Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your peers’ posts by asking questions that require critical thought and meaningful analysis about the strategies they have selected. 

Kim

How can you kindle that fire? 

I think  that a student’s fire can be kindled by providing them the necessary tools to learn, but also allowing them the opportunity to use creativity and critical thinking skills to foster their learning.  I also think people learn better by doing, so allowing them to actually work on real life problems allows them to obtain knowledge and skills that they would not ordinarily have obtained otherwise.   

 What strategies are most useful for facilitating students learning how to think more effectively in college?

One of the most useful strategies in facilitating student learning in college is instilling confidence in students.  According to McKeachie & Svinicki (2014), ” Strategic learners are diligent and resourceful in pursuit of a learning goal and do not give up easily, even in the face of difficulty. They understand that learning and studying are active processes largely under their own control (p.21).  By instilling the belief that students can accomplish their goals if they continue to try makes them unstoppable.  Once a students has the confidence they need they will continue to go after what they want.  Another strategy to help students to think more effectively is helping them set goals.  Students who have goals tend to work hard in order to achieve them.   According to McKeachie & Svinicki (2014), ” However, with goal ownership comes responsibility. Students need to learn how to set, analyze, and use goals and how to respond to goal achievement and failure” (p.21).  If students set goals they have something to work towards, and if they are not able to accomplish their goals they also learn how to deal with analyzing and reestablishing them.  Another strategy is increasing the student’s self-awareness.  Students who set goals tend to reevaluate them ever so often which helps them keep things in perspective.  If students are aware of what they can and cannot accomplish it gives them something to work towards.  Another strategy teachers can use is to not only teach students about content, but also how to analyze that content.  According to Mckeachie & Svinicki (2014), “Different instructional means may result in students having the same amount of knowledge but not the same organization and understanding needed for different applications using this new knowledge” (p.21).  Students need to understand what to do with the knowledge they acquire if they want to be successful. 

Provide examples of instruction that incorporate those strategies

One way to instill confidence would be to provide feedback to my students in a way that is helpful and encouraging, but still gives them something to work towards.  Feedback should always be presented in a positive manner in order to help the student get better, but also bring their confidence up.  Also, teaching students who to use new technologies can also help being their confidence up as well as promote creativity.  Providing students with self-assessments can help them establish their educational goals.  A syllabus that outlines the goals of the class can also be a helpful tool for students to use when setting their goals because it gives them an overview of the course expectations.  The teacher can also help with this by reminding students of what the goals are with a specific project or paper.  According to Mckeachie & Svinicki (2014), “Even simply reminding students that the goal of the exercises or projects you assign to them is to gain mastery of the content will help support effective self-evaluation” (p.21).  Students just need to be reminded every so often of what the goals are in order to keep the information pertinent.  Another strategy that can help students with analyzing content is helping them with the meaning and terminology of words.  The more students understand the more they learn.  Providing samples of other student’s work from past years that were successful in the course also helps students to understand what is need to obtain a good grade. 

 References

McKeachie, W. J. & Svinicki, M. (2014). Mckeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Retrieved from https://www.vitalsource.com/