2. This Workshop will Cover
■ What’s the most productive approach to academic success?
– Grades
– Learning
■ What is the connection between grades & learning?
– How do individual choices impact this relationship?
■ How do we find time for practice?
4. A Grades-based Focus:
■ I need a B/C grade to pass the course
– This will give me a good GPA
– This will complete the curriculum for my major
– Then I can graduate
– Then I can transfer
– Then I can get a good job
■ What’s wrong with this logic?
6. Reality about Grades:
■ Grades do not indicate
– Intelligence
– Workplace success
– Social acceptance
– Ability to create or do something useful
– Public reception of your work
– Level of happiness
10. Learning About Learning:
■ The most successful students tend to
– Reflect on what they did
– Connect what they did to what happened
– Look for ways to improve what they did, so they can improve what happens
– Judge themselves very accurately
11. This means that learning
Physics or French is NOT
really about talent!
16. Your math or history exam
does NOT
count as practice!
17. What Makes for Good Practice?
From the Definition:
■ An Application of Learning
■ Regular
– Habit-forming
■ Performance
– Technically proficient
– Conscious
And Also:
■ Low-Stakes
■ Impermanent
■ Diverse
18. Examples ofWays to Practice:
■ Flashcards
■ Recite out loud
■ Teach someone else
■ Read solution, Cover, Redo Problem
■ Draw & label parts of a system
■ Study Group
■ Doing homework problems
■ Going to office hours
■ Information dump on a blank page
■ Do textbook quizzes
■ Write your own test questions
■ Use gestures or movement to describe a
system
■ Use an analogy to describe function of a
system
■ Read ahead to see more applications of
current topic
20. How Much Study Time?
■ General Rule:
For a 1-credit hour class students
should expect to study, on
average, 3-hours outside of class
time to earn an C-average grade
(or better).
■ For unfamiliar classes the number
of weekly hours may fluctuate.
Q: Why is 12-credits called “full
time”?
For 12-credit hours a student is
expected to need at least
12x 3 = 36 hours /week
+ hours of class attendance (4-6
hours/week)
36 hrs + 4 hrs = 40 hrs/week
24. Use Your Schedule
During theWeek
■ Take out your weekly schedule and
refer to it before/after each task
■ Check off or color-code the things
that were accomplished
■ Don’t judge yourself harshly for
things not done!
At the End of theWeek
■ Reflect on things that didn’t work
and try to figure out why the plan fell
through. Reschedule these items.
■ Be willing to learn about yourself &
accept your preferences.
■ Write down goals & tweaks on the
back
■ Create a new plan for next week.
26. Our Services
Study Help
• Drop-In Study Help for all courses
• Study Groups
• On-Track Appointments
• Question Drop-Off
Tech Help
• Drop-In Student Tech Help
• Ask-a-Lab Associate Question Drop-off
• Get Tech Ready and Appy Hour Workshops
Learning Help
• Check out our collection of self-service resources that supplement classroom materials
Get In Touch!
www.wccnet.edu/LC (live chat assistance offered during regular hours)
(734) 973-3420
Lab Email: LCLab@wccnet.edu
Tutoring Email: TutorWCC@wccnet.edu
Editor's Notes
Grades are a temporary measure while program completion is in-progress.
Grades don’t really guarantee future success
It’s possible to get a “good” grade & still fail other courses or be ineffective at a task
Years later, successful professionals
Remember learning a concept or skill
Generally don’t remember the grade on a specific assignment
Fixating on grades can get you off-course & keep you from course-correcting
From this POV grades are a false indicator
Students don’t fail because of low grades
Students fail because of the insufficient learning underneath those grades
Learning-based approach is harder to learn but more successful
More abstract but has long-term relevance to the individual
Ex: I can think back to learning to ride a bike and apply what I experienced to learning other new things, like swimming or baking a cake
Not everyone learns in the same way or at the same rate
When students start to talk about learning (instead of grades) they begin to tackle the problem (instead of getting caught up in the symptom)
Read bullet points
Educational theorists
hypothesize that teaching all students to be self-aware about learning can lead to greater success
In this case, the most effective strategy is to increase opportunities to connect action & result
Research has found that both of these theories are TRUE
This means learning is really about understanding a cause & effect relationship between grades & learning
This relationship is practice!
The more students practice the more grades are impacted
Insight #1: College students are comfortable with learning concepts & getting grades because that is what happens in class
Students are less comfortable with the idea of dedicating time to independent practice
They don’t see other students practicing
Other students fib about how much time they actually spend practicing
The instructor doesn’t have occasion to grade low-stakes practice
Here’s another visualization
Insight #2: there is a place where there is nothing new left to learn but A LOT left to practice
Being an efficient student means knowing when to shift from learning to practice
Ex: After a certain amount of time looking at lecture notes will NOT help; instead you have to do practice problems!
This slide shows a few definitions of habit
it’s a noun and a verb—in other words, the process of doing & the product from the doing
It only counts as practice if it is regular, repeated thing
It has to develop into some kind of habit
At the same time it has a dimension of focus, as in any kind of deliberate performance
What does this mean?
It does not have the regularity required to count as practice
Note: practicing exam-taking is a useful but slightly different skill than learning the Math or History course content
Once it’s done, it’s done—the grade is set & there’s no going back
Definition Review:
An application of what was learned
Regular & habit forming
Performance-based
Technically proficient
Conscious
New concept:
Practice is “low stakes” (ie doesn’t involve too much risk)
Practice is not permanent (ie can do-over)
Diverse (ie many contexts, variations, etc.)
Most students will need to dedicate 9-12 hours/week for a typical 3-credit hour class
1-3 hours of class attendance
9 hours of independent practice
Some students may need more or less
Don’t fall into the trap of marathon-studying (for multiple hours)
Find short windows of time (10-30 minutes) to study
Focus each study block around one particular goal
Don’t study using only one strategy—make sure to practice in a variety of ways
Here is a weekly planner to help you track appointments, action items, reminders, habit-formation, etc.
Start by creating a list of tasks for the week
Prioritize tasks
Find 30-minute time slots to accomplish it
Monitor your emotional response to a task—it you cannot study math on Saturday then don’t schedule it on that day.
If a task is REALLY triggering procrastination break it down into a series of smaller tasks that can be done in 5-10 minute blocks of time
Think carefully about multi-tasking
You cannot do two complicated things at once.
Most people do both things with mediocrity.
However sometimes it works:
Ex. Practicing flashcards while waiting in line
Ex. Memorizing new words in a foreign language out loud while doing laundry or washing dishes