Students who have problems learning in school frequently do not know how to learn. That is, they rely on natural learning instincts to learn in school in the same manner they learn outside of school. However, these instinctive skills, usually based on trial and error learning, are not always effective with academic learning.
There is an increasing body of research which appears to indicate that success in school depends not so much on native ability or "natural" learning skills as on acquiring a series of academic learning skills similar to those used by the most successful students. In other words, students can learn to be successful school learners.
Ineffective 'trial and error'
Everything human beings learn is a result of some action, either mental or physical. The more conscious, purposeful and intentional the leaning action, the better the learning will be. In day-to-day life, children and adults naturally use "trial and error" as the main skill for learning. Trial and error is an effective, observable, consequential and immediate way to learn in most day-to-day situations. Trial and error work quite well and efficiently in situations where observed outcomes are apparent and errors can be quickly corrected by obvious learner action.
Because learning in school rarely meets these conditions, trial and error is often ineffective with school learning expectations. In school, there is an emphasis on speed, abstractness and a 'single best' solution or answer. In contrast, outside of school speed is often irrelevant, concrete solutions are usually sought and personal preferences make many solutions possible as "the best."
Broken tools
Yet, trial and error is often the only effective learning skill many children have mastered. Without academic learning skills, these children are facing failure or mediocre performance at best. In effect, these children are like carpenters who either have no tools at all or have only a few broken tools.
The tools for academic learning and thinking are specific cognitive actions which are used to consider, remember and recall academic information. While these learning actions or academic learning skills are extremely important, they are usually somewhat difficult to identify and specify.
Trying harder
Since we know it is difficult to learn without concentration, for example, students who have learning problems are often told to "try harder." However, the advice to try harder can be confusing to a student who does not know how to try harder. Students who do not know academic learning skills which allow them to focus attention and discover meaning do not have the cognitive tools to learn more by trying harder. In fact, often these low achieving students are "trying hard." The problem is their efforts are not paying off.
Rather than trying harder, many of these students need to "try differently." That is, they need to learn new, different and more effective learning skills which will make their efforts more productive.
Dramatic changes
For example, in a 1972 study of low-achieving children by Butterfield, Wambold and Belmont, it was found that the children used an inefficient attention and memory strategy. As a result, performance on memory tasks was low. Once trained to use the same attention-memory strategy as successful children, the performance deficits of the low-achieving children disappeared.
In this case, the low-achieving children were taught to stop and rehearse midway through a memory task. Learning this relatively simple skill resulted in rather dramatic changes in the children's performance.
Nature of skills
Research conducted with other academic learning skills has also indicated substantial performance changes can be expected when students learn and use academic learning skills.
There are some important characteristics about these academic learning skills which have implications for teaching, learning and using them.
Academic learning skills are sometimes considered natural abilities because these skills are apparently learned by some students without instruction. Others learn at least some of the skills and are reasonably successful. But some students never seem to acquire very many or very good skills and have severe problems with academic learning. Academic learning skills are problematic for both students and teachers for several reasons.
Not observable
First, the academic skills needed to be successful in school are not observable; they are cognitive and performed cognitively. Thus, the skills of an excellent student, unlike the skills of a good baseball player, cannot be seen and easily modeled by other students.
Second, the skills are frequently difficult to describe. Good students are not accustomed to describing what they do cognitively as they learn. When asked, good students often say they "read" or "study" rather than describe specifically the cognitive actions they use while learning.
Not natural
Third, we have a general belief that learning skills are available to everyone naturally. While this may be true for trial and error learning used outside school, it is not the case for academic learning. Consequently, many children who do poorly in school are virtually indistinguishable from excellent students on the playground or in other social situations.
Fourth, because the skills are cognitive and not easily observable, learners are not able to get feedback on whether they are using the skills properly. This last factor is compounded because academic learning is usually done in private.
Not impossible
These characteristics of academic learning skills often make school learning appear impossible to those without academic learning skills. However, cognitive skills, when identified and described, should be no more difficult to learn than more demonstrable skills such as hitting a ball or riding a bicycle-which almost all children can learn to do.
The keys to teaching academic learning skills are: (1) to make learners aware that they can take action to increase their learning by using appropriate academic learning skills, and (2) to demonstrate these skills in a way that students may learn them.
Many academic learning skills have been identified and are available to assist learners acquire, remember, and recall information. The skills presented here are three of 19 academic learning skills identified for a project on teaching thinking skills.
Active reading. Active reading consists of frequent pauses during reading to examine and question the material being read. The purpose of these pauses is to ensure comprehension and to speculate about other ideas, purposes, or issues the author will present. The cognitive activity of this skill is the reader purposefully asking questions and restating material read. Reading is active because readers are actively involved in the material through questions and summary restatements.
In contrast, a passive reader only reads the words as written one after another. There is little active cognitive involvement in the material or interaction between the reader's ideas and the author's ideas. There is no questioning and no speculation.
Survey. Survey is an academic learning skill which good students use to become active cognitively. Survey is a process of using cognitive actions to prepare the mind to receive, store and recall information to be learned. Good learners appear to attempt to answer six questions when surveying:
Ñ How much of this do I already know?
Ñ What do I need to learn?
Ñ What does the author want me to learn?
Ñ How interesting is this material?
Ñ How difficult is this material?
Ñ How can I best learn this material?
Surveying may be done in several ways employing separate skills. The main purpose of survey is to answer the survey questions by either reading topic headings, reading introductory and summary paragraphs, or by reading large portions of the material. The cognitive actions of surveying help the learner recall already known information, actively raise questions, and purposefully set an agenda for learning more. As with all academic learning skills, survey skills are a means for the learner to become actively involved in learning and can be used to learn any material.
Acronym. An acronym is an academic learning skill included in the general category of memory skills called mnemonics. All mnemonics are skills to assist memory or recall. An acronym is a word or group of words formed from parts (often just the first letters) of information which must be remembered. This skill is used to reduce memory load by associating parts of a message with a smaller more easily remembered form of the message.
For example, if the task was to remember the Great Lakes, the acronym "HOMES" could be used. Here the H stands for Huron; the O for Ontario, and so forth. The skill of creating and using acronyms is good for remembering almost any kind of information. Note that the learner should be cognitively active in creating the acronym and associating the meaning of the information to be remembered with the acronym.
Teaching the skills
Academic learning skills are essential to success in school. Students who do not have good academic learning skills or who have only a limited number of these skills are as limited as a horn player who doesn't know into which end of the instrument to blow. It does appear that the academic learning skills like active reading, survey, acronym and others can be taught and that poor learners can become much more effective students by using these skills.
Teaching these skills and convincing students to become active, aggressive learners does require some patience and persistence, however. Here are some guidelines for teaching academic learning skills and some suggestions for getting students to use these skills.
Ñ Identify explicitly what academic learning skill will be taught and the main actions of the skill.
Ñ Model the skill explicitly. These models should be "think aloud" procedures which students can imitate explicitly.
Ñ Provide several examples for students to imitate with a variety of content. If teaching acronyms, for example, use examples for math, science, and social studies.
Ñ Provide many practice opportunities in which students are given information to learn using the skill on their own. Let the students discuss how they use these skills since each may develop a unique use of the skill. For example, the acronym HOMES may be good for one student while SEMOH may be good for another. Results are what counts.
Ñ Give suggestions regularly during teaching about what academic learning skills students might use while learning. For example, for a reading assignment students might be given suggestions to use skills such as creating topic sentences, deleting unimportant information, and active reading as skills they could use as they study and read.
Ñ Monitor how students are using these skills. One indicator of appropriate use of academic learning skills is high achievement. Another is efficient learning (e.g., memorizing in a reasonable length of time). Lack of success and/or inefficiency should be cues to poor use of selection of academic learning skills. The skills (or absence of skills) students employ may be examined, revised, replaced or revitalized.
Finally, at all times emphasize to students that they are personally in control of what they learn in school. Once students recognize that it is their responsibility to select and use academic learning skills and begin to experience success, they will then be able to rely more upon their own academic thinking and learning skills.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Anderson, T. H. Study skills and learning strategies. In H. F. O'Neil, Jr. and C. D. Spielberger (Eds.) Cognitive and Affective Learning Strategies. New York: Academic Press, 1979.
Brown, A. L.; Campione, J. C., and Day, J. D. Learning to learn: and training students to learn from texts. Educational Researcher, 1981, 10(2), 14-21.
Brown, A. L., and French, L. A. The zone of potential development: implications for intelligence testing in the year 2000. Intelligence, 1979, 3, 255-273.
Butterfield, A. C.; Wambold, C. and Belmont, J. M. On the theory and practice of improving short-term memory. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 1973, 77, 654-669.
Dansereau, D. F., Collins, K. W., McDonald, B. A., Holley, C. D.; Garland, J.; Diekhoff, G.; and Evans, S. H. Development and evaluation of a learning strategy training program. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1979, 79, 64-73.
Day, J. D. Training summarization skills: a comparison of teaching methods. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, 1980.
Neisser, U. General, Academic, and Artificial Intelligence. In L. Resnick, The Nature of Intelligence, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1976.
Sherman, T. M. Improving classroom thinking: Teaching students specific thinking skills. Unpublished manuscript, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1982.
Winne, P. H. and Marx, R. W. Matching students' cognitive responses to teaching skills. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1980, 72, 257-264.
