Teaching

This week I:

• Describe what some educators think of teaching students study skills.
• Share more ideas on revamping stale discussion boards.
• Point you to some new studies on teaching.

Studying skills

Is it necessary — or even advisable — for professors to spend part of a class teaching students how to best take notes or study for an exam? Should instructors explain why meeting deadlines and showing up for class is important?

For those who say yes, a recent essay in The Chronicle on why it’s critical to teach students “studenting” skills was welcome advice. Emily Isaacs, the author of the essay, noted that excellent teaching isn’t of much value if you’re facing a room full of distracted, unprepared students.

I asked readers for their thoughts on the topic. Here are two takes.

Anisha Clarke, a math lecturer at Queens College of the City University of New York:

“I find that executive-functioning skills are what most students struggle with in college, and I talk about those with the whole class; however, the personal conversations I have with students about studying, attendance, engagement, communicating with me about absences, managing their schedules, etc., when I meet with them individually immediately after class, make a difference.

“When I grade quizzes, I write ‘See me’ at the top of the quiz for students who did not do well. Immediately after class, we discuss their work. I cannot wait for them to come to my office hours. I ask them how they prepared for the quiz. They say, ‘I studied.’ I ask them, ‘How do you study? What would I see you doing if I walked into the space where you study?’ I ask them to show me. Most students flip the pages of their notebooks. I ask them how much time they spent studying. Some say, ‘About 15 minutes.’ Then I say, ‘Each lesson takes two hours and 15 minutes to get through the material,’ and we discuss why 15 minutes is not enough.

“We talk about where they study. Many of my students do not have a designated space to study at home. I remind them that if it’s OK with their parents, then they can study in the library. In most cases, when students apply the study habits we discuss, I see improvement on the following quiz. As their math instructor, I feel responsible for telling them what studying looks like in this discipline.”

She gave another example of pulling aside a student who was regularly 30 to 45 minutes late to class. (Queens is primarily a commuter college.) Clarke asked him where he lived, what time he got up, and how he got to campus. It was apparent, she noted, that he was not leaving himself enough time. That one conversation helped him figure out a way to mostly be on time. “Time blindness,” she wrote, is a common problem.

Clarke offered two cautions. The first is that since the pandemic, students need more than good study habits. They need help with their mental health, and that’s something she does not have the training to provide. The second, she wrote, is that it’s important to talk to students individually. “Repeating those skills to the whole class can be boring and undermining, especially for students who already demonstrate productive student habits.”

And that connects to what another reader had to say.

Randy Olson, a family-engagement specialist in Yucaipa, Calif.:

“Students who aren’t prepared should get help after class, during office hours, or at the tutoring center,” wrote Olson, a former middle- and high-school English teacher who returned to higher education to earn a master’s degree in school administration. “Too many times I’ve seen students who are prepared penalized by having to waste time in class on those who aren’t.”

In his master’s program, he wrote, he was “so appalled by the amount of hand-holding” that he transferred to another university, only to find the same thing there.

“The issue you’ve brought up and the ensuing conversation seem rather one-sided, focused only on those who are unprepared and what to do with them. What about those of us who actually paid attention in class (whether high school or college), did the work, and graduated with a decent education? We’re paying good money for what amounts to a huge waste of time.

“When one professor started to explain how to write a research paper, I lost it. What kind of colleges did these students attend, where they don’t know how to write a basic research paper? And why would a professor think it’s appropriate to use time in a master’s-level class to cover it?”

Olson protested and said students who didn’t know how to write a research paper should go to the learning center, but the professor said some students needed the help.

“My question is this,” wrote Olson. “Who’s the voice of the prepared? And why should they even need to speak up? Shouldn’t they be considered and protected from the start?”

Olson said he’s not arguing against teaching certain skills, but it needs to be appropriate for the class. “Covering the basics of writing a research paper is completely appropriate for English 101, but not a graduate-level class,” he wrote. “Basic grammar and syntax are appropriate for a noncollege-level English class, but not English 101.”

I’d like to continue this conversation. If you have thoughts either in favor of or against this kind of skill building in class, I’d like to hear them. You can write to me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com, and your ideas may appear in a future newsletter.

Better discussion boards

For the past couple of months I’ve been sharing your strategies for reviving or revamping discussion boards, which for many of you have become stale or riddled with AI-generated posts. If you missed previous examples, you can find them in these three newsletters.

Here’s another approach.

Kyle L. Ashley, a business-administration instructor at Yakima Valley College, in Washington, wrote to say that he uses discussion boards as a form of active learning in his online and hybrid courses. To ensure that students get the most out of them he uses these strategies:

• Set clear expectations for participation guidelines and grading criteria. This includes being explicit about the purpose, structure, and grading of discussion-board posts.

• Ask open-ended questions requiring students to draw from personal or professional experience when possible. This reduces the risk that students might use artificial intelligence or just “regurgitate constructs from assigned reading,” he wrote. And when students can draw from personal experience, the learning experience becomes more meaningful.

• Encourage community. Students, he wrote, “are encouraged to challenge conclusions from other students — one specific guideline is, disagree with the statement, not the person — ask for clarification with a follow-up question, or affirm with their own personal experience, integrating constructs from assigned reading.”

• Actively support or guide weekly discussion-board postings. He is careful how he does this, he wrote, because if the instructor is dominant, then students might not want to participate. So he focuses on making sure that students who are less active don’t feel discouraged by others who might be “hyperactive.” He will seek out their posts and respond to them. If posts are flagged by a plagiarism detector, he will reach out to the students individually to ensure they are not abusing AI.

• Summarize and integrate the discussion-board responses into in-class sessions and weekly summaries. This helps tie the activities to what they are studying. In some cases, if Ashley feels the students were off track in their comments, he will redirect them. And, he wrote, he regularly asks students how they feel about the discussion boards and adjusts accordingly, to ensure that they remain effective.

ICYMI

• In his blog, Agile Learning, Derek Bruff discusses three recent studies on AI and learning to determine their effect on student agency, creativity, understanding of storytelling, and writing self-efficacy. The results so far are mixed.
• In her newsletter, R3, Michelle Miller discusses a new study on active learning versus lecture, which has some interesting results.

Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com or beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.

As always, nonsubscribers who register for a free Chronicle account can read two articles a month. Your readership supports our journalism.

— Beth

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