By Linda B. Nilson, director, Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation
Most of our undergraduate students don’t understand how learning works or what they have to do to help themselves learn. If we, the faculty, don’t tell them, they may never know, and this blind spot will keep them from doing their best work in college and from becoming lifelong learners.
Learning is a pretty complicated task, and most important is being aware and mindful of doing it. This is called self-regulated learning.
Let’s say you have to learn some new material. Ideally, you start by setting a learning goal and following a strategic plan. This plan may involve actively listening, taking notes, outlining, concept-mapping the material, self-quizzing, summarizing, or whatever you know works best for you and the task. While executing the plan, you observe and monitor your mind to ensure it is focused and not distracted, tired, or discouraged. When motivation sags, you tell yourself why it’s important to master this material. You also evaluate the quality of your learning by occasionally pausing to relate the material to what you already know, recall the most important points, and identify interrelationships among the concepts or principles. If your command of the material falls short, you reconsider your learning strategy and try another one that may work better.
This self-regulated learning process is very effective, and anyone can do it. The research behind it is based in cognitive psychology. Study after study shows that the practice leads to deeper and longer-term learning, better student products and test results, and more accurate self-assessment, especially for struggling students.
Critical thinking, the focus skill of Clemson’s quality enhancement plan (QEP), requires self-regulated learning. How can you think critically without observing and evaluating your own thinking?
While there’s no magic bullet to increase student learning, some simple, brief activities and assignments, most of which require little or no grading time, can help students make major strides. For instance, when students miss a problem, have them explain in writing where they went wrong and then solve it or similar problem correctly. If they seem to ignore your feedback on written assignments, have them grapple with it by writing a paraphrase of it. These are two just ways to develop your students’ self-regulated learning skills. You’ll find dozens more for readings, podcasts, lectures, problem sets, exams, papers, projects, and experiential assignments in my new book, Creating Self-Regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students’ Self-Awareness and Learning Skills (Stylus, 2013).
