Transcript Helping students

Helping Students Learn to Learn:
Simple Things that Teachers Can Do
Angela Ho, EDC
Chan Chi Hung, Learning to Learn Project
Helping Students Learn to Learn:
What Do Your Students Need?
What Do You Need?
Learning to Learn
What do your students NEED?
Learning to Learn:
What do students say they need?
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To know the aims of learning
To set learning goals
Improve our thinking process
Skills to answer questions
Learn to apply in daily life
To know more about real world situations
How to learn efficiently & effectively, i.e. less time to
learn more, less effort to get more returns
Learn the different ways for learning different subjects
e.g. ICT, IT
Learning to Learn:
What do students say they need? (I)
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My relatives ask me “What do you do with the subject you’re
studying?”, I don’t know what to say, …… In fact, I am quite lost.
(Lacking understanding of learning goals)
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We are completely lacking thinking skills and don’t know how to
transfer our learning.…I have no idea what has to be
interpreted. … We learned a lot of things, but we don’t know how
to apply these in work
(Badly lacking thinking/cognitive skills)
Learning to Learn:
What do students say they need? (II)
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The most difficult is the project. We have to take care of
everything from the beginning…. We have to form
groups with someone we are not familiar with
The teaching of writing reports, we only know the
heading, we do not know what should go under it.
(Lacking skills for specific learning tasks)
Helping students learn to learn
What are the more efficient methods?
Learning to Learn
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Stand alone course
on learning skills
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Learning to learn
in the context of
teaching, learning &
assessment
Preference for learning to learn in-context
of teaching, learning & assessment
The following all suggest that
in-context L2L is preferred
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Empirical evidence in the literature
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PolyU experience
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Students’ opinions
Empirical evidence in support of
in-context learning-to-learn
A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of
51 learning skills interventions
… the typical study skills training package is indeed not
so effective as metacognitive and contextualised
intervention, but is significantly better than nothing -clearly so in the case of younger students, and only
marginally so in the case of college students.
(Hattie, Biggs and Purdie, 1996: 129)
PolyU experience
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Stand-alone L2L efforts
 Workshops
 One-off study of
L2L handbooks
Students found materials
very useful, BUT seldom
refer to them afterwards
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In-context L2L support
 Detailed feedback on
assignments
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Students reported to
have more impact on
their learning
Students’ words suggest that
in-context L2L is more appropriate
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Difficulties in learning perceived by students are
mostly related to the programme or to the
teaching / learning process
Students prefer L2L help
 To be given in relation to a task
 To be given when they need to work on the
task
Helping Students Learn to Learn
What do your NEED?
Learning to Learn in-context of
teaching, learning & assessment
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How can the learning of learning skills be integrated
with the learning of content knowledge?
What teaching & assessment methods foster the
development of learning skills?
How to appropriately provide students with guidance on
learning skills?
What knowledge and abilities do teachers require for
the teaching of learning skills?
Learning to Learn
Developing students’
Cognitive, Motivational & Interpersonal
strategies for learning
Participating departments
1. BSE
6. ITC
2. BUSS
7. LSGI
3. COMP
8. ME
4. ENGL
9. MFG
5. GEC
10. OR
3 handbooks for
helping students learn to learn
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Help in the cognitive domain
For the Success of Your Study
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Help in the motivational domain
Getting the Most out of Your University: Becoming a
Successful Learner and a Preferred Graduate
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Help in the interpersonal domain
Working Your Way through a Group Project
What do students say about
“For the success of your study”?
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This is the first booklet I’ve come across which is so
systematically written to tell me what to do in my learning.
In the past, I tried my best to put in everything which I thought
the teacher wanted. Now I realise that I need to select and
organise.
Teachers asked me to elaborate but I didn’t know how to. Now
the thinking tasks have inspired me what to do.
I started to realise why those classmates who explained their
steps in calculation got better results than me. I used to focus on
calculating the answer only.
What do students say about “Becoming a
successful learner and a preferred graduate”?
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I know what I should do and learn in these coming 3 years. And
the most important is that I have to learn in a correct way in
different learning activities.
I helps me understand deeply what I can do after my graduation
and to realise what employers want employees to have.
University is a new life to me … This workshop can help us to
cope with the new ways of learning.
It helps me to set a goal and to understand the things I should
learn besides textbook knowledge.
What do students say about
“Working your way through a group project”?
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This clarifies what it means by a project
It is useful because I need the skills to handle our project. It
really can help us solve the problems.
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It can help me to increase my responsibility in a group.
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I find the the part on communication and leadership skills useful.
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I will try to have an evaluation for each section and make sure
that each members can learn from each other and the process.
What do students say about
a 2-day L2L programme?
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the workshop raise my awareness of my thinking method and
help me to think about how I should work with my group
members in the coming projects.
I also enjoyed the Learning to learn workshop. Things I got in the
workshop:
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knew more friends from other groups. e.g. xxx
had deeper thinking in some aspects. e.g.learning approach,
communication with other, work and organise project-improvement!!
And I still keep thinking them after the workshop.
Helping Students Learn to Learn –
Simple Things that Teachers Can Do
1. Helping students learn to learn: What do your
students need? What do you need?
2. Motivating students to learn by helping them
see their learning goals
3. Helping students to achieve higher level
learning outcomes
4. Helping students to get the most out of group
project work
Approaches to
Helping Students Learn
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Study skills training approach
Learning strategies teaching approach
Student development approach
Contextual approach
Study skills training approach
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mostly skills for “managing study to pass exam”
-- peripheral to “understanding”
out-of-context of the subject
prescriptive skills
Learning Strategies Teaching
Teaching students about cognitive processes which
underlie effective learning
Learning strategies from
Cognitive psychology
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Rehearsal
Elaboration
Organisation
Comprehension monitoring
…...
Methods for teaching learning
strategies
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courses/workshops
integrating the teaching of learning strategies
into regular teaching (Metacurriculum)
Student-Development
Approaches
Developing self-awareness
Changing conceptions of learning
Rationales for
Student-development approaches
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Different techniques suit different people
Research has shown that “peripheral” skills are NOT
related to learning outcomes
Many “study skills” advice are based on experiments
absurdly unlike student learning
Developing self-awareness
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stimulates thinking about own learning (the
processes, decisions, purposes … that make
up studying)
encourages sharing of experiences
facilitates development of an armoury of
suitable approaches to be used in appropriate
conditions
Contextual Approach
to
Improving Student Learning
Factors affecting student learning
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Curriculum
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Teaching method
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Assessment method
Research findings on
Effectiveness of
different approaches
Martin & Ramsden (1987)
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Students’ comments
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Learning outcomes
Students comments
study skills
course
student
development
programme
keen
Did not get
what I wanted
at the end lost enthusiasm,
cannot apply to
real learning
Gained insight
about learning
at the
beginning
Learning outcomes
comparing participants with non-participants
study skills
course
student
development
programme
exam
no difference no difference
essay
no difference participants
significantly
better than
non-participants
Learning Outcomes
Comparing participants in study skills programme with
non-participants
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Final exam -difference
No
Essay assignment -difference
No
Learning Outcomes
Comparing participants in student development
programme with non-participants
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Final exam -difference
No
Essay assignment -Participants
performed significantly better than nonparticipants
Common topics in
skills training courses
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study
Time organisation
Study management
Using text-books or reference materials efficiently
Revision techniques
Note taking
etc.
Looking at Approaches to
Helping Students Learn
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characteristics of the approach
examples
research findings on effectiveness
Helping students learn to learn
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What
What are their “learning to learn needs”?
When?
When is the best time to provide help?
How?
How best to help them?