Lately when I talk with faculty members about their courses and classrooms, I often have to say something that few of them want to hear: Your undergraduates need you to teach them “studenting” skills.
It’s no secret that a lot of students are coming to campus unfamiliar with skills, habits, and behaviors that are necessary to succeed at college-level work — both basic things like the importance of meeting deadlines, paying attention, and being respectful in the classroom and more-complicated skills like knowing how to annotate readings (to retain meaning) and cope with time-management problems.
The absence of those skills does not reflect an individual’s capacity for creativity, critical thinking, or even advanced reading, writing, and problem-solving. It doesn’t necessarily mean the student is incapable of the intellectual rigor of a college education. But their absence does make learning and college success very difficult. Too many smart and creative students are doing poorly in our courses, learning much less than they could, in large part because they haven’t been taught what I call “studenting” skills or been convinced of their value for their own success.
Those of us who already possess such habits and skills were explicitly taught them by adults at some point in our lives. Many undergraduates would benefit from such explicit instruction, too, which is why, as director of a faculty-development program, I often urge every faculty member to start providing explicit instruction on how to be a successful student in a college course.
What I am suggesting is commonsensical and not difficult. But this new role that I advocate departs sharply from the role many instructors prefer: that of a knowledge expert who leads learners through the course content, sparks thoughtful class discussion, and inspires academic achievement. Of course those are essential pedagogical skills for instructors. And yet they aren’t much use if your students come to class without having done the reading, scroll on their phones while their peers speak, or use class time to catch up on homework for another course.
In the spring of 2020, a global health crisis required all of us to be flexible in our teaching. For those instructors who had always taken a rigid approach — zero tolerance for absences, no make-up exams, no extensions — that advice was long overdue. The idea that we treat students like human beings who vary in their gifts and talents, and who respond differently to other people, should remain central to our teaching.
That we were perhaps too flexible in the spring and fall of 2020, such that our students’ learning was compromised, can be forgiven. Those were hard times for all of us, and most of us had no precedent to draw on. But now it’s the spring of 2024, four long years later, and our students need to learn more and learn better. To do that, they need to be trained in studenting skills.
Rather than adjust curricula, due dates, absentee policies, and learning outcomes — that is, be ever more flexible — we need to adopt a role many had hoped was reserved for K-12 teachers: coaching, coaxing, and holding students responsible for developing and practicing skills and habits that will enable them to learn.
At this point, readers may be thinking: High schools need to better deal with this problem. Or you may be hoping that the pandemic aftereffect will finally wash away on its own (although that’s what many faculty members expected to happen in 2023-24, and it hasn’t). As for the campus student-support professionals who are dedicated to teaching those skills, their staff members can’t succeed without the faculty as a partner.
Professors, rhetorically persuasive and armed with incentives and disincentives in the classroom, are well positioned to inculcate strong studenting skills. Try introducing and reinforcing the following behaviors and habits of successful college students into your teaching. Be explicit about why your students must:
- Attend class regularly. Explain the value of attendance for learning and for their final grade. Take attendance, and make absences matter. If students can learn everything they need to know without coming to class, why would they show up?
- Be alert and engaged in class. Articulate your expectations about classroom behavior. Post slides or state briefly at the beginning of the class: Put phones away, remove earbuds, and plan to contribute voluntarily or when called on. Let students know when they slip; praise them when they succeed.
- Carve out time to do homework. Tell your students how much weekly time they will need to spend completing assignments for your course or studying for tests. If they’re having trouble with time management, refer them to resources on your campus or online tools that you use (calendars, to-do lists, apps).
- Complete assignments on time. Provide consequences for late work, and explain the logic behind them. For example, if your policy on incomplete work varies, explain why: You award zero points on an incomplete assignment that is essential for planned peer or group work, but reduced points on one that is independent work. Students should experience consequences for late work early in the semester so they learn from their mistakes while recovery is still possible. Tell students experiencing a personal emergency what to do if they can’t finish an assignment, such as emailing you immediately and not waiting until after the deadline has passed.
- Resist digital distractions. Remind students that procrastination and distraction problems are common, and that, to succeed, they must learn to manage those challenges. Share some strategies you are familiar with, such as studying in a library or quiet space, using a Pomodoro Timer, and deleting distracting apps or putting their phones out of immediate reach. Refer students to resources on or off the campus. We all face those distractions; show compassion without lessening your expectations.
- Take care of their health. Students need more than empathy and encouragement for their health challenges of all types. They need to understand that taking care of themselves — physically and psychologically — is required for college success. Remind students of resources on the campus, and be prepared to make individual referrals when they ask for your help or when a problem is evident.
- Seek help. Explain how successful students receive help in your classes: They come to your office hours, visit a tutoring center, work in study groups, or consult online resources that you’ve recommended. Encourage those behaviors for all students, and require them for a student who is faltering.
There are plenty of others. Your aim should be to make your expectations clear, repeat them regularly in class, and explain their learning value. Call out students when they succeed, and when they slip.
To be sure, being explicit, and coaxing, rewarding, and calling out these behaviors, won’t resolve every problem. For some students, situational factors, including mental-health struggles, are too great, and they need more help than instructors or student-support professionals can provide. It will take such students longer to achieve their goals, but you can help by being clear on what it takes to succeed.
What students don’t need is mixed signals from us, including receiving passing grades when they haven’t achieved the minimum learning outcomes for the course.
Teaching explicit studenting skills alongside content is a strategy I’ve employed for 30 years with positive results, inspired by Lisa Delpit’s 2006 book Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. Her book, which is still a worthwhile read today, argues that explicit skills instruction is an important strategy for middle-class white teachers who work with low-income students from varied cultures, so that those students do not have to guess what their instructors want. I teach writing, and my research focus is writing pedagogy. I see explicit instruction in writing skills, along with challenging content and assignments, as an inclusive pedagogical approach, leveling the playing field and enabling students who are unfamiliar with the implicit rules of the “culture of power” (Delpit) to succeed.
As faculty members, we practice these habits and behaviors in our professional lives, as do many students in our classrooms. They, and we, are quietly perplexed when we see dozens of other students who clearly do not. Let’s not act like silent bystanders: Instead, let’s adopt strategies that make clear the small, simple acts and behaviors that, in total, lead to academic success.
Extra reading: For a university initiative on how to promote these skills, see what colleagues and I have put together at Montclair State University: Be a Strong Student Campaign.
