The Academic Success Program: Turn It In

To provide some context, the Academic Success Program was traditionally a program to support first semester freshman and transfer students or continuing students matriculate to the research university and to address challenges or difficulties in their academic journey. The intent of the program was and is to demystify the research university while providing a realistic, tangible path of their own self-discovery to showcase their strengths and be successful at the research university.

Particular topics focused on for this literature review include:
 – Active Learning
 – Metacognition
 – Learning Theories
 – Effective Study Strategies Across Disciplines
  – Issues Affecting Academic Transition for Students Matriculating into Research Universities Neuro-Diversity.

The intention is to find what some of the scholarly literature says on these topics and how will these topics be considered when implementing a Strategic Learning Program at a large research institution.

Literature by Topic: Active Learning & Metacognition; Learning Strategies. The literature strongly links active learning to metacognition and recognizes both as part of an overall basic expectation of students being engaged in the material they are learning and general consciousness of what they do and do not know. There is a baseline degree of active learning and metacognition that is assumed to be successful in a higher education setting. The readings link academic success to active learning and metacognition. Singer and Smith in a review of understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering state “research is emerging on improving student ability to transfer learning, enhancing their own thinking about their learning (metacognition), and better understanding the role of the affective domain in undergraduate science and learning” (2013, p. 470).

By virtue of undertaking higher education or even specific majors, such as those in STEM, there is the assumption that active learning, engagement with the course material, and their self-realization in how they think about what they are learning is a baseline characteristic. When reviewing the effect on active learning and metacognition on diverse populations, including first generation and underrepresented populations on college campuses, active learning and metacognition is seen as a balm to soothe imposter syndrome by providing academic Student Learning CenterAcademic Program Planning – November 9, 2018Mecca Shakoor-Cook2validation, “Validation can be something that is done for and in conjunction with the student, but for some students it may be a self-affirming process as the student discovers new competencies or reaches levels of achievement previously thought unattainable” (Terenzini, Rendon, Upcraft, Millar, Allison, Gregg, & Jalomo, 1994, p. 67).

Active learning and metacognition was also seen as an important factor in students transitioning to college and being part of the larger campus community. For non-traditional students, attending a higher education institution may be vastly different than other environments the students may have known or thrived in. Students may exercise active learning and metacognition to support them getting their bearings socially in a new college environment and in the efforts to build community:The cooperative nature of the passage was evident in student’s discussing classwork together outside class, learning from the comments others made in class, making sure too much fun did not interfere with getting schoolwork done, reminding each other in subtle ways that academics was the first priority.

In some instances, the cooperative nature of the transition was brought directly into the classroom, as instructors required students to learn about, and then introduce, a classmate; constructed group assignments that required students to get to know each other and to work together on a common project; or invested so much of their own energy and time in helping students that the students came to feel a positive obligation to work hard to succeed. (Terenzini et al., 1994, p. 69)Metacognition and active learning is further linked by Vos and de Graaf in which metacognition is seen as the basis for active learning, particularly for the study of engineering. The authors speak in particular about active learning in engineering (ALE):In classical teaching as well as in ALE, concepts, skills, exercises and information are used on a cognitive level. For that, ALE is not needed. Classical teaching is based on the required reproduction of cognitive knowledge, skills, etc.

In ALE there is an extra dimension: doing the things that are described yourself, giving meaning to what you do and finding sense in it; asking yourself how and why you do things, and what your motivation is. These aspects include metacognition. (Vos & de Graaf, 2004, p. 544)Effective Study Strategies Across DisciplinesThere are a variety of study methods and many are generalized to be effective across disciplines. Common themes found in study strategies include being organized, finding a location to study, & being consistent with effective time management. These study strategies are discussed in more detail below:Organization includes the student using a calendar, planner, or task list to help stay on task. Student Learning CenterAcademic Program Planning – November 9, 2018Mecca Shakoor-Cook3Finding an ideal location to study is finding a place that is comfortable and where distractions are limited.

Consistency and time management are associated to the frequency and approach of study. For consistency, instead of being forced to do a large chunk of work over a weekend, the task is broken up in pieces, working for consistent shorter amounts of time that allows one to address a task or assignment in manageable portions that is not overwhelming. In addition, working in smaller bits of time allows for effective time management to complete the task in a timely manner instead of reserving a large chunk of work in limited time to exacerbate stress.In examining five popular study strategies: rereading, highlighting and underlining, note-taking, outlining, and using flash cards, the literature speaks to how these methods can be both effective and detrimental depending on the student and how the methods are used. For example, it is important for a student to utilize active learning and metacognition to be a self-advocate and to understand how they learn and what works best for them. Students may suffer from “ineffective implementation” of commonly used study strategies (Miyatsu, Nguyen, & McDaniel, 2018).

For rereading, the suggestion is to allow a small lag of time in between reading small passages, such as thirty minutes, to allow for the learner to recall more information. Too long of a lag in time may diminish the benefits of recall (Miyatsu et al., 2018, p.392). Yet, there are exceptions that are contingent upon learning style and what the study strategy is used for. For memorization on immediate tests, rereading can be a successful strategy. For making meaning of key texts to interpret or make arguments, rereading may be ineffective (Miyatsu et al., 2018, p.392).Highlighting and underlining (also termed as marking for brevity) can be beneficial because it is “believed to benefit learning in two ways: (a) Selecting what is important in text elicits elaborative thinking (generative function), and (b) underlining and highlighting important sections makes it easier to identify them later (storage function)” (Miyatsu et al., 2018, p.393). Effective implementation of marking is contingent upon whether the student is a highly skilled reader that can pinpoint key concepts of relevant information.

Marking is ineffective without scaffolding of how it is beneficial or if students are arbitrarily marking texts to mimic a study strategy without a clear indicated benefit to how they learn. (Miyatsu et al., 2018)Notetaking may be one of the most common and familiar study strategies that many learners rely upon. Notetaking is most effective for text and lecture learning with some key benefits of high quality notes when note-takers are able to paraphrase, summarize, and record short-hand references to key content. Note-taking is ineffective when it is copied from a lecture or text verbatim or utilized primarily for audio-visual presentations. While the reasons why note-taking is ineffective for audio-visual presentations have not been fully researched, the literature notes that the visual attention to handwriting or typing notes may interfere with the visual processing of the presented audio-visual information. (Miyatsu et al., 2018) Student Learning CenterAcademic Program Planning – November 9, 2018Mecca Shakoor-Cook4Outlining can be a beneficial study method because it offers “an opportunity for learners to engage in active learning through identification and structured organization of key information (Mayer, 2008, Chapter 11)” (Miyatsu et al., 2018).

Outlining is effective when it is a skeletal outline that is incomplete and allows for the learner to fill in the blanks. Outlining is not as beneficial when it is generated from a student that is not skilled with how to outline effectively and identify key information. Suggested tips to support skills to make outlining a more helpful learning strategy include using topics, headers, or sub-headers from a lecture or corresponding text. (Miyatsu et al., 2018)Flash cards as a study strategy is helpful, but the literature references some difference of opinion where college students and cognitive psychologists “differ considerably in why they believe flash cards are effective” (Miyatsu et al., 2018, p.398). There is also limited data on the effectiveness of flash cards. On one hand, flash cards are said to help “retain specific, detailed information” (Miyatsu et al., 2018, p.398). On the other hand, the literature states that flash cards are less effective when the user may not know when to stop using the flash cards.

Theoretically and intuitively speaking, dropping flash cards that are well learned from study should allow more study opportunities for yet-to-be-learned flash cards and thus result in better overall learning. However, Kornell and Bjork (2008) found that allowing students to self-regulate their own study by dropping flash cards (relative to not dropping) had detrimental effect on learning. Their explanation was that students lacked the requisite metacognitive accuracy to effectively drop flash cards from future study. This is not the entire story, however. Even assuming that metacognitive accuracy was perfect, dropping items from additional testing may also have detrimental effects because the learner loses out on additional practice. (Miyatsu et al., 2018, p. 399)To avoid a potential metacognitive pitfall with the use of flashcards, it is recommended for students to continue to use flash cards for additional practice, to strengthen memory, and to counter the idea that once an item is correct, one should stop studying it. (Miyatsu et al., 2018).