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One Key, Many Doors
As an academic coach, and a strong proponent of an integrated skills approach, I have for years watched students work on a discrete academic skill, such as writing or critical thinking, and realized that the basic academic skills of reading, note taking, writing, critical thinking, and time management are all interdependent. If a student is weak in one of these areas it will affect the others. If a student is unable to manage her time, then reading, note taking and writing may suffer. If a student has trouble with critical thinking, it is often related to ineffective reading or note-taking strategies. An academic coaching model can create a dialogue that will help both coach and student to isolate the academic skill areas where student is getting “stuck” in the learning process. This is a key understanding. Then, strategies related to all of the skills involved can be offered to help students to move forward in their overall skill development.
Metacognition – the Power Tool
A metacognitive approach empowers students to take control of their own learning. Metacognition is learning about one’s learning. Are you a morning person or an evening person? Do you work up against deadlines or complete work ahead of time? Are you more comfortable with brainstorming or freewriting as a pre-writing tool? (more importantly – do you know about pre-writing tools?) When listening to a lecture, do you retain more information by just listening or taking notes that you will review later or taking notes that you may never read again but the action of taking notes helps you remember more? These are just a few questions that get at metacognition. When you begin to learn about how you learn you can match the most effective strategies that correlate with your unique learning approach.