Entry 10

McKeachie’s reading for this week brought forth a few concepts that I had never really taken too much to think about, in detail that is.

One piece of information that was new to me, as well as helpful, was the background information about how strategic learners. I found it interesting that McKeachie said that strategic learners ‘approach activities and tasks with a high degree of confidence that they can succeed’. I do not know much about this specific concept, but McKeachie was able to identity and describe types of actions that these students have as well as how they become active in the class.

Another aspect that I found to be useful was the importance of having goals and self-reflection within the classroom. Within my own department, communication, I feel as though we are solely driven on our own goals as a teacher and that there isn’t much time focused on how our students feel about those goals. I’m not saying that we don’t have goals for our students, we do, but I feel as though the only measurement of those goals is through tests. I would like to know on a regular basis how the students are feeling in the classroom and if their goals have or haven’t been met. Although each class period ends with me asking if there are any remaining questions they might have, 9 out of 10 times there aren’t any. However, there is always a student that emails me after class in regards to what we discussed in class. I would like incorporate more ‘goal-orientated’ tasks or activities to help the students reach their own personal goals as well as the ones I hope to meet by the end of each class period.

McKeachie’s reading really brought into perspective the different ways that students learn and some of the qualities they hold. I will be keeping this in mind for how I teach as well as how I design my own course for this class.

Following the same idea, McKeachie discussed how to increase self-awareness among the students. I have noticed that many students are constantly questioning what will be on the test, and then asking why they didn’t know the answer to question. It is automatically assumed that the reason they didn’t know this information is because I, as their teacher, did not cover it during our lecture or that I didn’t tell them that they had to look over it. This makes me laugh most of the time because regardless of what I teach in the class or don’t teach, the students are still assigned to be reading the chapters previous to our class meeting. So many students feel as though they do not have to do any work outside of the classroom and they rely on me for every last piece of information. To encourage students to recognize their own approaches to learning, I liked the list that McKeachie presented.
The list is as follows:
• How any hours do you spend a week studying for this course?
• Are you up-to-date on course assignments and readings?
• How do you take notes or study while reading the textbook?
• How do you take notes in class? Do you review them? When? How?
• Do you stop periodically and check to see if you understand the material?

In the class I am currently teaching, we have our second exam coming up quickly. I plan on incorporating these questions within a lecture before the exam so I can make them aware of their own studying/learning habits.

The link that I found interesting this week is about how one university has encouraged its students to study and attend school.