Higher education blog

Why don't students do their assigned readings? Many aren’t motivated to read through dense pages of information. eTextbooks have encouraged more students to read because of its interactivity and convenience.

But technology alone doesn't improve learning. Instructors play the most important role in encouraging students to read.

A 2015 Educause study looked at how an instructor’s use of eTexts affects student reading and learning. It found that 70% of students preferred eTexts over paper textbooks because of instructor highlights and annotations. This feature is just as important to them as the eText saving them money.

By Caleb Ripley

A good approach to how you study can make all the difference in your ability to feel prepared on exam day. This blog covers spaced repetition, active recall, and Feynman technique as studying methods to help you prepare for any quiz, assignment, or exam you may have as a post-secondary student. Regardless of your major, or field of interest, these study habits will make you retain what you learn and genuinely understand the content. In this way, these techniques can improve your overall academic performance by streamlining how you think about studying. The best part is that these techniques are evidence-based revision and study techniques, meaning you can trust their efficacy.

Spaced Repetition – Refining learning

• Fundamentally, spaced repetition allows you to utilize flashcards (virtual or physical) to space out the content you need to know over days, weeks, and months leading up to an exam. This is contrasted by cramming where you overload your mind with a lot of content in a short period and forget most of it after the assessment. Spaced repetition helps with memorization and comprehension, and it helps to reduce the “forgetting curve” which is essentially a theorem that suggests that we forget things consistently over time at an exponential rate (where % remembered is on the y-axis and time is on the x-axis). To prevent this deterioration of knowledge, you can repetitiously practice what you’ve learned through active recall at points along the forgetting curve which slows down the forgetting process, and over time you start to remember increasingly more of what you read and take notes on. This counteracting of the forgetting curve through active recall techniques allows for spaced repetition to be the most intuitive and straightforward way to organize your thoughts and structure your understanding of various topics so they stick. What you may take away from the forgetting curve is that the more your brain must work to understand something, the stronger the encoding process is. There are three easy steps to implementing spaced repetition in your studies. First, use google spreadsheets and create a different sheet for each course and, within each subject, list what you need to review in the first column (A). Second, write the date you revised that topic in the next column. Continue this to track your spaced repetition of each subject. Finally, color coat each revision date in Green for proficiency, yellow for moderate, and red for struggling. In doing so, you can optimize what you’re focusing on so that you can improve in the areas that are giving you the most difficulty. As time progresses, your red areas will move to yellow and then green, and your understanding will broadly improve as well. In closing, focus on the topics you have marked as red and optimize your approach to studying these red topics so that you can balance out what you need to know.  

Feynman Technique – Approaching Learning

• Albert Einstein said, “you don’t know something well if you can’t explain it to a child”. This principle is what guides the Feynman technique which is a technique designed to help you understand complex subject matter by deconstructing its components and individually grasping each idea. In this sense, you will have broken down, easier-to-understand concepts that add to the sum of the larger and more complex idea. One way to utilize this technique is to take a broad idea such as, “Why do economies of scale reduce the cost of production?” and break it down into smaller components such as “Why do costs fluctuate?,” then you ask yourself, “Why can I get something cheaper from wholesalers?” then you can start to further elaborate on these simplified questions to have a more intuitive understanding that costs fluctuate due to factor input costs, and these input costs are variable. The larger a corporation, the larger its production scale, and this capacity leads to a decrease in cost per unit of output which further enables an increase in scale and reduced costs of production which translates into lower prices for the consumer. Take these questions, and “teach them” to yourself or others in a study group. Finally, the Feynman technique adds value to your studying routine for four key reasons. First, it helps you identify important topic areas. Second, it allows you to deconstruct these complex topics and break them down using simple language. Third, you can use this simple language to better grasp the problem areas which, when resolved, leads to a more intuitive understanding of the content. Finally, this technique allows you to then take your intuitive understanding of the individual parts of the complex idea and transfer this understanding to other topic areas clearly to you and easy to utilize.  

Active Recall – Learn, Elaborate, Regurgitate.

• The point of active recall is to retrieve information already in your brain to elaborate on the newly learned subject matter. Essentially, active recall is based on asking yourself questions and retrieving information from your brain rather than trying to simply put novel information into your brain. For example, while reading a chapter in your textbook, it is more helpful to create questions based on the key areas of each paragraph. Use the previously mentioned spaced repetition, to go back and answer those questions at the end of the chapter, and make sure that you’re connecting the subtle details. For example, active recall for a biology student may include reading a chapter in Neurophysiology, and writing down essential questions such as, “Why does negative feedback result in an oscillation of the controlled variable?” or, “What is Einstein’s diffusion equation and what is D for ACh?.” In doing so, you’re engaging with the content at a deeper level and you’re enhancing the retrieval proposal. To create an actionable plan to utilize active recall, you should follow this three-step structure. First, write down questions while reading the chapter or lecture notes. Second, go back to the end of the chapter and answer those questions from memory or lecture notes. Finally, have a colour coating system. For questions, you couldn’t answer at all mark them red, for questions you could partially answer mark yellow and for questions that you had an easy time answering mark them green. In closing, active recall is beneficial for four key reasons. First, it is versatile meaning it can allow you to streamline and optimize your learning experience regardless of the subject. Second, it allows you to constantly test yourself so that you are aware of what you don’t know. Third, it saves you time by optimizing what you focus on, and it improves the depth and breadth of your knowledge. Finally, it highlights your mistakes because you’re forced to retrieve the answers to your questions from memory and this identifies specific gaps in your knowledge.

In conclusion, we’ve discussed Spaced Repetition, the Feynman Technique, and Active Recall as functions of a good study routine. Collectively, these are evidence-based learning techniques that have been proven to optimize the way students approach knowledge acquisition, their ability to retain what they study and most importantly they improve the brain’s ability to overcome mental obstacles; such as the so-called “forgetting curve” which, when ignored, puts constraints on the amount of information that can be effectively processed. It is through techniques like these that students can improve their academic performance. Best of all, the Pearson suite of products (MyLab, Revel, Mastering...,) includes an easy-to-understand interface that allows users to utilize the above techniques in real-time. For example, in Pearson MyLab, three important tools relate to the above-mentioned study techniques. First, “Demo docks” walk students through how they will solve the problem if they get it wrong. Second, a “study plan” is an option that allows students to engage with active recall and focus on improving in areas they’re struggling with automatically through the software. Finally, the ability for students to interact with the interface and answer questions, create a study plan, highlight their textbook, and takes notes means that all their learning needs are in one place, and this reduces the obstacles to learning and improves your experience as a student.  

Whether you teach online, in-person, or a hybrid format, you can regularly take the temperature of your class and quickly adjust your teaching strategies based on how your students are learning. Here are five easy techniques we’re using to evaluate our classes throughout each lesson and the entire semester.

1. Watch for understanding

Read the room. You’re most likely already doing this. Observe and interpret cues from body language and facial expressions or written language by monitoring discussion board interactions.

If your class is broken into smaller groups, all having their own discussion, it can quickly get chaotic and hard to monitor the learning going on. You can easily assess the room using the +1/-1 count method. As you observe the groups either by walking around the classroom or monitoring the chat, keep a running tally. When someone recalls or applies a lesson correctly that’s plus one, and when you hear a misunderstanding that’s minus one. Then choose a number (minus 3 for example), and, when you reach it, bring the group together for a quick reset.

2. Ask questions

Gain insights by regularly asking your students questions that gauge student understanding and detect any misconceptions. You can also do this at the end of a lesson by asking students to come up with three highlights and a question they still have.

When students are the ones generating questions it gives you an idea of what misconceptions are out there. Are there any concepts that many students are still struggling to grasp? You can use that info to address those things in upcoming lessons.

3. Confidence check in

Ask for student feedback often and let them know you actually use it to make the learning experience better. Most teachers (us included) stop in the middle of a lesson and ask if there are any questions but that assumes that the students who have questions feel comfortable enough to admit they may be the only one who doesn’t understand something.

Instead, you can ask everyone to put fingers up showing their comfort level with the content (one finger for no confidence, two for low confidence, and three for high confidence). This gives you a quick sense of how the class is doing. You can also do it online with surveys and poll features.

4. Scan data

Make use of any available metrics you have at hand to notice trends in student engagement. For instance, learning platforms like the ones within Pearson’s MyLab® flag struggling students early on.

Is there an upward or downward trend? Are students spending more time than usual on a certain topic? If students are dropping off, are they returning to the activity later? Also take note of everything around you like interactions on discussion boards and the types of questions you have coming your way.

5. Be deliberate

Every interaction with students in any context can provide valuable insight, so you should craft interactions to inform student learning and your own teaching. You should always be assessing, adjusting, and adapting strategies as you learn about your students.

Remember, be deliberate as you watch, ask, check in, and scan for insights so you can help your learners and improve your teaching strategies.

Deeper understanding

Take a deeper dive into these strategies with our webinar. Watch the recording to learn more and don’t miss the answers to questions that came up during our live Q&A.

Have you been hearing the term “burnout” a lot lately? What is it? What are the signs? How is it different from just plain old exhaustion?

Psychology Today defines burnout as "a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress."

Recognize the signs

If you are experiencing most of these symptoms you may be experiencing burnout.

• Having trouble getting yourself to work or getting started on work or a lack of motivation.
• Noticing your job performance has slipped. Burnout can happen slowly so compare your performance to that of previous years vs. weeks or months.
• Experiencing changes in your relationships with those around you either by having more conflicts or being more withdrawn.
• Spending a lot of time thinking about work when you’re not working. If you can’t turn your brain off during family time or when you should be sleeping, it could be a sign you’re in burnout mode. ¹
• Finding it harder to concentrate. Is it more difficult to plan a lecture or answer a complicated student question? ²

You’re not the only one

If you checked off most of the items above and are feeling burnt out, know you’re not alone. 52% of employees say they are experiencing burnout and 75% have experienced it at some point in their career. ³

Kevin R. McClure, associate professor of higher education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, shared this about his experience with burnout: “I hit a physical and emotional wall. I was tired — tired in a way a nap couldn’t fix. At the end of a particularly long day, I remember a Zoom meeting in which a colleague suggested that we find a way to recognize our graduating master’s students. My immediate response was: ‘Do we have to?’ It was uncharacteristic enough for another colleague to say they were worried about me.” ⁴

The pandemic seems to have only increased the number of people experiencing burnout. A survey conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education found that 70% of the faculty members they spoke with currently felt stressed, while back in 2019 only 32% said the same thing. Plus more than half those surveyed were seriously thinking about retiring or changing careers. ⁵

There is hope — Coping with burnout

Burnout, if not addressed, can lead to serious impacts on your physical and mental health. McClure (with the help of his colleague) recognized the signs and was able to do something about it and you can too.

Try some of these techniques to get back to your old self.

• Don’t view burnout as failure
• Prioritize mental health (enough sleep, good nutrition, exercise, socializing in a safe way)
• Take time to do activities that take your mind off of work (reading, cooking, running)
• Find ways to express all your emotions about the situation and keep a close support system (human or animal)⁵

When it comes to burnout, it’s important to remember you’re not alone — most people experience it during the course of their career. There are many ways to overcome it, you just have to recognize the signs.

Sources

¹ “10 Signs You’re Burning Out — And What To Do About It,” Forbes, April 1, 2013.

² Mayo Clinic Staff, “Job Burnout: How to spot it and take action,” Mayo Clinic, June 5, 2021.

³ Morrison, Courtney. “16 Employee Burnout Statistics You Can’t Ignore,” everyonesocial.com, May 4, 2021.

⁴ McClure, Kevin R., “Burnout is Coming to Campus. Are College Leaders Ready?,” EdSurge, August, 14, 2020.

⁵ Gewin, Virginia, “Pandemic burnout is rampant in Academia,” nature.com, March 15, 2021.