Tips for Teaching Students ‘What to Learn’ and ‘How to Learn’ During Lectures | Effective Teaching Strategies - Faculty Focus

Tiffany Zielinski Culver, associate professor of psychology at Sul Ross State University, Uvalde, Texas says, It was soon after my son enrolled in a local junior college that I realized something was wrong. 

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Success, which seemed to come so easy to him in high school, was suddenly out of reach. In fact, he was failing every course! I quickly learned that in high school he did not have to exert any effort and was taught to simply memorize material.

Sadly, this high school experience resulted in a new high school graduate who had no concept of time management, study skills, or critical thinking (McGuire, 2015). He had no idea how to take responsibility for his own learning, and despite my pleas that he needed to “study differently” in college, he had no idea what this meant or how to go about this task.

As a college instructor, this caused me to deeply reflect on my own teaching practices. I needed to help my own students develop learning skills they never had the opportunity to develop. After all, these students (like my son) were probably very intelligent, but never had the opportunity to develop these skills...

A very important component of this process is the explaining to my students why I use these teaching strategies. They need to understand the benefit of these strategies and how the strategies will help them learn in my class and in other courses.

I have asked students about my teaching techniques and I have found they are grateful for them. My students state that they have never had an instructor who teaches like me and despite my persistent questions, they are happy to have the opportunity to “learn how to learn.” 
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Source: Faculty Focus