Studying vs. Learning. Not the same thing!

How many times have your stu­dents self-pro­fessed their mas­tery of learn­ing while bran­dish­ing an over­sized high­lighter and show­cas­ing flu­o­res­cent, yel­low-coat­ed pages of text? When we hear this, our minds respond with thoughts such as “you stud­ied but what did you learn?” Accord­ing to the online Bri­tan­ni­ca dic­tio­nary (2024), “when you study some­thing, you have not learned it yet.”

Although many forms of  basic study skills con­sume time and effort, cre­at­ing a false sense of accom­plish­ment they often lead to dis­ap­point­ing results because the fact remains that the stu­dent mem­o­rizes dis­con­nect­ed facts rather than deeply learn­ing the sub­ject. To learn some­thing includes becom­ing skilled and knowl­edge­able in the con­tent by gain­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing through rep­e­ti­tion and con­nec­tion-mak­ing.

How then do we bust the myth with stu­dents that spend­ing hours pour­ing over a text­book, high­light­ing  sec­tions does not lend itself to learn­ing?

Read on – we believe that there are ways to sup­port stu­dents to ditch the yel­low high­lighter.

Inte­grat­ing the 6 Strate­gies of Learn­ing into our class­room is an easy first step. These 6 strate­gies are evi­dence-based and can be applied to any learn­ing envi­ron­ment. In fact, you as an instruc­tor can role mod­el these in your own teach­ing, then share with stu­dents why they are so effec­tive.

Shift­ing stu­dents time and focus to enhanc­ing learn­ing with fun in-class activ­i­ties cre­ate evi­dence based out­comes such as improved grades (Agar­w­al & Bain, 2019) .

The 6 Strategies of Learning

   

 

Watch this 10 minute video below where Rachel and I briefly unpack each of the 6 Strate­gies of Learn­ing.

While this blog has focused on learn­ing for stu­dents, there are ben­e­fits for instruc­tors as well. Inte­grat­ing strate­gies such as inter­leav­ing and spaced prac­tice will reduce the time an instruc­tor spends talk­ing at their stu­dents. This means that you are less like­ly to see dis­en­gaged (or sleep­ing) stu­dents and more like­ly to see a class of engaged stu­dents who are shar­ing their learn­ings and cre­at­ing rela­tion­ships.

Doing is always more inter­est­ing than watch­ing, get your stu­dents doing the learn­ing! We don’t know about you, but that sounds like music to our ears!!

For more infor­ma­tion (includ­ing the slides used in this video) head to The Learn­ing Scientists.org

If this area of learn­ing inter­ests you please reach out to the authors, Rachel or David.

 

Writ­ten By: Rachel Goodliffe & David Johns, Teach­ing and Learn­ing Con­sul­tants, CTLI