Management Strategies to Assist Students in Improving Learning Skills
by Marie-Elaine Burns Reed

ABSTRACT: In order to assist large numbers of students to develop learning skills, faculty of the Learning Assistance Center has developed a varie­ty of ways of providing learning skills workshops in the LAC, university classrooms, dormitories and other places where students gather. Following a comprehensive plan based on cooperation with content-area faculty, hands-on experience, and evaluation, LAC staff have developed procedures that are applicable to many learning centers.

Many learning assistance centers, because of limited staffing, have prob­lems reaching the large numbers of stu­dents needing learning skills develop­ment, improvement, and maintenance on a one-to-one basis. Too often faculty are ignorant of services provided by the center or unconvinced that these services are worthwhile. To overcome these prob­lems, the Learning Assistance Center (LAC) at California State University, Long Beach, has added the following programs:

Workshops are not given for academic credit, and students are taught to inte­grate skills into their courses. All workshops, conducted either in the LAC or elsewhere, are presented by learning assistance center staff or by interns assigned to the center. The workshops emphasize skills by demonstration rather than by lecture or exhorting students to improve.

Program Design for Classroom Learning Skills Workshops

Learning skills workshops conducted in the classroom make the LAC more visible and credible to faculty and assist a greater number of students in acquiring important learning skills. The design of each workshop follows these guidelines:

Classroom Learning Skills Workshops

The LAC offers faculty six learning skills workshops: time management, study/reading, listening/notetaking, term-paper writing, preparing for and taking exams, and improving memory skills. Each classroom workshop begins with the distribution of LAC program worksheets. Students use these in lieu of taking notes. The worksheet requires students to respond to three items: 1) As a result of this workshop, what will you put into practice?  2) What will you no longer do?  and 3) What questions and/or reactions would you like to share with others in the workshop?

During the workshop, students are asked to discuss what they have recorded. This dialogue allows students to examine their present learning habits and, more importantly, what they could do to im­prove. Students can also use the worksheets to develop personal objectives for improving their proficiency in a par­ticular skill.

Before the end of the workshop, a hand­out specific to the skill is distributed to students. It lists additional individual­ized activities offered at the LAC, with reference to specific programs such as You Can Learn to Learn (Christ & Adams, 1979); Seven Steps to Better Management of Your Study Time (Christ, 1981); and How to Survive in College (Casebeer, 1969).

At the end of the workshop, instructors ask students to write a brief evaluation. These are later shared with LAC staff members.

Two workshops, time management and study/reading, are described below to show examples of the active student participation and modeling that are hallmarks of the program design.

Time Management Workshop

Seven Steps to Better Management of Your Study Time (Christ, 1981) is the pro­gram used to teach time-management skills. Students take each of the following steps during the workshop:

At Step 4, students are given blank col­lege schedules and fill in their courses, labs, and personal commitments such as work, athletics, meetings, and worship. Further, the PLRS Learning Cycle in Step 7 is not merely explained; instead, students are shown how to incorporate the cycle into their schedules. Every stu­dent, at this point, will have scheduled a preview before each lecture, a review directly after each lecture, and a weekly review of course work. Thus students learn not only principles of time manage­ment but also to apply some of those principles.

Study/Reading Workshop

Study/reading workshops are con­ducted in classrooms after the LAC staff member has consulted with the request­ing instructor about the text used for the course and the types of assignments and exams that will be given. The text is then used in the workshop to model the skills. Study/reading workshops not conducted in specific classrooms are presented us­ing a common textbook provided free of charge by the university bookstore to the LAC.

Study/reading teaches students practi­cal methods for effective reading and re­taining of information from textbooks materials. Among the most commonly used study/reading methods are SQ3R or a variant (Robinson, 1970), mapping (Hanf, 1971), marking and underlining (Adler, 1966) and outlining (Johnson, 1964).

Learners are taught study/reading with a variation of the SQ3R (survey, question, read, recite, review) method (Robinson, 1979). This skill is based on three major principles:

Principle 1 is learned using the preview technique. Students examine each com­ponent of the book or chapter for guid­ance in using the material and under­standing it. Using the course text, the facilitator models how each component should be surveyed, beginning with the title and ending with the index. For ex­ample, each paragraph of the introduc­tion, preface, or foreword is explored to discover why the author wrote the book, to see if the author suggests the best way to use the text, and to determine if there are study aids included in the text. A few chapters are examined for introductions, subheadings, maps, tables or illustra­tions, summaries, exercises, or other I study aids. Students follow this step-by-step process in their own texts, searching for these components.

The second principle is also modeled, first by previewing the chapter. It is im­portant to note the length of the chapter. This determines if the chapter can be completed in the allotted time. If not, the chapter is divided into manageable chunks using subheadings. Third, sub­headings are turned into questions by asking who, what, where, when, why, or how. The LAC facilitator gives examples of these questions from the text. It is also explained that asking these questions sets a purpose for reading and leads to more meaningful reading and under­standing.

Finally, the third principle involves bringing closure to the learning. This is done through the “acid test”: testing oneself immediately after the chapter or any section of the chapter has been read, using the questions and answers formu­lated according to the second principle. This improves retention and the student identifies concepts that may require more study time.

This practical application of these three principles leads students to become more familiar with the method. They become better equipped to practice it on their own.

Management Strategies for Eliciting and Maintaining Faculty Support

 Faculty support of the classroom workshop program gives LAC staff access to larger groups of students and extends the LAC’s capabilities to assist them. The LAC has used the following approaches to gain this support:

Be where faculty are. Twice per week at least one staff member eats lunch in the faculty dining room, creating the oppor­tunity to network with faculty. The pur­pose is to build a general relationship, both personal and professional, as well as to promote the center and its offerings.

Participate in faculty orientation. The LAC is a regular agenda item on the faculty orientation program, conducted through the Faculty Development Office. New faculty are introduced to LAC staff by the Faculty Development Officer and given a formal tour of the center. Instruc­tors also receive an LAC “Faculty Fact Sheet;’ which describes learning assist­ance services at GSU-Long Beach (Grif­fin, 1978). The sheet also contains sug­gestions for interaction among faculty and LAC staff.

Present at department meetings. Upon request, presentations on LAC services are made at specific department meet­ings, particularly those meetings con­cerning campus resources available to students, student referral, and retention. Show faculty the need for classroom learning skills. A survey of learning skills adapted from one originally developed at Windward Community College in Hawaii asks students to rate their learning skills. These ratings are based on students’ per­ceptions of each skill’s usefulness in a particular course. Instructor rates the same skills according to their percep­tions, and the results are compared. Thus instructors become more aware of the skills students feel are needed to suc­cessfully pass their courses, and how con­fident students feel in the level of their skills. Instructors can use this informa­tion to adapt lecture techniques to meet students’ needs, refer students to the LAC for specific assistance, or request learning skills workshops to be presented in their classes.

Maintain records on faculty interrela­tionships. The LAC operates on the management system of Management by Objectives (MBO), reviewing goals and objectives and establishing new ones every summer. This system keeps the LAC accountable for reaching goals, and it also demands that the organization document its work both in terms of quantity and quality. LAC documenta­tion includes identification of faculty who need to be reminded of LAC ser­vices; a record sheet is used at the LAC to document dates and times of workshops, workshop names, and the courses in which they were presented, by whom, and so on. Such documentation is also used to show new faculty how the LAC relates to their departments.

Persist both in publicizing and offering programs. Program promotion must be an ongoing responsibility. Faculty as well as staff and students, must be reminded regularly what the LAC is and what it of­fers. Services must be offered on a consis­tent basis so that faculty and students can depend on the stability of the pro­grams. Persistence and consistency among staff is also very important in eliciting cooperation. Staff members must stay with the center long enough to build the types of relationships on campus, which assure the LAC’s success. Further, it is in the best interest of the LAC that adminis­trative staff know each other’s jobs and are seen as equally important and compe­tent in performing LAC services.

Conclusion

The program design guidelines, workshop descriptions, and management strategies detailed in this article have been successful in assisting LAC staff to reach large numbers of students in the classroom. In 1983-84, for example, the LAC reached 1,000 students in 23 dif­ferent classrooms representing eleven academic departments. In addition, facul­ty now use LAC program materials and activities as requirements in their courses.

These workshops, which combine the learning of steps and principles with the application of the method, give students intensive experiences with learning skills required for success in college. In addi­tion, the overall workshop program helps reinforce the position of the LAC as an integral part of the academic community and offers LAC staff the opportunity for increased contact with students, faculty, and staff. The approaches to learning skills workshops used by the Learning Assistance Center at California State University, Long Beach, can be adapted for use in any learning center which desires to strengthen its position as an essential part of the teaching commu­nity and to bring learning skills to students when and where they need them.

References

Adler, M. T. (1966). How to read a book. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Casebeer, E. (1969). How to survive in college. Minneapolis: Education Marketing Corporation.

Christ, F. L. (1981). Seven steps to better management of your study time. Seal Beach, CA: Personal Efficiency Programs.

Christ, Fl. L. & Adams, W. R. (1979). You can learn to learn. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Griffin, P. (1978). The university yellow pages. Long Beach: California State University.

Hanf, M. B. (1970). Mapping: A technique for translating reading into thinking. Journal of Reading, 14(4); 225-30, 270.

Johnson, H. W. (1964). Another study method. Journal of Developmental Reading, (Summer); 269-282.

Robinson, F. P. (1970). Effective study (4th ed.). New York: Harper & Row.