-: I'm Susanmarie Harrington,
director of the Center for Teaching and Learning.
And it's my honor to welcome you
to this latest event as part
of the Kroepsch-Maurice Faculty Development
and Lecture Series,
our faculty development program and lecture series.
And we are very,
just so pleased to welcome Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire back
to UVM.
I think many, if not,
most of you were at one or both of her workshops last week
and so you got a sense from those workshops
of how her career from graduate student instructor
in chemistry at Cornell
to a PhD in Chemical Education
to directing Louisiana State University,
Center for Academic Success,
and then becoming now,
Emerita professor and assistant vice chancellor at LSU.
That career has really been devoted
to science and science education.
In her book "Teach Students How to Learn",
she describes herself as a convert to,
from skepticism to convert
about the knowledge of how the science
of learning can help students take control
of their learning and make instructors happier as well.
Her entire career has been a model
of what compassion, curiosity,
and a commitment to bridging student services
and academics can bring to instructors and students.
So it's been an honor to be
with you for two sessions last week,
and please join me in extending a warm UVM rewelcome
to Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire.
So I will turn it over to you now.
-: Ah, thank you, thank you.
And I see my virtual hand claps and hearts all,
I love UVM.
But you heard that last time too.
And I just see, Ines says, "Making groceries sounds hard."
Yes (laughs). (Susanmarie laughs)
Okay, and so,
today we're gonna be talking
about increasing student motivation
because that has really been a challenge.
And I think even more so with the pandemic,
I'm hearing a lot of faculty saying that, you know,
if we thought students weren't motivated before,
now, it's, now that they've,
you know, most of the,
especially the first and second year students,
they've not been going to class,
they don't know anything other than sit in front
of a computer screen and getting instruction.
And a lot of high schools really relaxed the grading
and I think rightfully so
because they recognized the situation
that the students were in.
And so I think it's probably even harder now.
Oh yes, and please make comments,
I'm gonna ask questions in the chat box
and so we're gonna try to cover that as we go along.
Now, with this particular workshop,
which is typically the follow up
to the workshops that I did last week,
I have a lot less content.
And so in this workshop,
I really love it because you will get a chance
to share a lot more.
And so what I'm gonna do is ask you,
and I'm gonna ask at certain points in the workshop
for people to share strategies that you use
that are in a certain category that we're talking about.
And so if you have something to share,
then please raise your hand
and I'm gonna ask Susanmarie to just recognize you
and then you can just unmute your mic and tell us,
and feel free if you wanna put something in the chat box,
that's fine also.
But I want us to share,
because I really like this session
because I learn a lot from this session
and faculty learn a lot from each other.
In fact, I was doing the workshop
for a group in California on Thursday,
after I spoke with you Tuesday,
and the ideas that were coming in the chat box,
there were about 300 of them in the session,
and the ideas that were coming the chat box were really fast
and furious.
And one person put in that he or she had gotten
so many great ideas
from seeing what other people were doing.
And so I'm gonna ask you to unmute your mic and share,
but if there are other things you're doing,
then just feel free to put those in the chat box.
And so, and here's actually the first question
for the chat box.
Does anybody know what is special about today
for me in Louisiana?
And if so, put that in the chat box.
Interesting. Okay.
So maybe nobody, ah, yes, there it goes.
Okay, Christian Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras,
absolutely, yes.
And I did find out that you have Mardis Gras in Vermont.
And so is anybody, gimme a yes or no,
is anybody going to a Mardi Gras event later on?
And I know you used to have a parade,
but then they changed that,
so it's an indoor event now.
Ah, king cake time, exactly.
Okay. Yes.
So if you get a chance to come down to,
there you go, Erica, thanks,
you're making me hungry now. (Erica laughs)
But if you get a chance to come down to New Orleans,
definitely do that.
Jambalaya, hurricanes, Cafe Du Monde.
Absolutely.
Okay, so happy Mardi Gras to everyone.
So if we think about motivation,
there are a lot of definitions of motivation.
And I love the two of them.
One that Ambrose and colleagues have,
in their book seven, "How Learning Works",
which you're gonna see in a minute.
But they say that, "Motivation refers
to the personal investment an individual has
in reaching a desired state or outcome."
And then I love the one that Nilson says.
"In the academy,
the term 'motivating' means stimulating interest
in a subject and therefore the desire to learn it."
And so basically,
she is saying that here in the academy,
it's our job to stimulate the interest.
And many times we say, well, you know,
if we just had motivated students, you know,
things would be fine,
but she's saying that we don't really have
to have motivated students,
it's our job to motivate the students.
We've gotta stimulate that interest.
And it reminds me of something
that I heard at a workshop that I attended.
So this is not original,
I heard the workshop presenter say it.
She said, We've all heard the expression
and I'm ask you to fill in the last word,
we've all heard the expression
that you can lead a horse to water,
but you can't make him...
And what's the last word in that?
You can lead a horse...
Exactly, but you can't make him drink.
And this speaker said, "Yep, that is absolutely true.
But what if we led a horse to water and made him thirsty?
What if we fed him salty oats?
Then he would drink on its own."
And so we don't have to have someone who's willing to drink,
we just need to be able to make them thirsty.
And so I think that's our job.
We have all these horses who have come to us.
And so we just have to make 'em thirsty,
and yep, salty oats it is.
And so we've just gotta figure out
how to make those salt oats.
Now, why is it so often very difficult
to motivate students?
Now, I don't know the students at UVM.
And so I'm going to ask you to put in the chat box,
either yes or no when we go through these bullet points
if you are seeing this at your students at UVM.
Nationally, we are finding
that a lot of students are working more hours.
They're trying to work a lot more.
Some of them have,
wanna have like work 20 hours a week
and they wanna take a full time load
and there are lots of clubs and everything.
So, oh, okay, you're saying yes.
And I was thinking that maybe
that would not be the case there.
But, and that's a problem because,
oh yeah, and I can tell you now there are
at least four categories of students for whom the strategies
that we talked about last week are not gonna work.
And so I'll tell you what those four are
and there are probably more than that.
But the first group is the students who refuse
to take any personal response ability for anything,
everything that happens to them is somebody else's fault.
The test was too hard.
The instructor went too fast.
They didn't have, you know,
just all kinds of excuses.
And if they don't see that their result,
their academic result is the impact of what they do,
they're not gonna change anything,
they don't do anything different
because they don't think it's their fault.
But now for students like that, typically,
they don't know that's what they're doing.
And I can help them listen to themselves
and see that they're blaming everybody else.
But that's one group.
Another group is the students
who just have no time to do this.
They are working 20 hours.
They're taking a full time load.
They're in five different organizations
because in high school,
they were in 10 clubs and they started five of 'em
and they were president of three
and they think they can, you know,
do all this stuff.
And I tell students that,
if this takes time,
learning takes time.
And so even though I now no longer say
that you've gotta put in two to three hours
outside of class for every hour you put in a class,
because I used to say that all the time,
but then I have a colleague, Leonard Geddes,
who said that he doesn't do that
because students, well, some students will think,
well, I just gotta put in my time.
So it's less about the hours that they spend
and more about what they do during those hours.
And so I will tell them that, roughly,
it's probably gonna take, you know,
at least 10 to 15 hours to do the strategies
that we're talking about.
But if, and if they're working too many hours,
then they can't do that.
And so when students,
when I find that students are,
they have too much to do,
then I'll talk with them about dropping something.
And I have had students who,
once they see what they need to do
and it's gonna take more time,
they either, they were working 20 hours a week,
they may drop back to 10 or put some of the clubs on hold.
And then the third category is the students
for whom the gap between the skills
that they have acquired up to entering your course,
that gap between the skills they bring to the course
and the skills that are required to excel in the course,
if that gap is just too big,
they're not gonna be successful.
So if I have a student who is in my general chemistry class,
who knows nothing about fractions, decimals, and percents,
then they're not gonna be successful in general chemistry,
no matter how much metacognition they put on it,
because they haven't prepared.
And so for students like that,
I find that they just need to either take a course in math,
they gotta do something to prepare themselves.
And some of 'em are willing to,
if I give them additional information
that they can do on their own,
they're willing to do that
but if they don't have that background,
then it's gonna be almost impossible.
And so I was talking about these three ones
and somebody said, "Well, I can come up with a fourth one."
And the fourth one that they came up with was students
for whom life issues are just so overwhelming
that they don't have the bandwidth
to really concentrate on studying.
And that made perfect sense to me.
So, 'cause if you have a student
who's just learned that both of their parents have,
that they've lost their jobs
because of the pandemic or whatever
and so the family is gonna be homeless in a couple of weeks,
then that's all they can think about.
If we have students who are, food insecurity,
they're hungry, they don't know
where their next meal is coming from.
So that's a fourth category.
And so I think that, oh yeah, even,
yeah, more, much more of that than a few years ago,
even pre COVID.
Absolutely.
And there are a lot of universities now
who are setting up food pantries
and they've been surprised at,
by the number of students who will come weekly
to get food from the food pantry.
And I saw an institution just last week,
they are partnering with the local food chain.
Ah, great, you've got one at UVM.
Yeah, they're partnering with the local food store
to provide meals for food insecure people in the community
and I think a logical extension
of that would be to have the grocery store provide some food
for the pantry that's at the university.
Okay, we're finding that more students are diagnosed
with ADHD.
Gimme a yes or no if you're finding that
or some other kind of learning disability like dyslexia or,
and even we're seeing a lot more autism.
Okay, and then we find that a lot of students are there
to get their credential.
It's like, I'm here to get my credential,
I'm not really so concerned about what I'm learning,
but I know I've gotta get this degree
to move on to the next phase.
Okay, I'm, some of them, yes.
And I'm sure that you have a lot fewer there
at UVM than other schools.
Okay, more than that, more students.
Oh yeah, anxiety issues. Absolutely.
I can certainly understand that because, I mean,
growing up in the society that we're growing up in now,
how could you not be anxious?
It's a little bit crazy.
Some students feel entitled to an A or B
if they just consistently attend class.
And I found that they had few time management skills
and few learning skills.
And even been the really good students,
the students in the honors program didn't have a lot
of learning skills.
They were very good at memorizing and regurgitating
and giving back what they thought was expected of them.
And that's why I find that,
that students very often,
we talked about mindset last week,
they have that fixed mindset
'cause they were always told they're brilliant students,
they know they're smart.
And so they're much more interested
in making sure they continue to look good.
So they're the ones who say, well, you know,
tell me exactly what I need to do and tell me.
And so I think that having,
helping them shift their attention
from just having performance goals
to having learning goals is very important.
What it truly takes to achieve learning outcomes, yes.
And again, Denise,
it's not the student's fault.
And I always say that, you know,
our students are just being good scientists.
They're taking all the data points
that they've accumulated up
to this point in time and they are being,
they're basing their behavior on what those data tell them.
And so they've never really had
to achieve any learning outcomes.
All they've had to do is perform very well,
on many times it's high stakes testing or some students,
and put a yes or no in the chat box if you're aware of this,
that in many schools now,
they don't, students don't have textbooks.
Did you know this?
'Cause that was a surprise to me
that so many students are coming now to our institutions
and they've actually never used a textbook.
They have used the PowerPoint handout slides
that instructors give 'em or they they're given notes.
And so they have no idea
that it really takes a deeper understanding
and seeing what's between the lines,
knowing the why, how, and what if of situations
and not just the what of situations
that leads to that deep learning.
But again, you know,
the good news that I found was that it is not hard
to have them switch their paradigm
once they learn the information that we talked about.
And so this is "How Learning Works".
Yeah, random collection of articles provided to them,
absolutely.
And what they say,
what Ambrose and colleagues say is
that there are three important levers
that influence motivation.
First, the value,
how important is attaining the goal?
And I find that sometimes students
who come to our institutions
with let's say pre-med students, for example,
that's really not the goal that they want for themselves,
that's the goal that either their parents have told them.
And I see this a lot with students
in engineering for example,
because if students are good,
especially minoritized students,
under-represented students,
if they're good in science or, and math,
then they're told, oh, you need to be an engineer.
And that might not be what they wanna do,
but they are, you know,
kind of pushed in that direction.
And so I think it's really important
for students to know what it is they want to do.
And then the supportive nature and the environment,
the instructor has to be approachable,
support needs to be available from peers and others.
And you have a great center there
that provides that peer support
and I can tell from the instructors who are in the session,
that you have great faculty who are very supportive of,
oh actually no, let me take that back.
All I can tell is that (chuckles) the people
in this session are very supportive of students.
But I know on many campuses,
it's the people who come to these sessions,
I know I'm preaching to the choir,
and so it's all the other people out there
who are not providing this supportive environment.
And I find, especially in very selective institutions,
possibly like UVM,
where there might be a lot of faculty
who think that students already,
should already know this stuff
by the time they get to the university.
So why should I have to take my time to explain this?
And if students haven't figured this out by now already,
then do we really want them in the profession?
Don't we want people who can figure it out on our own.
And so I've heard that a lot.
And I think it's very unfortunate
because the students who have not figured it out,
haven't been given the same opportunity
to figure it out as students who have.
And in fact that,
one of the recent articles
that I published talks about metacognitive equity.
And I will send that, Susanmarie, to you
and you can distribute it if you'd like.
But that's a big problem,
but the environment has gotta be supportive
and then efficacy expectancies.
You have to believe that you're capable of identifying,
organizing, initiating, and executing some course of action
that's going to bring about the desired outcome.
If you don't think
that there's any way you're gonna be successful,
no matter what you do,
then you are not going to be motivated
to take any steps to accomplish something.
So for example, if I said right now,
I want everybody to take a five minute break
and I want you to go outside,
whatever building you're in
and I want you to just scale the building from the ground,
just go up to the roof and look around,
and then when you come back in five minutes,
tell us what you saw from the roof.
Well, I don't think very many people would do that,
but if I told you,
I want everybody to go outside and by the way,
there's a ladder or there's one of these,
you know, platforms that will raise you up
to the top so that you can get up there,
then I think everybody would do that
because now you know that there's a way to accomplish it.
And so students have to know
that they're capable of accomplishing a goal.
And so some of the motivation principles
that they talk about are,
they say students motivation
that's gonna generate direct
and sustain what they do to learn.
And I would argue that it's anybody's motivation
that's gonna generate direct
and sustain what we do to learn
because we are lifelong learners
and in the work environment and any environment,
you've gotta have that motivation
that's going to direct and sustain your,
the actions that you're gonna take to learn.
And then some of those concepts are subjective value again,
and the expectation for a successful attainment of the goal.
And this brings into focus,
a concept of learned helplessness
that was coined by Seligman and Maier.
And put a yes or no in the chat box for me, please,
if you're familiar with the concept of learned helplessness,
because I was not before I started looking into the.
Okay, so I'm seeing some yeses.
Oh, okay, so almost everybody is.
Yeah, it's just the idea that no amount
of effort is gonna bring about any success
and so you're not gonna try
and it just destroys the motivation to even attempt a task.
And this is just a puppy who's held back by Pringles cans,
probably because in our prior iteration,
these may have been concrete blocks or something
that they could not move and so they now know that
whenever they see this configuration,
there's nothing they can do about it
and so they're not gonna even try.
And this is a donkey who's just held back,
held down by a plastic chair.
And the quote says,
"Sometimes the chains that prevent us
from being free are more mental than physical."
And I find that a lot in students,
especially students and I'm sure the kind
of students you get at UVM.
When they arrive on campus,
if we were to ask them,
what's the most likely grade you think you're gonna make
in your courses this first semester at UVM?
Put it in the chat box,
what grade do you think we would hear, they would tell us?
What grade do you think you're gonna make
in most of your classes at UVM?
What grade do you think they would tell us
that they're expecting to make?
Okay. Yes. Yes.
Okay. A, A, B+.
Very high, they have very high expectations.
And so then when they get that first test or quiz back
and they've gotten a C or D or even lower,
what happens to their self-esteem at that point?
It just tanks.
Yeah, it just goes in the toilet.
Because now, instead of assuming that,
okay, I can, I'm still the same person that I was,
I just need to figure out what strategies to use.
Yeah, it plummets,
they figure they're not good at this,
they're not capable of making now the As
that they thought they were making.
And so now they really do get their,
their motivation decreases because they think,
well, you know, what's the use of trying,
because I know I'm not gonna do a lot better.
And yeah, panic, crashing, crying, all that.
And so that's why I think that metacognition,
in addition to what we're talking
about today can really turn that around
because that once we let them know that,
you know, there is effort that will bring about success,
then that makes a difference.
Now, I think it's really important for us
to understand the causes of learned helplessness
in our students because it's different
for different students.
And so I wanna, I guess I'll do this this way,
let me pose a question.
When I was traveling,
I would get in the night before
and I would go out to dinner
and sometimes my host would take me
and sometimes I would have dinner alone.
And if I went alone,
then, you know, I would kind of look around
and see if I saw students who looked like they were maybe
from the local institution
and I would start asking them questions.
So let's assume that I am,
I came to Burlington and I was out at dinner alone
and I saw a table full of your students.
And they were sitting at this table and they were lamenting,
they were just so distressed
because I could overhear them saying,
you know, we studied so hard for that test,
I don't know how we flunked that test,
we shouldn't have flunked that test.
And so if I went over,
oh, thank you (laughs),
yes, yes, I wouldn't be alone now.
And so, but I went over and I said,
oh, I hear that you guys didn't do well on the test
but you thought you were gonna do well,
why do you think that happened?
Why didn't you do well?
So put in the chat box,
some of the reasons you think I would hear
from your students for how would they explain, you know,
why didn't they do well on this test,
'cause they thought they had studied for it,
they thought they were prepared for it.
So, but they didn't do well.
And what kind of reasons would I hear?
Okay, the teacher is not good.
The test was too hard.
I have test anxiety.
I memorized the formulas and then they didn't work.
Okay, test anxiety, I don't test well.
Content on the test that wasn't covered.
Test was too hard,
didn't have enough time.
Was not exactly like the,
oh, okay, I have anxiety.
Professor didn't tell me.
Okay, I'm up to 16 on this hand.
Now there's another hand that as soon as I see a reason
that I can put over here,
I'm gonna put it over there,
but I don't see it yet.
The professor didn't tell me was not going to be, what was,
yeah, not going to be on it.
I was ready, but then my mind went blank.
Absolutely, okay.
Ah, I didn't prepare, okay.
Grading didn't match the rubric,
I wasn't smart enough.
Okay, so I have one little reason over here.
I'm up to about 20 over here.
Okay, I didn't study the right thing
and actually I could probably put half
on this side and half on that side.
I didn't have time to prepare would probably go over here,
but maybe half and half.
Okay, so we didn't have a lot over here,
but did anybody see what the difference was
between the reasons that I was putting on this hand
and the reasons that I was putting,
the one reason or now with one
and the other two halves that I was putting on this hand.
Did you see what the difference was
in the nature of the...
Exactly, who took responsibility?
If the test was too hard,
the teacher didn't teach well,
they didn't tell me.
That is all on the teacher.
Even test anxiety,
I don't have any control over that,
but if I didn't study enough or I studied the wrong thing,
now, if I studied the wrong thing,
'cause the teacher told me the wrong thing,
then it's over here.
But if I studied the wrong thing,
because I didn't take the time
to see what was gonna be on the test,
then it's over there.
Yeah, so it's whether there's this,
yeah, external or internal locus of control.
And students have to take ownership of the results
or again, they're not gonna do anything.
Now let's flip the script and say,
I went to another restaurant
and I saw another group of your students there
and they were ecstatic because they had aced the test.
And so, and they were saying,
oh, you know, I didn't think I would do that well,
but I really aced that test.
And so I, if I were to ask them,
well, what do you think was going on,
why did you ace the test?
What are some of the reasons you think I would hear
from them?
Oh yeah, skied (laughs) on Friday, okay.
What kinds of reasons would I hear
from students of why they did so well?
Okay. I'm so smart.
Okay. I really knew the stuff.
Maybe I'll put it over there
'cause I could have known 'em 'cause I studied.
Yeah, the test was simple, okay.
I studied the right things.
Okay, I'll put that over there.
I studied really hard, okay.
Yes, and so, and I've actually,
there are very few that usually go over here,
but I've seen it all already.
The test was simple, it was easy.
I lucked out.
And so if they ascribe the reasons
for either success or failure to reasons outside themselves,
then they're not gonna do anything different.
So I think that we have to talk
with our students about what is causing their feeling
that they are not really in control,
it's these external forces that are
and we can help them recognize that,
no, you're in control,
these are just the things that you need to do.
Now we can remediate learned helplessness,
but we have to understand the causes
because sometimes learned helplessness comes from things,
well, I can and ask you to put it in the chat box,
for a student who comes to UVM
and they're not very confident.
So they don't really know
if they're gonna do well in your class,
they're really afraid that they,
the probability is high that they're not gonna do well,
what are some of the reasons that they,
how did they get this attitude
that they're probably not gonna do well,
either at UVM or in your class?
What are some of the things
that you think students are thinking?
Or some of the people.
Okay, yeah, math is just not my thing,
I've never been good in math.
And in fact that was the example that I was gonna give.
Some people have severe math anxiety
that goes all the way to elementary school
when maybe they had to go to the board
and they had something wrong
and the teacher yelled at 'em
and so they had this psychological aversion to math
or writing or something.
Yeah, everyone else here is smarter than me.
This is UVM,
I was not really supposed to be here.
So imposter syndrome kicks in.
Yes, I'm not as prepared as the other students here.
And I think I shared with you the quote
from the interview with the Princeton student.
Did I share that with,
the one who said that mindset was so important to her
because she thought that if you came
from a public high school,
then you would not,
you were not going to get A's at Princeton.
Because she and her friends
from public high school had noticed that the students
who were getting the A's and B's were the ones
who had come from the private high schools.
And so they figured that,
they're locked because they were not as well prepared,
they were just relegated to the B's and C's at Princeton
but then when she read the books
and she read the chapter on mindset,
she said it was so, so important
because she realized that it doesn't matter
if you don't have the background,
you can do things that will give you the background.
And she came as a neuroscience major
and she was despondent
because there was this faculty member
who she wanted to do research with.
And she went to talk to the professor in her office
and the professor kinda scoffed at her.
And she said, you wanna do research with me?
I don't even know why you're majoring in neuroscience,
you're getting a C in my class right now.
And she said, she went home
and she cried for the rest of the night.
And she actually thought
about changing her major to business,
but then she decided, no,
she wanted to do neuroscience
and she read the book, got the strategies.
Her senior year,
she got straight A's while taking all neuroscience classes
and she also got an A+ on her senior thesis.
And so, and that's why I like to give students examples
of other students who were like them
who have really excelled.
Daily classwork schedule to accomplish the week's task,
absolutely.
It deficits in self-efficacy.
And so what we've gotta do is help students understand
that those beliefs that they bring,
those are distorted beliefs.
And it's those distorted beliefs
that are causing their current deficits rather
than the fact that they have a deficit
that cannot be overcome.
Because there's been so much time thinking about,
you know, what other students are doing.
And it's so interesting,
the students from well resourced schools,
they are so good at the game of making everybody think,
"Oh, I don't even need to study this stuff."
And they're put putting in, you know,
15, 20, 25 hours a week,
but they're saying, "Oh, nope, I didn't study.
Oh no, I just knew it."
And so the other students don't realize
that even though those students are saying,
"I'm not doing any work,"
they are studying their butt off.
But as I said last week,
we have socialized kids into thinking
that if you have to study,
that means you're not smart.
I can't tell you the number of parents I've run into
that might have two kids.
And they'll say, "Oh, Susie is really, really smart.
She never has to open a book,
but Johnny, he's not so bright.
He has to study all the time."
And so we socialize kids into thinking
that if you have to study,
then you're not that smart.
And so that's the other thing
that we have to change with students,
letting them know that,
no, it's the smart people who recognize
that an investment of time
in this information will give you the deep learning
that you are looking for.
And then we've gotta provide them the tools
that are gonna change their behavior
and refute those distorted beliefs.
And again, that's where I think the metacognition comes in.
And so, the first thing that they've gotta do,
they've gotta understand their explanatory style.
How do they explain success and failure?
And now they have to be made aware of the very negative,
self-destructive things they say
to themselves when they fail.
Because all of us have,
we're engaging in self-talk all the time,
but most of us don't realize it
because it's a conversation
that's running in the background.
And so we have to help students understand
and really be in tune to.
And I would ask students, do you,
what kinds of things do you say to yourself,
if now you're taking a test and you failed it twice before?
And are you saying things like,
well, you know, you know you're not gonna pass this
because you had a hard time before?
And they'll kind of perk up and they'll say,
"Yeah, but I didn't realize that."
And so they've gotta change those self destructive things
and change it around.
So for example,
if the saying was,
"Well, I'm just really not good at writing."
And that Carol Dweck has,
she has a, it's a, I think one of the talks,
Ted talks on the power of yet,
this three little word, three word,
little three letter word yet.
And it's the power of yet.
So she teaches people how to put yet
onto the end of something that you say you're not good at.
I'm not good at writing, well, yet,
no, you're not because you haven't learned
how to be good at writing,
but you can learn how to do this.
And Joan Marie says,
"Oh, I have them close their eyes
and give themselves a pat."
Oh, that's great.
And this reminds me of one of the other interventions
before students take tests.
This was in the journal for physics teachers
and they talked about small interventions
that yielded big results.
And one of them was for a couple of minutes before a test,
having students take a minute to focus on their goals,
to just reflect on what are your long term goals,
why are you here,
and what are you doing to reach those goals.
And what they found was that,
it had no impact at all
on the performance of white students,
majority students and male students,
but it closed the gap between the,
I'm gonna call them regular students,
but traditional students,
white male, Asian students,
and underrepresented minority students,
it closed that gap significantly.
And so I think that helping students tune into their goals
and giving themselves a pep talk and see,
and the pep talk that I,
I do a workshop for students
on 'It's not over till it's over,
acing final exams.'
And so the,
I tell them that they have to say
to themselves when they sit down,
"Okay, I know this,
I have studied for it, I'm prepared.
All I'm gonna do is just share what I know
with the professor by doing this exercise."
And so students who have test anxiety or exam anxiety,
then if they think of it more
as I'm sharing what I know
with the professor with this exercise,
they say that that tamps down some of the anxiety also.
Ah, okay, and I see, yes, close their eyes.
Okay, Joan, you've helped. Great.
Okay, and so,
and then make those new statements a permanent part
of your explanatory style.
And then also they've gotta recognize that their perception
of their ability is gonna have the most influence
on the amount of effort that they're willing
to expend on a task.
And so one of the things that I like to do
to help students recognize that their performance
at the moment is not an indication of their ability,
is I will have them think of about something
that they were once really bad at
and then they got really good at it.
And at first I thought
that students would have a hard time coming up
with something, but they don't,
they come up with something.
I tell 'em yeah, it could be basket weaving,
it could be skateboarding,
it could be anything.
And I'll say, you know,
think about you were once really bad at it,
but you got really good.
What allowed you or what was it
that made you get really good?
And put in the chat box for me, please,
the number one reason that you think I hear from students,
when I say, you know,
how did you get really good at this thing
that you were once really bad at?
Okay, they couldn't always walk.
Okay. Absolutely.
Yeah, and that reminds me of a saying everything is hard
and I don't remember who said this, this was a quote,
but, "Everything is hard until you know how to do it."
And practice was the answer I was looking at, for, yeah.
They say practice.
And so then I say, "Yes,
and this is the same result you're gonna get
in your academic life
when you spend the time using the strategies
and practicing."
Sometimes they'll say, "Well, I watched a YouTube video."
Sometimes they'll say,
"Well, somebody showed me what the strategies are."
And I'll say, "Well, yeah,
you know, this is what we're doing here
and you've gotta practice that."
And then they now understand that just
like they got really good in that other area,
they can get really good in their academics.
And what they're doing now is no reflection
of what they're gonna be able to do.
And so now we're gonna go through some bullets,
and I'm gonna ask you to think about what you're doing,
because I know everybody
in this session is doing wonderful things in their classes,
but nobody knows what you're doing
because we typically teach in these silos
and so this is where we're gonna share.
But if you have something in either one of these bullets,
I'm gonna ask you after we go through the list
to just raise your hand
and I'll ask Susanmarie to recognize you,
and you can unmute your mic and tell us what it is.
But introducing and engaging fun activity, if possible.
Emphasize the importance of effort rather
than prior experience and performance.
And that's what that little practice thing does
that I just talked about.
Demonstrate confidence that every student can succeed.
And I remember that,
this was maybe about eight or nine years ago,
I was speaking to faculty at an institution in Florida
and I made that statement that demonstrate confidence
that every student can succeed.
And, oh, okay, yeah,
I also think students need to be honest with themselves
about how much effort they wanna put in.
Some just wanna put minimal effort and that's okay if
that's what they want at the current time,
they just can't expect similar outcomes.
Yes, Denise, I'm gonna say that's true,
but I think we have to push a little bit more
because some students only wanna put
in a little bit of effort because they don't think
that putting in a lot of effort is going
to get them much better results.
And so, and I've actually seen that.
In fact, there was a,
oh, I forgot what this professor taught,
but he had a student athlete who was not willing
to put in a lot of effort 'cause she said,
she just wanted a C in the course
and she got a C, that was fine.
And so when he talked with her about the fact
that he knew that she could get an A in the course,
but these are the things she needed to do
when she understood that
if she did those things then she could make an A,
she put in a ton of effort.
And so I don't want us to assume
that just because students are exhibiting
that only wanna put a little bit of effort in,
that we can't convince them
that they really do wanna put more effort
in once they understand that the effort
that they put in can have a huge impact,
but they're thinking
that they're gonna spend all this effort
and they're only gonna get a little bit
of the result from it.
So, and, but once they understand that,
you're absolutely right,
there's some, certain students
who would, don't wanna put a lot of effort in, but,
yeah, (laughs) assumptions are the termite of relationships.
I agree.
And I used to, I say, you know, early,
before I learned this,
I would make assumptions based on student behavior.
If a student in,
put their head down and acted like they weren't interested,
I just assumed they weren't ready for prime time.
They were gonna flunk out, you know,
they would come back when they were ready
to learn and succeed.
But then when I learned this
and I started talking to students,
I realized that, that wasn't it at all,
those students, they just didn't know
how they were supposed to behave in class.
And I was shocked that
when I had these one-on-one discussions with them
to talk about the appropriate behavior
and what they were going, you know, what they should do,
that they changed their behavior, so.
Okay, and so, yeah,
I was speaking at institution in Florida
and I got the question that literally left me speechless.
And you know me pretty well by now
and you know that I'm very rarely left speechless,
but this professor said,
"Well, what if we know that every,
not every student can succeed,
what if we know that's not true?"
And so then I'm thinking,
"Well, Hmm, that's strange.
Why would we let people in our institutions
if we didn't think they could succeed?"
And then it dawned on me
that he was changing one of the words
in that sentence to something else.
And put it in the chat box if you know,
he was changing one of the words to something else.
Okay, and sometimes students don't have any basis
of exempts of our education,
it transform their lives, exactly.
Okay, contract, specs grading,
yeah, can help students think
through how different levels
of effort are gonna give them different connections.
Yeah, and so I think that anything we can do
that really helps students connect
with the fact that effort and results,
you know, kind of go hand-in-hand will be helpful.
Yeah, and so, demonstrate confidence
that every student can succeed is what I said.
And he said, "Well, what if that's not true?"
So there was one word
that he was changing to something else.
Does anybody, does it come to,
exactly Laura, can versus will.
He was changing the can to will,
demonstrate confidence that every student will succeed.
Now, I know that not every student will succeed.
So I don't have confidence that every student will succeed,
but I have to have confidence that every student can succeed
because I don't know who's gonna succeed and who's not.
I've seen students come to come college with a 4.3 GPA
from high school flunk out the first semester.
I've seen students come to college
with a 2.6 GPA from high school and graduate with a 4.0.
And so I have to demonstrate confidence to every student
that I know they can succeed
because many times the confidence
that our students have is only the confidence
that we put in them before they use the strategies.
And so we've gotta demonstrate that
and then show the instructor's human side
or if we're working with tutors in our courses,
having them show their human side.
Because very often students think
that we are the academic gods and goddesses,
that we never struggle with anything,
we always at the top of our class, we,
so we're not like them,
but if we can share any of our struggles,
then that helps them relate
and see that we were successful even though we struggled
and they can too.
And so what I wanna do now is just stop
and ask anybody who has done something
in any of these four areas that you're willing
to share with colleagues,
please raise your hand
and Susanmarie is gonna recognize you.
Oh, okay, I was about to say,
and if we don't see any hands,
I know about wait time.
I don't know if you've heard of wait time.
Oh, okay, yes, so we have more.
Okay, and we can probably take up to three.
Oh, we have three hands raised now.
So Susanmarie, would you.
-: And Alexandria.
-: Okay, great.
-: Sorry. Did you call on me, Susanmarie?
-: Yeah, I did.
Okay (laughs). (Susanmarie laughs)
So that last bullet point, I...
My name is Erica Andrus and unfortunately I've had classes
that conflict with the previous workshops,
so I wasn't able to attend.
And I teach in the religion department
and I teach a very large intro class.
And a lot of the students in the class,
they probably will never take another religion class
in their college career.
And so, I find that I do the fourth bullet point there.
I, when I'm introducing a term
to them from my field of study,
often, what I'll say is, "You know,
my professors taught me about this
and I was confused about this term for the longest time,
until I finally figured out that in plain English,
it means this."
So I try to, you know, humanize my own experience or,
you know, and I acknowledge it's been a long time
since I've been in college,
but I still remember that very clearly,
like the professor just assuming I understood
what this word meant
and I'm not gonna assume that about you guys,
I'm gonna tell you (laughs).
-: Great, yeah, no, I think that's great
because it showed your struggle and it also,
you gave him a strategy also, I think.
And so they now know that they're not expected
to understand the terms initially.
But I guess I have one small suggestion
and I don't know it would work
because I don't know what you're teaching
what the terms are,
but I don't know if it's a term that,
instead of you're telling 'em what it means,
asking them what comes to mind when they see this term,
and so then they will actually be put in the position
where they've gotta start thinking about this term
and what it might mean to them,
so that when you talk about what it actually means,
then they can see if there's a difference
between what they were thinking it was
or if it's congruent with what they were thinking
and it's probably something that will stick with them.
Yes. Thank you so much. Okay.
Oh, and actually, let me just stop now
because somebody asked the question
in the chat box about what is effort and, you know,
how do we define effort?
And for me, that would be the kind of thing,
if a student asked that I would throw it out to the class
and I would ask them to think of something
that they figured they put a lot of effort into.
And so what does that mean when they put effort into it?
Is it just time?
Is it calories? Is it money?
And so having that discussion,
I think, we would come up with a joint description
of what effort is.
Because it, to me,
that's one of those intuitive things
that, well, you, you put work into it.
But I think having that discussion
'cause it's a great question I think would help
other people understand exactly what it is.
Okay, so told me once that he had not done.
Oh, okay, this is a, Nina's giving us a,
one of the other bullets,
so okay, we'll get back to that.
Okay, well thank you so much for sharing that.
And who's next, Susanmarie? -: Denise?
-: Okay. Hi. Yeah.
I'm Denise Peters.
I teach in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program,
so I teach graduate students.
And an example that came to mind
for an activity is, you know,
we have to teach a lot of fundamental concepts
in our program and some of that can be pretty dry teaching
and so to kind of come with a way
for students to be more engaged in that material is
that I designed an activity and it's got multiple layers,
so it hits a couple of these different bullets.
I designed an activity where they got in pairs
and their task was they have to teach a novel motor skill,
which in this case is dancing.
And so they're in pairs,
I have a teacher, I have a student,
the pair only knows who is who
'cause part of it is they have
to dance at the end in front of the class
and people have to guess who's the teacher or the student.
And so it's this novel task
and it can be whatever they want,
whatever type of movement strategy,
they get to pick a 30 minute music, you know,
as long as it doesn't have cuss words,
it can be open to whatever. (Saundra laughs)
And they're asked to reflect
upon the motor learning principles
that they utilize both as a teacher
and as the student in the dance.
And so their assignment is to just write this reflection
in both effective and in ineffective strategies.
And so there's not like a certain level of performance
that's gonna get them a grade,
it's really, you know,
did they work together as a team,
you know, reflection on these motor learning principles
that I'm asking them to do,
and then, and it's a typically a fun activity,
but it has another layer to it
that some students are scared to death
to dance in front of the class.
But at the same time in our field,
we work with people
who've had a stroke or spinal cord injury,
and we're asking these people to move in new ways
after their injury
and they, and I think it helps us
to be kind of put in their shoes
for just a little bit about what that feels like
when we're being asked to move in an uncomfortable way
in an abled body individual.
And I think that connection too has really helped students
when they were like, "Wow".
'Cause sometimes we take it for granted
if we're working with someone with stroke
and this is the first time they're being asked to move
in front of their family with a, you know,
paralyzed or hemiparetic, you know, arm or leg.
And so it, I found it,
this I've done it for the past couple of years minus COVID
and I found it to be,
the feedback from the students has been really,
I think even better than what I thought,
'cause it's engaged them and it's tied
in some principles in a really impactful way, so.
-: Great. Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
And I was trying to see how we could generalize it too
if you're teaching a class that doesn't involve movement.
And I like the idea that you said, you know,
they had to guess who was the teacher
and who was the learner.
And I guess I of maybe putting students in groups
of two or three where now they've gotta teach something
to the class and then the class, you know,
has to guess who took the lead on one particular component
or who seemed most comfortable with the material
and maybe they'd get bonus points
because everybody needs to be brought up
to the level of, yeah, so great idea, yes.
Okay, thanks so much.
And in the chat box there was,
yeah, the faculty advisor said
that he hadn't done well on a paper
and he could resubmit it for a better grade.
He received, he wrote, rewrote it three times
before getting an A,
that left quite an impression.
And sometimes what people do for writing also is, you know,
when we get these articles back
that we've submitted and we have all these comments,
one faculty member said that they shared that
with their students and let them know that, you know,
even though I'm a professor,
I still get all these comments back
and you can just kind of see students exhaling.
Okay. Who's next, Susanmarie?
-: Alexandria.
-: Hi, it's me.
I teach chemistry still
for the record (laughs). -: Okay (laughs).
-: And so I'm primarily teaching,
mostly first years I general chemistry
and I do sort of a combination
of bullet two and bullet four where I,
whenever, you know,
I have students after an exam, you know,
they come to me and they're like,
"You know, this exam went really bad for me."
And usually it's the, like a lot of times, you know,
the students are getting their first C
or their first D and I look at them
and I tell 'em, "You know,
okay, once upon a time I was a little undergrad
and I was taking organic chemistry.
And you wanna take a guess what I got
on my second exam in that class?
I got a 38%."
-: Oh.
-: And now here I am getting my PhD in chemistry
or almost with my PhD in chemistry
and I went
and I talked to my professor
and we had a long heart-to-heart conversation
about what happened for me on that exam,
because I was one of those students that,
I sat in the middle of the first row.
I was always answering questions.
I knew or seemingly knew what was going on.
And I, that class went not great
and I came back on that third exam
and I didn't put enough effort into the class
to get an A in the class,
but I got a solid B+ in the class.
-: Yes.
-: Coming back from a. -: And as the (indistinct) says
"And look at you now."
-: Coming back from a 38%.
-: Yes. And that is so powerful.
Now, I see another hand raised,
but is that a hand left over from?
'Cause I thought we had three.
-: I think that's a new, we did,
but Laura Webb put her hand up
at some point while in this last few minutes.
-: Oh, okay.
Actually, Laura, let me ask if,
'cause I'm sure what you are going
to say is gonna fit in one of the things later.
And so let me ask,
let me go a little bit further and if it doesn't,
then say what you were gonna say,
so we're not gonna forget you.
Okay, but yeah, and 'cause I wanted to share with you the,
I was talking at a conference once,
keynote conference and I talked about this
and before I sat down,
this professor sent me an email with these pictures in it,
Cathy Box is her name and she,
this was a meeting,
well, it's not a meeting, but okay,
on the next, the,
oh this is interesting,
I don't see the bottom of the slide,
a chapel, okay, that's what it was,
they had a chapel.
And they, these are outstanding faculty members.
And on one side of the cardboard,
they had them put any challenges they had.
And I'll just look at two.
This guy was fired at 19 from Hardwick Elementary School
where he was working as a custodian
and this person was told that moms can't do graduate school.
And then on the other side,
they put how they overcame the challenge
of what the result was
and he was hired at 22 as a teacher in the school
that he'd been fired from at 19 in a custodial position.
And now she is a college professor
and she's doing very well.
And Cathy Box the per in fact,
this is Cathy right there.
But she said that
that was one of the most profound
and effective chapels they ever had.
She said students came up and they were in tears.
They were saying how meaningful that was
because I think the other thing it does for students,
it shows them that you're not judging him
if they make a 38 on the first test.
Because you know that,
that doesn't mean they can't be successful.
And sometimes they do get that reaction
from a lot of faculty like at Princeton, you know,
why are you even trying to major in neuroscience?
You're making a C, get outta here.
And so James Raffini has written this book,
"150 Ways to Improve Intrinsic Motivation in the Classroom."
And it's actually written for a K12 audience,
but I find that the strategies for grades 9 through 12,
actually work well for undergraduates.
And so what they say is that there are five bases
of intrinsic motivation.
One is autonomy.
People like to feel that they are
in control of their own destiny.
One is competent.
We wanna feel that we will be successful
in whatever endeavor we are trying.
We wanna feel part of a group effort
and I think that's why these athletes will put
in so much time and energy.
They'll get out there at seven o'clock in the morning
and practice, you know, seven to eight
and they're back from six to nine at night
because they're part of the team
and they know that they have to make themselves better
so that the team can improve.
Self-esteem, we all wanna feel good about who we are.
And then we all like to have fun,
so involvement and enjoyment
to find pleasure in what they do.
And so I'll go over some examples
of each of these but I, again,
I'm gonna ask you to think of things
that you do at that meet, either one of these.
And Laura, I'm pretty sure
that what you are gonna share is gonna fit one of these
and so we're gonna, you're gonna be the first one
that I will ask to share.
But some of the strategies
for enhancing competence clearly articulating expectations
and somebody in the chat box mentioned earlier
that very clear rubrics are very, very helpful
for students to know exactly what they need to do.
And I'm a big fan of,
if we have papers or if we have projects
to take something from the past,
take an outstanding paper or project,
a mediocre paper or project,
and one that was poorly done and give that to students
and ask them to identify which was outstanding,
which was medicore, which was poor
and defend their evaluation of those papers.
And what I think
that does is it really helps them see
what are the characteristics of an outstanding paper?
A lot of students who turn in mediocre work,
it's not because they couldn't do better,
but they just don't what outstanding work looks like.
And so if they have the clear expectations
and examples of what outstanding work looks like,
then it's much easier,
providing early success opportunities.
So allowing students some opportunity to get some success,
because if they come in the class,
everybody said, you know,
oh, you're gonna flunk that class.
If they have something where they're successful
then that increases their self-efficacy,
that they're gonna be able to keep that up.
But now that's a little bit tricky
because it can't be too easy.
When I was at Cornell,
I, I'm still convinced that we did it the wrong way.
In general chemistry,
the first test was pretty straightforward.
And it was a lot of the stuff
that students had already seen in high school,
so students typically did really well,
the average was high,
but then for the second test,
the material got a lot harder and the test was harder.
And so then everybody bombed the second test
and students actually told me that after the first test,
they were thinking,
"Oh, you know, I didn't need
to spend this much time studying this,
this class is not that difficult,"
and so they slacked off.
So I think it's better for us
to give students some challenge in that first test,
even while providing early success opportunities.
So it's, you know, kind of a balance thing
that we've gotta do there.
And then help them really think about,
discuss the ways that students explain success and failure.
And some more strategies for enhancing competence.
Oh, actually, you know, before we do that,
actually, lemme say, Laura,
go ahead and share with us what you were gonna share
and tell us initially what category it fit into
and if it fit into one of the ones I just talked about.
(Laura laughs)
It's like, what did you, what were the categories before?
Okay, I'll put those back up, okay.
-: Well, I, what I was gonna share was an activity
and I take no credit for this other
than latching onto someone's good idea.
But to have of students break out into groups in class
and do concept sketches where, you know,
I'm trying to get them to get a critical concept,
but they're working together
and they feel support from one another,
so they also feel belonging as part of this group,
but I, they also sort of find their niche
in terms of someone might take a shelter
behind the pen and be the artist
while another person is maybe explaining a tricky part
of the concept,
but it seems like they all come away having participated
in different ways but getting something out of that,
that I couldn't deliver on my own.
-: Yes, no, I think it's a great activity because this,
whenever the students are talking
to each other about the concepts,
that's a plus.
And concept mapping has actually been shown
to deepen students' understanding
of how different things fit together,
which is very, very important.
And I love that you said, you know,
some, somebody might be the artist with the pen,
somebody else is explaining things
because I think that gets into learning style preferences.
I know that learning styles have fallen
into ill reput lately,
but I put the paper that allegedly debunked learning styles
in the book and I put in the paper
that debunked the paper
that allegedly debunked learning styles,
because I do think that that people have a preference.
Some people do like to explain,
or that they like to hear things,
other people like to draw
and so recognizing that I think is very important also.
Yeah, a Nobel laureate said he failed organic chemistry
and Jordan says, "I come out swinging on the first exam,
average is low."
Okay, and the second exam,
the class gets the attack from the back award
because the students really up their game.
Yes, and I think that that's a great strategy
and I would really highly urge you to do the metacognition,
I'll call it the intervention between,
right after, as soon as possible
after they get the scores back from the first exam,
because what sometimes happens is,
the students who had a lot of self-efficacy,
once they get that very low average on the first exam,
then they go into this mode, right?
Well, nothing I can do is gonna help
and so then they start putting in less effort,
but if you do the intervention,
then they can see exactly what they were doing wrong,
because in, when I do this
with general chemistry students at LSU,
normally the instructor doesn't tell them
that the next class
after they get the results back is gonna be
about learning strategies.
But for the last couple of years,
students have been so anxious
that as soon as they see their scores,
they start bombarding her,
wanting to meet in her office.
And so then she says,
"Well, you know, hold on, hold on,
the very next class is gonna be about learning strategies."
And I think that's,
I'm sure that's gonna help a lot of people.
So I think that that's great to do it,
but yeah, it,
letting them know that help is
on the way as soon as you can,
then that makes sense.
Okay, Jane, do you make that hard first exam?
Oh, low stakes,
which brings up another thing because it can be low stakes,
but it doesn't have to be low stakes.
And even if it is, okay, and Joanne says, no,
even if it is low stakes,
I wouldn't let the students know that.
And then she said, well, maybe,
because I give seven exams.
Yeah, and so that gets into, I think, you know,
sort of grading and I am not one to say that, you know,
you need to do it this way,
you can't do it this way.
So I'm never prescriptive.
But there are different philosophies
about how exams are gonna be handled.
One is that, you know, we're gonna drop the lowest score,
and so, but not letting students know that, I recommend,
until the end of the course,
because I found that
when students find out they can drop a course,
I would find these students who were,
they were on it,
they put in everything they had for the first three exams.
Let's say if it's a four exam course.
And so then after the third exam,
they've got their A average,
and so they drop out of the course
because they know they're gonna drop the fourth exam.
Somebody, I think, hasn't muted your mic.
If you could, everyone could mute,
that would be great.
And so they've dropped out of the course
after the third exam.
And then, so they miss everything that's on the fourth exam.
And then the final exam typically has more coming
from the latter half of the course than the first half,
and so they end up getting a C in the course,
even though they went in to,
they had an A after that first,
the first three exams.
Now, seven exams. Great.
And I see, let the comprehensive final count twice.
Don't advertise that until after the first exam.
Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
Now there's some faculty members,
there's an engineering professor here
at LSU who tells students,
"If you make an A on my final exam,
you will get an A in the course,"
because his final is very comprehensive.
And so his attitude is that he says,
I want students grades to reflect the state
of their knowledge of the material
when they leave my course.
And if they've mastered the material
and make an A on the final,
they'll make an A in the course.
Now, it doesn't, it very rarely happens that somebody,
you know, had a much lower average will make an A
on the final,
but if it does, then he gives them an A,
and that's kind of incentive for students
to put a lot of effort into making sure they go back
and understand what happened early in the course
so that they do well on the final.
Students about to drop ones
but then I had students who said,
I'm not taking this exam.
Oh, exactly, I'm taking my drop
and that doesn't help anybody.
Okay, and so, some strategies for enhancing competent...
Oh, we, yeah, we did that.
More, that targeted feedback describing
the effective learning strategies I find is
the most important thing to enhance competence
and showing before and after scores.
And I almost never do a presentation
without talking about metacognition,
only because I find that
when students are exposed to that concept,
it really is that paradigm shifter.
And then blooms taxonomy.
So metacognition and blooms taxonomy,
because there are so many students
whose eyes have been open.
And this is when they see what they need
to do different other than just operating down here.
And the idea that, I don't really need to know anything,
is really a lot more common now than it used to be.
And so students will tell me,
oh, Dr. McGuire, you know,
we don't need to memorize anything.
My professor said this course is not about memorization
You don't have to memorize anything,
I want you to understand everything.
And so I said, "Well, yeah, I understand that,
but you do have to know some things,
there's some formulas you may have to memorize,
and you have to have information in your brain
that you can use for understanding."
You're certain , yeah, exactly.
And in fact, if you Google a funny dentist clip,
you'll see something from the Carol Burnett show.
I would, I show that clip
when I speak at medical schools,
dental schools, health profession schools,
it is so funny.
But exactly that.
And the example that I'm gonna give you is,
our older daughter is a faculty member,
she's a full professor
and section chief of pediatric allergy immunology
and retro virology at Baylor College of Medicine.
And in the days when she was rounding with residents,
she said that she rounded with this group of residents
and she asked this young man,
"Is it okay to prescribe drugs
like Sudafed and Actifed to pregnant women?"
And she said, "she thought he was gonna stop
and think and say,
well, it constricts blood vessels,
so probably not."
Instead he whipped out his,
it was PDA at the time,
our personal digital assistant
and he called up the physician's desk reference.
And she said,
and he read a few lines and looked at her and said no.
And she asked him, "Why not?"
He was absolutely clueless.
And so this idea that you don't have to have any knowledge
in your head is very dangerous.
And I tell students that,
you have to have, you can't solve problems
with information that you have just looked up on the web,
you've gotta have information in your brain.
And so that's why I like
that remembering is really the base of the triangle.
And then you go up from there,
critical reflection assignments are super useful
for students and instructors, yeah.
If you can't answer the question,
can you explain what you don't understand?
Okay, yes, absolutely.
And that's why now I was so opposed to reflection earlier,
but I am a huge fan of reflection now.
And this is just another form of blooms that has the verbs
that go along with each level,
so that students really get it.
And then that study cycle that we talked about before
that students love, love, love this thing,
because it gives 'em a very concrete strategy for studying.
And so maybe putting effort is almost, you know,
how many of the study cycles do you do.
But it is really helpful.
Now, before and after scores are really motivational,
I found.
Somebody mentioned that, you know,
when they said I got a 38 on the first test
and look where I am now,
students find that motivating.
And I do show this
because if a student, and so I want you
to start keeping your own before and after scores,
I think I asked you to do that last week.
And also the strategies,
have students send you an email
and tell you the strategies
that they used in order to improve.
Oh yeah, yeah. My thinking has changed so much.
I was such a fixed mindset person.
I thought, you know, you, if you couldn't,
if you flunked the first two of my organic chemistry tests
and you thought you were gonna be a neurosurgeon,
I would help you figure out a great backup plan
because there was no way you were gonna get into med school.
Now, and I,
I'm so sorry that I didn't know it then,
I repent.
But yeah, it's definitely changed.
And did I have a fixed mindset about mindsets?
Actually, no, I didn't.
I didn't know anything about mindsets.
So when I learned the information about mindset,
that there was this growth mindset and fixed mindset
and by the time I saw the mindset information,
I'd already learned the strategies.
And so I think that's one of the mistakes
that sometimes we make.
And sometimes students think that,
okay, if I have a growth mindset,
then I say, okay, I can do this,
I can make myself smarter,
I can improve.
But that's hollow if they don't have strategies
that they're going to put in place
to actually make the improvement happen.
And so I didn't really have a fixed mindset about mindsets,
but I did have a fixed mindset about intelligence.
And so once we can show students this,
if a student says, "Oh, you know,
always me, I made a 38 on the first test."
Don't worry about that,
here's a student who made a 30, then a 28.
These are the scores after B in the course.
And this particular student,
oh, and that's the other thing.
If a student hasn't done well,
when they come to the office many times
and I used to do the same thing,
I would say, well, tell me how you studied for the test.
And then I was gonna show them, you know,
what they needed to do differently.
But then it dawned on me that is such a no win situation
to put a student in.
If they flunk the test and they come in,
and the first thing we say is,
well, tell me what, how you studied for the test.
They know that whatever they say, we gonna say,
"Well, how that work out for you?
That didn't work out so well, did it?"
And so they know that what they did (chuckles) was not good.
And so I don't start with that.
I start with, well, you know,
you made a 60 on,
but don't even worry about that
because I'm gonna show you some students
who started off a lot lower than you did
and they ended up with an A or B in the course.
And so that I think does three things.
One is it lets the student know
that I'm not going to castigate them
about making a low score.
I'm not gonna make them tell me what they did,
what they, which they already know is incorrect.
They also know that I have confidence
that they can end the course with an A or B.
And they know that I'm gonna share strategies with them
that have worked for other people like them in the class
who started off failing.
And that is a very, very powerful message.
And it really gets students
to pay attention to what we're gonna say.
Because most students who have,
in fact put a yes or a no in the chat box
if you have seen this,
where students will come to the office
after they fail the test,
but they really don't think
we're gonna tell them anything useful.
Have you seen that?
I mean, they come, they're so dejected
and it's like, okay,
I'm gonna listen to what you say.
But you can tell
that they don't really think it's gonna work for them.
Give me a yes or a no, if that has been.
Okay, yeah. I'm saying, yeah.
And so, and if they don't think it's gonna work for them,
then they're not really invested in what we're saying
with the idea that I'm gonna go out and do this
because they don't think it's gonna work for them.
But when we show 'em the before and after scores,
that makes a huge difference.
I had a student,
African American male student in engineering,
he would not look me,
he was a graduate student and he'd fail the first test.
He wouldn't even look me in the eye
when he came in the office,
I could not get him to make eye contact.
But when I was showing the before and after scores,
you know, he kind of sat up
and then by the end of the session,
he was saying, "Oh, I wish I had come
to you so much sooner."
And a lot of students would say that and I'd ask,
"Well, why didn't you come sooner?"
They said, "'Cause my professor was trying
to get me to come and talk to you."
And I'd say, "Well, why didn't you come sooner?"
And they'd say, "Well,
I didn't know this is what you were gonna do."
And so I said, "Well, what did you think I was gonna do?"
And they said, "I thought you were just gonna tell me
I needed to study harder."
So they think we're gonna tell 'em stuff
that they already know they should be doing
that they're not doing,
they don't know they're gonna get anything,
any new strategies.
And so, but showing them these
and then moving into the strategies,
I think makes a big difference.
Now, the other thing that I tell them is,
I use these before and after scores for presentations.
So when this young man came,
I started with the before and after scores
and he looked at me and he said,
"Dr. McGuire," and he did it just like he said,
"I'm gonna be in your next presentation."
And so his nickname was Iffy.
And I said, "Okay, Iffy, that is absolutely fine.
Send me your score."
Only the final exam was left.
I said, "Send me your score
and I will put you in the next presentation,
not if you make an A,
but when you make an A or B or you know,
whatever on the task,
'cause I don't wanna set students up for expecting
that everybody's gonna make an A
and then some students don't do any better."
And I tell them if you don't do any better,
that's okay too,
we're gonna figure out what you did
and there's always more strategies.
So don't even get discouraged
if you don't make a better score on the next test,
we'll figure out what's going on.
And there are strategies that will work for you.
And so he said, "I'm gonna be in your next presentation.
He made a 95."
I was speaking at Cornell University and right after that,
that was my next talk.
And if he made his appearance at my Cornell University talk.
And I wanted to show you this
and we're almost finished but...
Okay, so some
of our institutions have these study skills courses
or college success courses
and sometimes they make a difference with students
and sometimes they don't.
Now this particular young man,
he's actually the reason that the student book exists.
He still has the longest review.
If you go on Amazon,
look at reviews of "Teach Students How to Learn",
he has the longest review of the faculty book.
He actually took pictures of pages in the book
and posted those in his review.
And so he, I met him when I spoke at Westmont College,
he was a sophomore and he,
his final semester when he was graduating,
he was so excited
because he had a 4.0 in his final semester.
And he sent me his transcript
because he was so proud
that he'd never made anything less
than a 3.20 every semester
since he started using the strategies.
But he had a 2.7 cum before he started using them.
And so when I looked at his transcript,
I noticed that he had taken,
they had two versions of the course
and he had taken each one of those versions,
gotten an A in each one,
but he still had Cs and Ds on his transcript after.
And so I asked him, "Well,
what was the difference between what he got from the course
and what he got from the strategies in the book?"
And so this is the email he sent me.
He said, "More than anything,
the book gave him us structured way
to approach studying strategically,"
looking at that study cycle,
he's talking about, he said,
"While that class didn't really resonate with him,
it wasn't a very difficult class
and most of these classes are not easy
to pass with a good grade."
He said, "but he didn't leave the class with any tools
that really gave him the structure and insight,"
I think is what I'm talking about gives students
that he needed to actually put study strategies
into practice.
"Your book and the examples you laid out gave a very clear
and concise methodology that I was able to plug into,
whereas that class didn't impress upon me my own ability
to be able to study well.
But the book and the examples you used
and case studies you presented inspired me to believe
that it were possible for them,
it possible for me too."
And so I think that's where that inspiration comes in.
And I don't have the book in this presentation,
but last week when I spoke,
I told you that I'm not shy anymore about recommending
that faculty make students aware of the book
and have it as a suggested resource on your syllabus
because now I realized that
when faculty tell students these strategies and what to do,
the information is there,
but all of the little inspirational,
the stories that I say in workshops,
that's in the book,
but it's not there when faculty talk with students.
And so I am not shy anymore about suggesting that.
Please, recommend that the students look at the book.
Strategies for enhancing belonging and relatedness.
Creating this community of scholars in the classroom,
where students are accountable to each other,
team based learning.
Providing authentic, real world scenarios.
And that's where service learning comes in.
And so I think I'll probably only be able to take one person
who would like to share if you do anything in your class
that helps the students recognize that they are in,
part of this group of community of scholars.
Or if you do anything,
if you have service learning
or you provide any kind of authentic
or real world experiences for the student,
if you would raise your hand and share that, please.
Oh, UVM has an ebook copy.
Oh, fantastic. Wonderful.
And the other thing is I'm gonna be working
with Brown University next week,
they're actually going
to have me videotape a generic version
of the one that I did for chemistry students
that now has over, I think,
like 15,000 views and that,
they're gonna make that available they said, you know,
at no cost to any institution
that wants to use it and they'll be,
they can do it through their LMS.
And so, yes, so there's the,
oh, so I feel less guilty
'cause your students don't even have
to spend any money on it.
Did we see any hands raised by any chance, Susanmarie?
-: No, no hands right now. -: Okay.
Alright, well I will keep going then.
Enhancing self-esteem.
We talked about sharing one thing you do well,
how'd you learn to do it.
And then having them answer the question,
how can you relate this to academic success?
And then that appropriate level of challenge,
early success opportunities.
And this is an email from a professor,
Cal State University Northridge
and she was talking about the impact that the invention,
the intervention had on her biology class.
She said the students respond really well
and find it motivating.
And that was another difference that I,
that was kind of unexpected.
And I in the book,
"Teach Students How To Learn", in chapter 11,
there's a section that we call the secret ingredients.
'Cause there's some subtle differences
between a presentation
that doesn't go over well with students
and one that goes over really well,
but they responded very well.
She said she has a student in Bio106,
took the same class with her in the past and failed.
She's retaking it and the intervention hit home with her.
In particular,
the growth mindset,
she quit thinking that she was bad at biology and it worked
'cause she had the third highest grade
on the final exam and is getting an A in the course.
And then she says, "But it gets better.
She's taking intro physics
and didn't study for the first exam, didn't do well.
So the instructor returned her test
with a 'Drop' written in red,
but with her new growth mindset,
she decided she was good at physics too
and she ended up with a B in that class."
And so these are the kinds things,
yeah, this is definitely recorded
and you will have the PowerPoint presentation
and the recording.
I'll just highlight one of these strategies
for enhancing involvement and enjoyment.
These switch days.
There was a math professor who said
that every Friday he does
what he calls teaching on the spots days.
So students know that he can call on any one of them
and have them come up to the front of the class
and he's gonna be a student,
they're gonna be the professor.
But he says to tamp down some of the anxiety,
he tells them that they will be able
to call on somebody in the class if they get stuck.
But that works out really well.
And then oncourseworkshop.com is a,
absolutely I will, we'll send it out.
I'll have to figure out a way
to let all the institutions know,
but oh, you know, yeah,
I'll have 'em put it in POD
and Susanmarie I think is part part of POD,
but this is a great website also.
And so finally I just wanted
to show you the work that Eric Hobson
and Albany College of Pharmacy had done,
looking at the contributors to positive motivation,
what makes students wanna spend time on a course
and negative motivation,
what makes them not wanna put time on a course.
And you see the contributors in each category.
And so what I want you to tell me is,
what do you notice about the first tool
in each category that are either just about 50% or higher?
Well, you know us about those first two
and just put that in the chat box for me please.
First two, positive.
First two, negative.
Exactly, we notice that they're exactly the same
and they're under our control.
It's the teacher's attitude and the core structure
that makes a difference.
If the teacher's attitude was,
we are a community of scholars
and all of us can be successful,
I'm gonna teach you strategies
that will allow you to excel,
students were gonna spend time.
If the, on the other side,
if the teacher said, look to your left, look to your right,
two of you are gonna be gone by midterm,
then students didn't put any effort into it.
If in the course structure,
if there are lots of exams, quizzes,
opportunities for students to demonstrate their mastery,
then they put a lot of time into it.
But if there was only one midterm and one final exam,
they didn't put a lot into it.
And so the bottom line is that we really can
significantly increase student motivation,
but we gotta teach our students
that they can make themselves smarter
by spending time and effort on the material, not just time.
Testing early and often,
providing those early opportunities for success.
Conducting that one class session or are,
for our tutors sometime in a tutoring session
on the importance of metacognition
and how it's used or having them watch the video.
Express our confidence that every student can succeed
and introducing a metacognitive get-acquainted activity
during the first class session.
For example, asking students,
what do you think of the characteristics of students
who do well in this course and see what they say?
And then what are you planning
to do to do well in this course?
And then just share that as a class.
And so many students will get ideas about things
that they need to be doing
that they would not have otherwise.
And so you won't get a chance to do this now,
but whenever you get a chance,
please, you know, look at this stuff and think,
is there anything that we've discussed
that you might implement
in any aspect of your course this semester,
and then share this with a colleague or with a group.
And these are some references.
And that is the end of it.
And so I will stop the share if I remember how to do.
Okay, share.
I stop it in zoom all the time.
How do I stop the share?