Drake Institute Short Course Book Group - How Learning Works

This book group meets Nov. 18, Dec. 2, Dec. 16, Jan. 6, Jan. 20, Feb. 3, Feb. 17, and March 3 noon - 1:00 p.m.

Very simply, the How Learning Works course is an organized introduction to the complexities of student learning, focusing on higher education. This course, developed by retired professor and education consultant Gerald Nelms and offered by the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University co-facilitated by Drake Institute Director, Kay Halasek, is based on a graduate-level seminar Professor Nelms designed and taught at Wright State University. The course is organized around the book How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Susan Ambrose, et al., and published by Jossey-Bass, but it includes additional readings as well. Assignments focus on chapter topics:

• College students typically bring to their courses prior knowledge of the subjects of those courses. However, a student’s prior knowledge sometimes can be inaccurate and/or inappropriately applied.
• How people organize what they know can vary dramatically. Experts tend to organize knowledge associations in more sophisticated and less superficial ways than novices.
• Motivation (and the various factors impacting motivation, such as mindset, goals, self-efficacy, and learning environment) plays a huge role in learning. In order for learning to happen three elements of motivation must exist: a high valuing of the goal of learning something plus a high level of self-efficacy (one’s expectation of successful learning) plus a supportive learning environment.
• In order to achieve mastery, a person must acquire the component skills for the desired learning, must practice integrating those skills effectively, and must have the knowledge of when and how to apply (to transfer) that learning.
• In order to embed the desired learning into one’s memory, the person must spend sufficient time in goal-directed practice, must practice at the appropriate levels of challenge (not too easy but not too difficult either), and must spend sufficient time gradually accumulating enough practice. And throughout all of this practicing, instructors need to provide targeted, formative, and timely feedback that communicates how close the practice is achieving the learning goals.
• Cognitive development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning. Instruction needs to be student-centered, recognizing the crucial role that student intellectual, social, and emotional development plays in student learning. Course climate (the environments that communicate instructor and institutional attitudes toward students and learning) help shape student attitudes toward learning.
• Sustained learning requires students become self-directed learners, able to metacognitively monitor and adjust their approaches to learning. Students must learn to assess the demands of any learning assignment; evaluate their own prior knowledge and skills; plan how they will approach each new learning situation; be able to metacognitively step back from their learning activities in order to monitor their own progress in learning; and make adjustments to their approaches to learning, as needed.

Specific outcomes for each session will be shared within the book group. Broadly, those actively participating in the How Learning Works Course will be supported in their efforts to comprehend, discuss, and apply knowledge of how the following factors that impact student learning can be understood, addressed, or leveraged to enhance student learning and/or improve student academic and later, professional experiences:

• Students’ prior knowledge and perceptions.
• Differences in novice and expert organization of knowledge and how knowledge organization impacts learning.
• Components of motivation.
• Mastery, the movement toward competence.
• Ability to transfer application of learning across contexts.
• Goal-directed practice and targeted feedback.
• Issues surrounding perceived “learning styles”.
• Development (intellectual, social, cultural, and emotional) during college.
• Course climate/learning environment.
• Student attitude, mindset, and other components of learner self-regulation.

Meeting Dates are Nov. 18, Dec. 2, Dec. 16, Jan. 6, Jan. 20, Feb. 3, Feb. 17, and March 3 noon - 1:00 p.m.

You may register here.