Submitted by Marty Lobdell, Professor Emeritus, Pierce College.
After forty years teaching psychology at Pierce College, I became a part time instructor for the Clover Park School District. When I was at the college, I did a quarterly presentation on study skills. The college recorded one of my “Study Less, Study Smart” presentations and posted it to YouTube. It now has over 23 million views. After I retired, I published a small book on Amazon.com with several additional study skills topics I couldn’t cover on the video. I believe that most parents try their best to help their children be successful in school, unfortunately many don’t have knowledge of the most effective tools to build student success. I know that 23 million views speak to the effectiveness of my “Study Less, Study Smart” presentation and book. Please take time to view the video or my book.
I agree we need to study if we desire to improve our knowledge and skills. But how do we measure if our educational efforts are successful? What will it take to get our students to achieve academic success? What measurements would you suggest we monitor to see if our tax dollars are being used effectively? Are the students you work with ready for college studies? If not how do we get them ready? OSPI publishes a report card and the data is not very flattering. Is there a better measurement to evaluate our educational system?
Nice pic Marty.
I am not an expert on academic assessment, however, I favor assessing value added measures rather than average student achievement for a given school or the district.
My own experience is that people who watched my video or read my book, reported better success in school/college. Although their responses are anecdotal, I believe they are more successful in k12 and college.
Educators can provide tools for academic success, but motivation, peers, home environment and parental support are variables teachers have little control over.
Excellent presentation. The start of “Study Less, Study Smart” or “learning to learn” should be taught as part of every grades curriculum.
I took a break (played piano) at the 30 minute mark of the presentation and wrote 2 pages of notes…which I will review! Actually much of what you talked about I discovered in my school and college (B.S. Behavioral Science) career many years ago (1960’s).
For me I needed “5 touches” for any subject matter to stick in my mind: 1. prepare for class by reading text, 2. listening to teacher presentation, 3. Take class notes, 4. review notes, 5. complete homework assignment to demonstrate my knowledge. If I skipped any one of those steps I fell behind and it was that much harder to catch up.
Your suggestions are all great but are limited to the student study habits primarily and secondarily teachers and parents who reinforce them. That’s where the educational rubber meets the road. Unfortunately this process doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It occurs within the systemic hierarchy of a school district (Board, Superintendent, staff, administration) which may ultimately undermine the learning potential of even the best teachers, students and parents.
In military terms, you are designing a tactical level system to support the academic success of individual teachers, students and parents. If the district has different values, principles and strategic objectives prioritized above academic success then academic success will suffer despite the “heroic” effort of teachers, students and parents.
Case in point of “systemic failure”. At the beginning of WW2, Germany had the finest equipped and trained army in the world. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for us) they had a megalomaniac for a leader who supported a systemically flawed value system, principles and strategic objectives. These contributed to the destruction of the German military and state regardless of any tactical advantage they may have enjoyed at the beginning of WW2. The outcome was inevitable due to system design.
So it is with school districts. If they as systems are designed to fail academically, they will indeed fail. The proof is in their academic statistics (in and beyond grade k-12) which are an objective measure of academic success. Poor academic performance coupled with disregard of academic measurement is a sure sign that the system is failing. Teachers can be heroic but such heroism is the price paid for poor systemic design and planning.
Want more success at the bottom? Then start at the top!
LakewoodCARES.org
To Mr. Arbeeny. Blah blah blah!
Marty,
I have heard many times that students loved taking your classes and now I know why! I needed this study skills lesson 60 years ago! Sadly, I could identify with too many of the ineffective study practices you shared 🙂 I’m the the one who thought staying up all night cramming for a test was a smart strategy. Thank you for sharing.