your students are fine
with active learning.
And okay, so I'm seeing a yes.
Yes, and what this article says is that students think that
they're learning a lot more.
If there's a lecturer who just gives them the information,
then if they are required to talk to their neighbor.
Okay, it seem to enjoy it while it's happening
but then in the student evals they complain exactly, yes.
And so what I recommend is sharing with students
the research in these areas.
Because one of the surprising things to me
when I started doing this was the positive response is
students had to research.
If we said what the research says is then they get a whole
different perspective and a different attitude.
And also with my approach,
I want to ask reflection questions.
I don't like to tell students what to do.
I like to ask them questions that will help them reflect on
their past behavior and the current situation.
And then they give me the answers.
They give me the information I would've given to them.
And so, because they come up with the information,
it's much more likely for them to act on it.
Okay, love it in small classes with discrete activities and
high enrollment classes, okay, great.
And so what all this means is that we as faculty,
we have to help students make that transition.
First of all, identify what the gap is between
what they're currently doing
that's leading to their current level of learning and
lower grades than they would like,
and the productive behavior that's gonna lead to desired
learning and the grades that they want to get.
Now, you have a very, very valuable resource at UVM,
your Center for Academic Success and just put in the
chat box yes or no
if you would say that you are very familiar with that.
If I called you up and said,
tell me exactly what that center does and what goes on over
there, give me a yes or no in the chat box.
If you would be able to hold at least give me five minutes
on what that center does.
Give me a yes or no.
Okay, somewhat familiar.
Okay, absolutely yes, no love the center.
Okay, yes.
So it looks like a lot of you are that is your,
a very, very good resource.
They know all this stuff that I'm talking about and more.
So please direct your students there and in fact,
they're very, very valuable partners in this effort
because they can work with you to help
students understand this.
And so what I'm gonna do is introduce you to some of the
very important strategies by way of introducing you
to students.
And the first student is Dana,
who was a first year physics student.
And she was about to drop out of the physics major
after she'd made a 54.
I met her at a change major workshop that was being given by
one of the professional advisors and we had
professional advisor in the session, at least one.
And so I, she was gonna change her major.
And so when she was leaving, I asked her if she had about a,
not a minute, an hour to talk with me in the office.
And she said, sure.
And I said, look,
I'm not gonna try to talk you out of leaving physics,
because if you wanna do something else,
that is perfectly fine with me.
But I want you to know that you're leaving physics
not because you can't do it,
but because you've chosen to do something else.
And so she did, we spent about an hour.
This was her next exam score 97,90 on the final.
She had a 4.0 that semester.
And she is now happily practicing medical physics.
And her problem was that before she learned about
metacognition and the problem solving,
the homework approach, we're gonna talk about,
she was memorizing formulas.
She was using online homework programs,
but then after she learned about how she could use
metacognitive strategies,
she could solve problems on her own.
Then that's when she really took off.
And so in the next slide, now this is, she's gonna speak.
And I found that in Microsoft teams, for some reason,
when I hit start, some of you will hear her,
but others may not.
So if you're not hearing anything after I hit start,
then you have to click the little arrow yourself
and you will start to hear her.
So I'm gonna hit start
and if you don't hear anything within five seconds,
then hit start so we can all hear what she says.
And I'm gonna ask you to give me a thumbs up
if you can hear her or thumbs down if you cant.
And I can tell you, she actually starts off pretty softly
and so you've got to listen very carefully,
but she gets louder as it goes on.
Okay, so here we go.
Okay, and I know some of you had to start it yourself,
so I'll give another five seconds
so everybody gets to the end.
Okay, so I'm assuming everybody's to the end now.
Yeah, and so Dana's story.
Now, one thing she said that was a little bit off.
She said that, you know,
we worked together the whole semester and actually we did
work together the whole semester
because I became her mentor.
But I only spent that one hour talking with her about
metacognition and the strategies
and after that she took off
when she said that I'm phenomenal was not me.
I'm not phenomenal, it's the strategies that are phenomenal.
And they really are as she said, the golden ticket
to success.
And so what I taught Dana essentially,
was how to do her homework differently.
What I learned at Cornell was most students will start their
homework the night before, they will read a problem
and they'll flip back in the chapter to find an example of
that problem and just follow the example and turn the
homework in.
Or if it's a question they'll flip back,
find a discussion of what they've gotta answer.
And then they answer and they turn it in.
And of course they do very well on the homework because the
book has done the homework for them.
And so by the time when they get to the test or quiz,
then they have to do it on their own
and that's when things go south.
So let me just ask yes or no in the chat box,
have you had students who did really well on homework,
but then they got D or Fs on the tests.
Have you ever seen that phenomenon?
Okay, yeah
and students have no idea why that's the case
because when they do the home work, I mean, they really,
in their heart of hearts, as we say in Louisiana,
bless their hearts,
they do think that they've done the homework.
But yes, okay, Chegg,
that's coming up in just a minute, Luke.
And so what I talk with students about,
and in the book I really lay out the whole process
so this is kind of the abbreviated version.
But we talk about the fact that cuz they were telling me
that this is what they do, they flip back.
So I said, what you've gotta do is
you've gotta study material first
before you even look at the first problem or question.
And then when you get to an example,
just read the problem statement and work at yourself.
If you study the information,
then you will be able to at least start that example.
And you'll probably be able to work it and just work it
until you get to an answer.
And when you've gotten to an answer,
just compare the answer you got with the answer in the book.
If you got the same answer,
you can look at what the author did,
but if you didn't get the same answer, don't look yet,
try to figure out where your mistake was.
And then I ask students at this point in the process
is making a mistake good or bad.
And I know quite a few of you read the book and
that's fantastic.
And so if you read the book, you will know the answer.
So don't put your response in the chat box please.
But I'm gonna ask everybody else when I tell students,
if you don't, if you didn't get the same answer,
then look at what the,
then okay, if you didn't get the same answer,
don't look yet, try to figure out where your mistake was.
And I'll ask students at this point in the process,
do you think making a mistake is good or bad and put in the
chat box for me, good or bad?
What do you think students say about making a mistake
at this point?
Okay, I see one good.
I see bad, okay, great.
Okay, now Luke said good.
So Luke had you read the book or not?
Bad because you're the only one who said good so far.
Oh, there you are, yes.
-: I haven't read the book yet.
I think it's good.
I, the students,
I started typing that before you said what the students
think, the students think it's bad to make.
-: Okay, all right.
We'll see I was just about to give you full credit,
but now you've come clean.
And you said that the students say bad,
faculty always say, students say bad.
Students always say good.
I've never had a student.
And yeah, I've never had a student audience that said bad,
but I tell students that faculty say that they say bad.
And so, yeah.
And you say it's good.
And so put in the chat box for me, please.
Why is making a mistake good at this point?
Why would you say making a mistake is good at this point?
Because I guarantee you that what you're gonna tell me is
exactly that yeah.
Deborah, the number one thing is they say,
you learn from mistakes.
They say, yeah, they say,
now I know where my brain is having a tendency to go wrong.
And absolutely Jen, they say, it's not the test.
And so I'm not gonna lose points on the test and I have time
to make corrections, absolutely.
But before we ask that question,
students have never thought about, well,
they haven't even given themselves a chance to make a
mistake cuz they're just following what was in the example.
And so, and I asked students, have you ever had a case
where you got a test back and you looked at it.
But now let me ask you this form of the question.
Have you ever had a student who came to you and they
looked at the test and they said, oh,
I would've done so much better,
but I just made simple mistakes.
I made so many careless, simple mistakes.
Has that ever happened?
Have you heard that from students?
Cause when I asked students,
if that's what they've heard and that's happened to them and
they said, oh yeah, all the time.
And I tell them, I used to think the same thing I said, oh,
these are careless mistakes.
But I said,
now I believe that there's no such thing as
just careless mistakes.
Mistakes are things that have to be made.
Mistakes only look careless in retrospect,
once you know what the right thing is, you know,
a mistake looks so simple,
but mistakes are things that have to be made.
And I'll ask students so either you gonna make them during
this process or where you going to make them.
And what do you think students tell me?
If you don't make the mistakes now during this process,
doing your homework,
where are you destined to make the mistakes?
And put in the chat box what you think too.
Exactly, yeah, they say on the test.
And so I'm not telling them you need to do this or you're
gonna screw up on the test.
They're telling me if I don't do this,
I'm gonna mess up on the test.
And so it is much more likely that they're gonna change
their behavior.
So let me, let this catch up check to see if it's correct
if it's not figure out where your mistake was.
And that's just the examples I tell them when you get to the
actual homework problems, treat them as if it's a test
or a quiz, try to do three or four.
Speed it up,
doing it little faster because that's what you're gonna have
to do on a test or a quiz.
And many students don't get the most that they could on test
and quizzes not because they don't know the answers,
but they run out of time.
They run out of time because they're plotting through
everything slowly because you have as much time as you want
when you're doing homework.
But if you practice this before the test or a quiz,
then it's much more likely you're gonna do it.
And I see Luke has a hand up.
Yes, go ahead, Luke.
-: So we make a big thing about letting them work on homework
in groups.
Like we do an active learning physics class and we have them
work in groups and then we have them work in groups
on the homework.
Do you discourage that?
Do you want them to do the homework by themselves?
-: Well, okay, that's an excellent question.
I love students working in groups,
but I want them to try the homework before
they come to the group.
So when they get to the group,
everybody should have tried the homework problems and bring
that to the group work.
And the reason is because,
and groups always you've got these super dedicated people
who are gonna work everything.
And then if the group comes together and there are people
who haven't even looked at it or tried it,
they're gonna be relying on these other people to kind of
lead them through.
It's almost like having the example in the book to rely on.
And so if they've never had a chance to think about the way
they would work the problem themselves,
then that opportunity is forever lost
when they hear somebody else explain it.
And so that's what I tell students all the time,
you've gotta figure out how your brain wants to approach
this problem before you see or hear how anybody else is
doing it, because that's the way you are going to learn it.
And one of the things that surprised me about students is
when I explained the rationale for what I'm recommending,
they get it, they see it
and they're much more willing to do this as opposed to
just relying on somebody else.
So I think that group work is great,
but I think having them,
having a discussion with them about why it's important for
them to do the problems before they come together as a group
is also very helpful.
Okay, and I see Lennon says,
I tell them when working in groups to make sure everyone
takes a turn on presenting a problem or a solution.
And yeah, and that's great,
but I think many of them will resist that if they don't
really understand why that's the case.
And I find that going through this information actually
helps them understand why that's so important to do that.
Absolutely.
And then the next strategy I'm gonna share with you is a
reading strategy that a psychology student used,
he made a 47 and 52 on the first two tests.
I talked with him about 30 minutes the night before the
third test, he made an 82, then 86 on the next one.
So I took him to lunch to find out, what are you doing?
And so his response to me, he said,
I'm just doing as you told me to do.
And what it was, was a reading strategy because he told me
that he would do the readings,
but when he got to the test or quiz,
he could recognize some of the terms,
but he didn't remember it well enough to get
the questions right.
And so there's a very specific reading strategy.
It's SQ5R and there are other ones it's, you know, so,
and it started out actually SQ3R and then it went to 4R
and now it's 5R and very simple to teach students this
and typically involves really just previewing the text
before you do the reading so that you give your brain
a big picture of what you are about to read.
Because what we know from the cognitive science literature
is that if the brain has a big picture,
if it's trying to learn something new,
if it has an overview,
a big picture of what it's about to learn,
and then it starts getting individual details to fit in that
big picture,
it's much more efficient than if it starts out getting the
individual details, trying to create its own big picture.
And so if you do that preview by looking at the bold phase
print, the italicized words, any charts or graphs,
so your brain knows what it's gonna be reading about.
And then you come up with questions that you want the
reading to answer for you.
So for example, if I were reading a psychology book,
I might see positive reinforcement,
negative reinforcement and punishment and a chapter.
And so I might say, well,
I wonder what this thing's gonna say is the difference
between negative reinforcement and punishment,
because they both sound pretty bad to me.
So you've given yourself a purpose for doing the reading.
And then when you start to read,
just read the first paragraph, stop,
put that information in your own words,
then read the second paragraph and stop,
put that information in your own words and try to fold in
what was in the first paragraph
and then do subsequent paragraphs the same way.
And I, well let me just ask you to put in the chat box.
Does it sound like if you gotta do all that,
it's gonna take a long time to get through the reading.
Does it sound like it's gonna take,
okay, instructors providing the reading questions,
scaffolds as takeaway the students agency
of development (indistinct).
Okay, I'll get to that one.
Okay, so my question was,
does it sound like this reading strategy that we're talking
about is gonna take longer to do the reading?
Okay, so it sounds slow.
Yes, she had that big picture.
Okay, yes and it does.
And when I ask student, I mean, then I ask students,
does it sound like it's gonna take a lot longer
they'll say yes.
But let me go back to the question in the chat box about
giving reading questions.
No, I think that giving reading questions is absolutely fine
as a scaffolding,
but because what you're doing is kind of doing for the
student what we're asking the student to do.
And so maybe a variation of that you might ask them to when
they've got the big picture,
come up with questions that they want to get
from the reading.
And then look at the questions that you've given them to see
if the questions that they came up with are on the reading
list, or what's the difference,
because I think that combination is gonna be
the best of both worlds,
where they see what the good questions are that they should
be coming up with from the list of questions you've given
them but they've also spent some time coming up with their
questions also.
Okay, yeah.
And so students say that, it take longer and,
but I find that it doesn't.
I tell students, everybody I've taught this to like,
I speak at hyperbole all the time, so please forgive me.
I said, everybody, not everybody,
but the students have gotten back to me love this thing.
And they'll tell me, oh, Dr. McGuire,
that reading strategy is fantastic.
I'm getting so much more out of my reading now.
And I'll ask them.
I said, you know, that's fantastic
are you finding that it's taking you longer to get through
the reading using this than what you were doing before and
to a person they say, well, no,
actually I finished the reading sooner doing it this way.
And so my question to you is why should,
and you may not get a it because I haven't set it up as
completely as I set it up for students,
but why should it take less time to finish the reading
doing all this than what they were doing before,
do you think?
And when I ask this group to students, but I've given them
the whole setup and so they have an advantage over you.
Okay, yeah, actually that is the very first one.
Although I see this is CTL events
and so you've probably read the book, right?
CTL events, okay.
Reading a more focused manner.
Purpose motivated, yeah, not rereading.
Yeah, so the students will say,
well, you don't have to reread
and they're absolutely right.
CTL event (laughs).
Okay, but with the old way,
they would read a little bit and go back, read, go back,
read, go back, read, go back.
But with this strategy,
they are moving more slowly through the reading,
but they get to the end point sooner,
cuz they're not doing all that back and forth and they
understand better.
And actually you speed up as the process goes,
because you could imagine if you get to paragraph six and
you've understood everything in the first five,
you're gonna be able to read the six paragraph
a little bit faster.
And yeah, they're not struggling towards the
end of the chapter because they haven't learned what was in
the beginning of the chapter, absolutely.
And so this is just a summary of this.
Do that survey come up with questions and then read
one paragraph at a time while you're summarizing and you can
teach them to annotate in the margins.
And then the next R is review when they get to the end of a
section, review the information that was in that section.
And then the last R is for reflect.
Are there any other views?
Are there any ways that maybe you would have answered a
question or tackled a topic that's different
from the author?
And I noticed we have some folks in who are in
the medical area.
And so let's say if there were a course on
community nutrition.
And the textbook said tell all of your patients that they
should eat a diet that is very rich in
fresh fruits and vegetables.
Well, what if you know that your clients live in a
food desert, so they don't have access to
fresh fruits and vegetables.
What are you gonna tell them to do that they are able to do
because they can't do what's in the book.
And so that's really important.
And when students understand this and start to implement
this, then it makes a big difference.
I've taught this to grad students, law school students,
med school students, dental school students,
divinity school students,
and nobody has taught them this before
and it makes a big difference.
And so what I'm gonna do now is put a pass a job and
I'm going to give you a little time to read it.
I'm gonna take it off the screen and ask a question.
And this one is not in the book.
So folks who read the book you can do this too.
So let's start reading this.
Okay, you might not have finished the whole thing,
but I will take it off the screen now.
And ask if I asked you this is a yes or no question.
If I asked you to unmute your mic and summarize everything
that was in that passage to the group,
would you be able to do that?
Okay, I'm seeing some noes.
Okay, I certainly would not have been able to do it.
Okay, so, but let me ask this.
If you had known before you started to read
that this is about flying a kite.
I want you to reread it and just put in a chat box
yes or no.
If it makes more sense now that you know what it's about.
Okay, yeah, and they're different.
There's a different example in the book.
But I share this with students because the other thing that
I like to do, yes,
(indistinct) says it seemed like some
kind of a riddle before, yeah.
I like to give students an experience that shows them that
if they do what I'm talking about,
then it's gonna make a difference.
And so when they see something like this,
then they realize that, oh, okay.
So if I take a little bit of time to do that preview so that
I know what I'm reading about,
it's gonna make a huge difference because now things are in
context and this is the reference for that.
And that's the link to that particular information.
And I just wanted to show you the impact that this had.
I was doing a workshop for a group of community college
faculty who were partnering with high school teachers to
offer dual enrollment courses.
And there was a high school teacher there and his son was in
the room with him.
So he was listening with his headsets.
But when I started talking about the reading strategy,
then he disconnected his headsets so his son could hear him.
Now, his son goes to a very competitive high school
Dematha he had a GPA of over 4.0, 4.2,
the kind of students that you'd probably see at UVM.
But three weeks ago,
he had received a 72 on his test in honors biology.
And so he was studying for a test.
I got this email Monday at about 4:30.
So his son evidently had come back home from school.
But Sunday, when he was studying,
he told him to follow the same strategy for this upcoming
test that he had learned in the session when his dad
disconnected his headset so he could hear the strategy.
So he came back home, he made an 86 on the test today.
He was so relieved and grateful for the advice.
And he said, thank you so much.
And I found that this is the impact that this information
has on students.
I mean, it gives them almost like a new lease on life.
They are so grateful.
They'll think you are phenomenal because you have
the golden ticket to their success.
And so one of the ways I think it's important to recognize
that the important thing about this process is not to tell
students information,
but to ask them reflection questions where they think about
what they are doing.
And so there are two that I find particularly impactful.
One is I'll ask students what's the difference,
if there's any difference at all
between studying and learning.
And normally what I do is I ask people to put in the
chat box what you would say the difference is.
But in the interest of time,
cuz I see we are getting to the end.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna tell you the top three
reasons that I hear from student.
And you can see if what you were thinking about was one of
those reasons or if not please put that in the chat box
if it's different.
But nobody's ever asked them this before.
But when I ask them and so you could ask for
your discipline, what's the difference between
studying French and learning French?
What's the difference between studying sociology and
learning sociology?
And so the three most common answers I get from students is
they'll say, ah,
studying is just memorizing information for a test
or a quiz.
But learning is when I understand that information,
when I can apply it,
when I can relate it to what I already know.
The next thing they say is studying is short term,
learning is long term.
And then sometimes they'll say studying is tedious,
learning is fun.
But lately,
and I'm getting a lot more of this then I would say,
I got pre pandemic and it's,
and I don't know if it's related to pandemic,
I don't know why it would be.
Cuz I got some of these before, but now so many more.
Well they'll say studying is when I go over what I've
already learned.
And it used to come only from high school students.
My college students almost never said that,
but now a lot of universities student are saying,
well, studying is when I go over what I've already learned.
And so then I say, okay, well where did you learn it?
And you can't put this in the chat box for me please.
Oh, oh, no.
Okay, I was gonna say put this in the chat box,
but that's okay because I see that CTL events has just put
the link again and somebody had missed it before.
And so if I ask this question,
then it's gonna scroll off the screen again, really fast.
So, okay.
But yeah, it's yeah.
I guess you can either copy it or click on it and then
you'll have it.
But I, okay.
So now I lost my train of thought and I forgot the question
that I asked you.
Anybody remember what question I was about to ask?
If you do put it in the chat box and if not,
I'm sure it'll come to me, but.
-: Viewing what we learned.
-: I'm sorry, say that again.
-: Studying and viewing what we learned.
-: Thank you very much.
Yes, yes.
And so they'll say it's when we go over what we already
learned and I ask them when did you learn it?
And they say in class.
And so now I always take some time to discuss with students
cuz I hear this answer now a lot.
And I tell them the difference between learning about
something and learning something so that they understand
that when they're in class,
they're really learning about the information,
but they haven't really learned it unless they really could
explain it to somebody unless they really,
it's in their long term.
And so they get that.
But otherwise they think they've learned it in class and
they just have to go over it when they're studying.
And then the next question is,
for which task would you work harder if you had to,
I told you had to make an A on the next test or if I told
you that before the next test I was gonna offer a
review session to the class and you are
gonna teach that review session.
So I'm gonna have you come up to the front of the class
without any notes or anything and explain the information to
the class,
paying particular attention to the more difficult concepts
to make sure everybody in the class was prepared for the
next day which would they work harder for.
And I'm gonna ask you yeah, put in the chat box,
which one would you work harder for?
And I'll see, yeah, B this is what most students say.
Now a few students say A,
but typically the ones who say A are studying the right way,
but they'll say B and I'll ask,
why would you work hard if you had to teach the material?
And the three most common answers I get there is they'll
say, well, I gotta really know if I'll have to teach it,
or sometimes they'll say I don't wanna be embarrassed in
front of the class.
And then sometimes they'll say the more empathetic students
will say, well, I wanna make sure everybody understands it.
So I wanna sure I can explain it more than one way.
I can use charts, diagrams for those people who want to
see it visually.
And so they recognize that they would work harder
if they had to teach it.
Okay, and Nina says, yeah,
hence presentations are more intense prep than writing
papers, absolutely.
Yeah in veterinary school we had a mantra yeah.
See one, do one, teach one, absolutely.
And when we go through these reflection questions,
then students really intuitively understand
the power in that.
And that it's not just a mantra that they will see the
results when they do this.
And so then I ask students up to this point,
have you been more often in study mode or learn mode,
and of course they all say study mode.
And then I ask them up to this point,
have they been in scenario A mode or scenario B mode?
And they've been in scenario A mode.
And when they say that, I say, great,
I love it when you're doing everything wrong.
Because that means when you start doing some things
differently, you are much more likely to see a
big improvement in what you're doing.
And so an example of,
I also like to give students examples of other students who
have used these strategies and what the impact has been.
Oh, and I forgot to ask you,
I ask faculty now to do something that I wish I had done
when I first started teaching, but I did not.
I started doing it only about 15 years ago.
And that is everybody in this session has had students who
were not doing well, and then they came to you for help.
And then they started doing a lot better.
Cuz I had students like that,
but I never asked those students to send me an email and
tell me exactly what you're doing differently.
And now I do that,
and I want you to do that and keep those emails because that
can add your repertoire of strategies.
But in addition to that you will have evidence
if a student comes in and says, oh, well was me,
I made a 60.
You'll say, okay, no, I can share strategies with you
that someone who made a 40 on the first test used and ended
making A or B in the course or whatever.
And then keep them before and after scores
because Ty, he came up,
he heard this presentation and he came up after he said,
I really like this.
I'm gonna start teaching the information to my betta fish.
And then about five weeks later,
he gave me his second scores in biology and chemistry from
the sixties to 98 in bio, 83 in chem and
ended up with a B in both courses.
And this is the email that he sent me.
He started attending more of the SI sessions.
He was attending him sporadically before and the exam
reviews, and before he learned this information,
he would go to the sessions,
but he wouldn't really do anything to prepare.
But now he tries to answer as many questions as he can
before he goes to see where he is in terms of understanding.
And so he would know what he really needed to concentrate on
to understand.
Then afterwards he'd go to his room and tech the materials
to his betta fish and anything he couldn't explain,
he'd study more and then he continued that cycle until he
could explain everything in his notes.
And yes, there's stuffed animals.
Lennon says, yeah, I have pictures, students send me stuff.
I've got stuffed animals, I've got pictures of infants.
One graduate student sent me a picture of his
baby group plant that he was using to prepare for his
licensure exam and he said that he made her score way
higher than he needed to.
And he was pretty sure if baby group had taken the test,
he would've passed it also.
And I taught this to a group of students at
Howard University.
And before I got back on the plane to come back to
Baton Rouge, they had texted me this picture.
Look what you inspired.
So I tell students, no, no, no, no.
You don't have to buy your own pet, ah,
this baby group plant, okay.
And so I thought about this fish, in March two years later,
I wonder if he'd gotten flushed down somebody's target or if
he was still living and he's still alive and
living with Makayla.
Now the next little activity that we do is one that I use to
show students why I am convinced that they could have made a
50 on the first test, 90 on the next one.
And so on the next slide, after this one,
they're gonna be a series of numbers all jumbled up.
And I am going to ask you to first locate the number one.
And then after that locate the number two and three
locate them in sequence.
And when I take them off the screen indicate the number that
you got to when you were finding in sequence.
So let's start locating the numbers now.
Okay, so put in the chat box the number that you got to when
you were locating them in sequential order.
Okay, 10, six, seven, okay, four, eight.
Yeah, and you're like most audiences,
usually it's single digits are very low double digits.
Okay, so now I'm gonna have you look at it again and see a
vertical line a horizontal line and the physician of the
number one.
And so now tell me what you notice about how the other
numbers are positioned because they are positioned
according to something.
What do you find?
How are they arranged?
What are they arranged,
exactly clockwise and by quadrant,
most students now say quadrant,
cuz they don't know how to read an analog clock.
Absolutely, so the one is here, the two is here,
the three is there, the four is there the five, six,
seven, eight, et cetera.
So now I'm gonna give you 15 seconds and put in the
chat box the number that you got, right?
I mean the number that you got to this time.
So let's start locating the numbers now.
And stop.
So how many did you find this time?
Okay, 12, 12, 14, 21, okay.
15, 18, yeah, everybody's in double digits and it looks like
most people got maybe at least twice as many as before.
And so I tell students that's proof positive that you could
have made a 40 on the first test, 80 on the next test or 45
and that'll be example in the book
usually people get three times as many.
Now what was the major difference between the first and
second attempts?
Why could we do so much better the second time around?
Okay, yes, we had a system of doing it.
We had prior knowledge about what was involved.
We broke the job down into smaller segments.
We understood how the information was organized, absolutely.
And so I tell students that's the key for their courses.
You've gotta know how the information is organized.
How does information in chapter six relate to information in
chapter two, if you break it into smaller chunks,
then you're going to be able to master that better than if
you're just looking at the whole thing trying to digest
everything at once.
And so that makes a big difference.
Now I see that it is now 11:08 and we're supposed to end at
11:15, but I may go over about four or five minutes,
but I never do that without getting permission
from my attendees.
So is it okay?
Put yes or no if it's okay.
Okay, I'm seeing some thumbs up.
Oh yeah, and it's gonna be recorded.
So anybody who has to leave before the very end,
our permission granted, thank you, Sheila.
And so anybody who has to leave, it's going to be recorded
so you'll get the last part.
But I didn't know any of this stuff before I got to LSU.
Well maybe 10% of it I knew when I was at Cornell.
Most of it I didn't know,
I didn't even think it was possible.
And so then when I found out it was possible,
I started reading everything I get my hands on and
how people learn was a great resource for me.
And now they have a second version that came out in 2018,
"How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures."
And so it has more to do with culturally responsive teaching
and how we can really become in tune with the cultures that
our students come from because that is very, very important.
Oh, Lennon says one of my favorite resources.
Yeah, it's great.
And so we know a lot about learning now that we didn't know
before, we know that active learning is much more lasting
than passive learning
even though students tend to resist it.
Pat Cross says that passive learning is like an oxymoron.
You gotta be active if you're learning.
We know that thinking about thinking is very important.
And hence even introducing students to the term
metacognition is really important.
And then the level at which learning occurs is important.
And this is where Bloom's taxonomy comes in.
And this is just kind of a hierarchy of learning levels.
Although I do know that I have a colleague in education in
the session and so when Benjamin Bloom and colleagues did
this, they really didn't intend for it to be a hierarchy.
But I like to think,
I like to present it to students as a hierarchy
because I want them to know that knowing something,
having some information in their heads is very important.
And I know that you can create things, master artisans,
a lot of them will create things and they have no idea of
what the theory is.
They're not even operating down there so you don't have to
have all of these in place,
but I'd like to present it this way for students to say
that, yeah,
there's some things you need to know and so memorizing
and then now if you can understand it well enough to explain
it to your 80 year old grandmother,
your eight year old nephew in words they understand give
them analogies from their life, your understanding.
If you can answer questions where problems you've never seen
before, you're at applying.
If you could take any concept,
break it down into simpler concepts and explain how those
all fit together, you're analyzing.
If you could look at any two ideas, any two theories,
any two concepts and determine whether one is more likely to
be correct than another you're evaluating.
And if you can come up with your own ideas,
your own thoughts, your own ways of doing things,
then you're creating.
And this, I find that when we teach students about
Bloom's, taxonomy they get it, they really understand it.
And so one of the ways
and this is our next poll question.
When I teach students about Bloom's, I ask them when,
think back to high school.
And when you were in high school,
what was the highest level of Bloom's you had to
consistently operate to make A's and B's in your
high school classes.
And I see the responses are coming in and now I know some
people had to leave so we have about 27 or so people still
in the session.
So when we get to about 15 responses,
I will give you the five second warning and we are there.
Oh, okay, creating but I was in honors.
Okay, yes, and so I get it.
Yeah, and so most of you said either remembering or
understanding 75% and so you are, oh, and I didn't vote.
And so what I find, okay, yes.
And so this is what students say,
but then we ask them now that you have been at UVM
for a while, cuz I say in the book,
I like to do this after students have been in,
they've had their first round of tests or quizzes.
Cuz if we do it before that
they're not gonna think they need it.
What's the lowest level you think you've gotta consistently
operate here at UVM to learn to the level where you're gonna
make the A's and B's that you want in your classes and what
do you think students say?
And I'm seeing, okay, we are moving up,
understanding, applying.
Okay, we are almost up to 15.
And so yeah, okay, now we're 16.
So we'll have three minutes before we see what.
Okay, and so now we're at 20.
Yeah, so I'll say done.
Okay, yeah, and so you've moved up,
but I think you're gonna be really pleased with actually
what students say.
These are data from 2014,
the big bump in high school was at two.
But those students in college went to 6.
2018 the big bump was at one and they went to five.
So students will in general go from one twos and threes to
four fives and sixes.
Now, occasionally I've been at, maybe now out of the 500,
maybe five or six places where in college they'll say,
maybe threes or fours or twos, threes or fours.
And so then when that happens, I ask students,
how many of you have either research papers that you've
gotta present at the end of the year or a semester,
or either research projects or research papers
or term papers.
And of course they all do.
And then I ask them, well, what level is that?
And I've never had a situation where they didn't see that it
was six, and so they would all say six after that and say
yes, because the thing that distinguishes outstanding
research projects from mediocre ones is the level of
creativity that's involved.
And so then they see that they need to be moving from where
they were in high school to now at higher levels.
But without knowing Bloom's,
they didn't even have any idea that there were levels.
And so the tool that we use to teach them how to move to
higher levels as we just call it the study cycle,
where you spin about five minutes to preview information,
its gonna be covered in class before you go to class,
then you go to class and if you've done your preview,
you can actively participate.
And then right after class,
as soon as possible after class review
what just happened in class,
because now you're gonna see things that you didn't even see
before you can make notes.
And it only takes about five, 10 minutes if you do this
efficiently and so you've gotta do more than that.
And we show them how to do what we call focused study
sessions set aside about 45 minutes to an hour,
take a minute or two to set a goal, then study with focus
and action, then take a break and come back and review.
But I've had students who say, well, I have ADHD,
I can't study for an hour.
And that I say, that's fine but you can do these in
10 minute segments,
you can take a minute to set a goal,
study for eight minutes.
You don't need to take a break if it's only 10 minutes,
but then come back and review for a minute.
And oh, let's see I still have the poll up
so if I get rid of this, I should see the chat box.
Interesting, and I don't see the chat.
Okay, let me see.
Hmm, I only see the poll.
How can, oh, I just have to, oh no okay.
Nobody's put anything in there since the poll.
Okay, so we're good.
Yes, okay, thanks.
And so this study cycle,
students love this thing and they love it because it's a
structured way for them to study.
How many of you put this is yes or no
have had students say, well,
I just really don't know how to study.
Have you had students say that?
Cuz we heard that all the time and they'll say,
and usually they'll give us reason.
They'll say, well,
I just really don't know how to study because what are some
of the reasons that they'll give us where they say,
I don't really know how to study because,
and there are two that I hear very often
and I'll see if anybody puts that in.
Exactly, nobody taught me and I didn't have to in
high school.
Those are the two most common answers I get.
And so they love this because it's a structured way
to study.
This is a young lady, who's now a PhD candidate.
And she said, these helped her most.
She got an A plus on three outta four of her finals using
that method of studying.
She's important to use it every day before finals week,
but it's really beneficial during finals week because
it's kind of a time management strategy.
This was a professor who showed a student who was struggling
in his classes, the PowerPoint.
Oh, you're gonna get this whole PowerPoint presentation
by the way in PowerPoint form.
So you can pick and choose any slides you wanna share with
your students.
She told him to pay attention to Bloom's in the study cycle.
And so then he sent her an email saying,
he was applying himself, scored 114 on the first and
only graded quiz.
Got a hundred percent on the first exam.
And she said,
she used the implication that teaching works.
And so she invited students to co-teach materials with her.
They did a fantastic job,
adding a lot more real world content and she saw how much
they poured their passion and talent into the lecture.
And so it is very, very important.
Here's a study that these faculty members,
these instructors implemented a face to face class format
using the study cycle.
And here's a research report that discusses
how metacognition really enhances the efficacy of active
learning when you combine them.
Because now students understand the importance of active
learning and they see what they can do to make it better.
Now, oh, and I see I have two minutes.
Okay, we're gonna go fast.
Mindset, that's really, really important.
And this is the work of Carol Dweck who she and her research
group at Stanford found that typically people have one
of two mindsets about intelligence.
They think either you're born with a certain amount of
design and change very much,
or you can grow your intelligence with your actions.
And it's really important to know what kind of mindset you
have because people with a fixed mindset avoid challenges,
they give up very easily when they get to obstacles,
they really don't see effort as useful because they think
that if either they're smart enough to do it without trying,
or they're not smart enough to do it all.
They ignore useful criticism and they're threatened by other
success whereas people with the growth mindset and they
really embrace challenges.
They persist when they have setbacks because they will put
forth the effort because they know effort is the
path to mastery.
They learn from criticism.
They find lessons in inspiration,
in the successes of others.
And so last couple of poll questions.
What mindset about intelligence
do you think most students have, fixed or growth?
And this time we're gonna end it in about five seconds.
So that, so weigh in as quickly as you can.
And I'm going to give you the three second one
yeah, cuz we're up to 15, okay.
And so yeah, 64%, two thirds of you said fixed.
And that's what I find that more students have a fixed
mindset than a growth mindset.
Now what about faculty?
What mindset about student intelligence
do you think most faculty have you and
we will see what you say.
Okay, now it's interesting.
Okay, and we're already up to 12 and so 61, 31, 66, 33.
Very, very interesting.
Okay, know they're supposed to have growth.
Okay, I teach students how to learn I found students, no.
Interesting, okay.
So yes. focused on grades and when they get those
poor grades at first, then that's when they think there's no
hope for them, absolutely.
Now I had another question, but I'm gonna save that.
I'm not gonna ask that right now.
But there's a study that links faculty attitudes on
intelligence to student success and in stem with a large
impact on minority student success.
And they found that students,
all students in the classroom of a growth minded professor
did better, but the gap was cut in half.
If between White and Asian students and Black Latino,
and Native American students,
if the professor had a growth mindset.
And we're almost to the end I promise.
This is an email from a student at Princeton who
she read the book and she was initially struggling at
Princeton, and she was from a public high school.
And she and her friends thought that if you're from a public
high school, you're just not gonna do well at Princeton.
But then she read the book and she said that the chapter on
mindset was so, so important, really, really important
because then she learned that she could,
she would have challenges but she could do better.
And she ended up her senior year getting all A's
getting an A plus on her senior thesis.
And she says,
I now know that just because you're from a public
high school, doesn't mean you can't thrive at Princeton.
And so finally I wanna share with you this graduate student
who was not passing cumulative exams.
We give cumulative exams and they have to pass six in the
first two years or they kicked out of PhD program.
We give eight a year.
He only passed one out of eight his first year.
Then he learned the strategies.
And the second year he didn't even need all eight.
He passed five out of seven and he passed the December exam
with the highest score in the group.
And this is he Dr. Algernon Kelly.
And now he teaches this everywhere he goes, in fact,
now he has his own business and he specializes in students
with this disabilities, learning disabilities
because he is dyslexic himself.
And so I like to close with this series of three emails,
October 17th, this student wrote him.
I'm struggling, I really wanna do well,
but everything is just ending with a decent grade.
I was hoping you could mentor me and guide me down the path
to success.
One week later, he says, hey, Dr. Kelly's (indistinct).
He made an 84 on his chem test compared to 56 on the first
one, then November 3rd, he had gone from a 76 to a 91.5.
He said, using your system,
ever since I started your study cycle program,
my grades have consistently improved.
I've honestly gained a sense of hope and confidence.
And that's what stood students lose at UVM.
Bright students who think that they're gonna do great.
Then they have that first failure and they are despondent.
And he says, my family and I are really grateful
you've taken the time to get me back on track.
And you see the change in his mood.
Hello, Dr. Kelly.
Hey, Dr. Kelly.
And so it's so important to teach students this.
So in conclusion we can and significantly increase
student success, even in a pandemic.
But I think we have to teach our students how to learn.
We've gotta provide engaging virtual sessions and we have to
make learning visible.
We can't judge their potential on their initial performance
and we can't let them do it either.
We have to encourage them to persist even when they fail
initially and we've gotta encourage them to use these deep,
these metacognitive tools for deep and integrative learning.
These are some additional resources.
These are some acknowledgements.
This is the book for faculty.
And if you really wanna increase the chances that your
students are gonna use the strategies,
please suggest that they read the book.
And this is the first time I've ever had this slide
in there cuz I was afraid that it was gonna look like
I was hawking my wears, but so many faculty say, well,
how do I really get my students to do it?
And I now realize that students kind of have to hear this
from me and my voice,
which is what the book does for them.
And this is the book for parents.
And thank you very, very much.
I will now stop the share,
which means to stop presenting and yes, okay.
And then I will turn it back over.
Woman: Oh Saundra, thank you so very, very much
for being here with us today.
It has really,
my brain is buzzing and I bet everybody else's brain is
buzzing as well.
So thank you so, so very much.
Colleagues, there's another workshop this afternoon focused
more on Sam with similar content.
And then next week we are,
Saundra will join us to talk about motivation in students
as a follow on to this workshop.
-: Yes, and again,
I wanna thank everyone for coming and I applaud you because
you are in the trenches with these students.
I just gotta sit in my office and talk to wonderful faculty
like you.
So thank you so much again for attending.
And I'm seeing lots of thanks in the chat box.
And I just say thank you because I appreciate everything
that you are doing.
Woman: Yes, and we here at the CTL,
and also writing in the disciplines are working on
strengthening our partnerships with the writing center and
the Center for Academic Success
and I'm sure I speak for all of us
when I say we look forward to more conversations about how
we can support students and design cool classes.
So thanks everybody for being here.
-: Great, and I see a question about whether
the other sessions will be recorded and they will.
And I see Deborah says Lennon and I have already planned a
watch party, okay, fantastic.
Great, well, thanks again.
And thank you for allowing me to have now 58 groups
in states that I've presented to faculty in.
Okay, well bye.
Woman: Thank you so much bye bye.
-: Bye bye.