Improving Understanding And Increasing Grades: 4 Tips For Fall Freshman At Columbus Day, An Open Letter To My Son At College:

College Student Journal, Dec, 2000 by Paul J. Vermette

In a memo originally meant just for his Freshman son away at college, an Education Professor details four learning strategies (and a pre-condition) that have great promise for improving academic achievement. The precondition is a recommendation that students go see the Professors during their office hours: this shows genuine concern for their achievement, begins to connect the student to the institution AND begins to help the professors see the student as an individual ... and assess how much the student has already learned in the course.

The four tips include the following: (1) the DISTRIBUTION of study and reading/writing time, thus organizing a schedule AND increasing the efficiency of the work; (2) the ELABORATION of one's notes, through the processes of summarizing, identifying, chunking, comparing or transforming the ideas; (3) MARKING one's books, in effect, interacting with the author's presentation of evidence; and (4) EXPLAINING ideas, theories, information and concepts to someone else, either in a study team format or just as a tutorial. (The one who explains is usually the one who learns.)

Examples of the various strategies are offered and active responses are called for. The techniques are sound, research based and should help everyone, not just the first-year students.

Dear Matt,

Please notice that this is the first letter that I have written to you that has a title!!!!! Thinking about your situation at St. John Fisher made me think

about all the Fall Freshman at Niagara that I have taught ... and perhaps failed to help as much as I could! If you let me, I will share this note with other Freshmen in other colleges ... and maybe help them too.

This weekend (the second one in October) is infamous at College: some of us always fear that many of our students simply would NOT come back from their trip home on the extended break ... or ... they would feel so bad about all the difficult adjustments that they're facing that they would come back feeling "defeated". Many talented students don't negotiate all the "firsts" that they encounter in college and end up being down on themselves. Having a few strategies to use may help you weather the inevitable storm that is coming.

Things are going well for you and I think that you can the make the best out of these suggestions. I offer you a few simple pieces of advice that (a) you can implement easily and quickly (b) will make your school work different and perhaps more enjoyable and (c) no doubt will raise your grades!!!!

Now, first of all there is a precondition to this set of 4 TIPS. Most of the time we parents offer ideas such as "get enough sleep", "eat fruits and vegetables", "go to class" and "don't get in trouble". These are wonderful suggestions and valuable: take note of them. However, the precondition that I offer is different: Go talk to your professor about your work and your efforts, preferably during her or his office hours AND before a big test (Don't be late or fail to show for an appointment). This short chat assures the prof that you actually are serious about your work (which you are), puts a name on a face, gives the prof a chance to assess how much you do know about the course AND provides him or her with an opportunity to offer advice about study techniques for that specific content.

This last point is important. If you ask a prof "Do you have any suggestions that would help me do better in the course?", the answer often is "study more" or "do the reading". These hints are fine, but you already know these things. What might be offered is something like this: "make sure that you understand the chapter subtitles--they're critical", or "l make all my test questions similar to the samples offered in the book, so look at those" or "There is at least one question about every term I put on the board on every test" or "Note that in the syllabus, there is a key question for every class: you might want to be able to answer them!". When a prof says something like this.... you ought to take serious note of it!!! They all want you to pass (and prosper); very few, if any, really want the students to fail. Trust them; they won't lead you astray.

I once did a study of college profs with Dr. P here at Niagara back in 1989.... almost everyone of them gave definite in-class hints as to test items every day!!!! All I had to do was look for emphasis during class and I could identify these examination points. Later, in discussion, I found out that the professors hoped that the students would be able to identify them too.

So, the precondition is simply: Go and have a chat so that everybody is a little bit clearer about your willingness and ability to do well. Oh, yeah, and eat the green vegetables.

Now here are the four (4) tips that are guaranteed to raise your achievement. I anticipate that you will face ESSAYS and PAPERS that require you to use information to defend an argument and MULTIPLE-CHOICE TESTS that expect identifications of causes or results or which seek comparisons. These tips all are useful in getting ready for those kinds of challenges. Give them a chance (or two). As they use to say in an old TV commercial, "Try them.... you'll like them".