How student learn
As teachers, many of us teach the way we were taught. We often adopt the characteristics of our favorite teachers without actually thinking. But today many things have changed, and the learning environment is not the same as before. The education system needs new teaching styles where teachers are no longer the “transfer of knowledge” but someone who coach, mentor, guide, and support the learning of students.
For many years, we develop an “authority” teaching style that defines how we see ourselves as teachers and how we want to be seen by students. But today we need to learn to be someone who is there to help, to guide, to lead, and to enable students to learn. To accomplish this, our teaching style must change, but it is not easy because we have not seen many role models. Changing the way we teach is challenging, and it requires time and even some mistakes before we know what to do. Instead of a focus on how we teach, we need to switch our focus on how our students learn and how much time they spend on learning.
When it comes to college students and studying, the general rule is: “For every one hour in class, students must spend two to three hours outside of class studying and working on assignments for the course.” For average students with three classes a day, it means nine hours of studying each day. Now, thinking about the students, how many hours do you think they spend studying each day? As teachers, do you know? Do you ever ask them? I am sure it is not nine or even six hours per day studying. If we know how much time they spend studying, what can we do about it?
As teachers, we need to ask more about our students' learning habit. And we should not worry about how students think of us as teachers. What we find out about how students study, how they do homework, how they read textbooks, how they work together, or listen to our lectures may have implications for how we teach. Some of us may become sensitive and do not want to ask because we worry that we may find something negative. But how can we improve if we do not ask?
I often ask my students: “When do you study? Between classes? In the afternoon? At night? For how long? One hour or three hours? How do you study? Alone or with friends? How do you know that you have studied enough? What do you do if you do not understand something? Who do you ask? Do you bring the questions to class or do you ask your friends? Are you study to know something or just to pass the test? How many efforts do you spend each day? Each week?
The answers to those questions help me to plan my teaching and guiding or taking actions. When I know students often cram for exams, I change their studying habit by gave “unexpected quizzes” so they cannot cram the day before. When I know that many of them memorize the content, I designed questions that cannot be answered with memorization. When I find out that students do not read before class, I give a daily test with three questions that based on the content from the reading assignments, etc.
Although with active learning method, the student is responsible for their learning, as teachers, we can make them learn by guiding them to develop good learning habit.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
