As the fall semester draws to a close at institutions of higher education across the country, today’s students face multiple distractions head-on. Whether it’s holding a full-time or part-time job, securing internships, or maintaining an active social life, students often struggle to balance a growing number of demands with their academic performance. can suffer considerably.
As the first person in my family to pursue a doctorate and have family and friends who are first-generation students, I understand what it feels like to have no guidance and insight to navigate the higher education system. I vividly remember feeling out of place as a student, like I was an impostor, until I developed relationships with my peers. Allowing myself to be a little vulnerable and sharing my experience helped, and I was surprised to discover that many of us faced similar issues. These important but sometimes uncomfortable conversations allowed us to support each other.
First-generation students may also face unique obstacles, such as caring for family members while earning their degree, being unable to establish relationships with faculty, having limited financial resources, and not not have the appropriate academic preparation and resources before enrolling in a higher education institution.
This is why, while pursuing my Ed.D. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, I took the opportunity to conduct a needs assessment study on factors contributing to low academic achievement among first-generation students in higher education.
After surveys and interviews, results showed that students had low academic engagement, low social integration, and low confidence in their academic skills as it related to their ability to monitor their thoughts and behaviors. In the second phase of the study, I designed an academic self-regulation intervention to improve the academic performance of these students by increasing the use of vital strategies to help them learn more effectively and build their confidence in teaching. use of these strategies.
The results of this study highlight the benefits of an academic self-regulation program on each student’s learning, which has implications for their academic performance and overall success throughout their educational journey.
It’s clear that by leveraging innovative techniques and vital learning strategies, including the examples below, higher education students of all ages and backgrounds can better understand important course material by less time, allowing them to excel academically while juggling countless other responsibilities.
- Pomodoro technique
The Pomodoro technique is a time management method used to improve productivity while studying. This technique relies on using a timer to break down a workflow into 25-minute intervals followed by a five-minute break. This will be repeated three to five times until the tasks at hand are completed. Longer breaks, usually 15 to 20 minutes, are taken every four Pomodoros. During the break, students are strongly advised to choose to focus on an activity different from the task at hand.
The stages of Pomodoro include planning, tracking, recording, processing, and viewing. These are all essential skills that students can use throughout their educational journey and to advance their future careers.
- Recovery practice
Retrieval practice is a strategy created to recall information from memory to improve learning. These include self-quizzes or other activities such as flash cards, fun reviews, or written reflections, so that a student can easily see what they have learned from memory. Practicing retrieval leads to better learning in the long term. Rather than cramming for a test at the last minute, which might lead to learning something quickly but only temporarily, retrieval practice strengthens connections in the student’s memory and consolidates learning over an extended period of time.
For example, if a student is studying content related to anatomy, this technique can be used by naming structures without looking at the list. Once students have identified all the structures, they look at their notes or textbook to see if they are correct.
- Spacing effect
When using the spacing effect technique, the material to be studied is simply spaced out in time with irrelevant activities mixed in between. If the information to be learned is studied in a distributed manner or spaced out over time, it is learned more slowly but retained much longer. Spacing the learning process over different days can improve memory through neural consolidation processes that occur during sleep. If information must be remembered for a longer period of time, it is advantageous to provide longer spacing between repeated learning opportunities.
- Interleaving
Interleaving mixes different topics or skills to make learning easier. Rather than studying only one type of question at a time, a student would study many different examples of a given topic. For example, multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division problems would all be mixed together. Blocked practice, on the other hand, involves studying a topic in depth before moving on to the next topic. Although repetition is important, learners can understand the topic more effectively if they practice it alongside other key skills. Interleaving, sometimes called mixed practice or varied practice, facilitates learning and overall improves long-term retention of content.
- Elaborate interrogation
Elaborative questioning is a learning strategy that involves students asking questions and then providing plausible explanations for the statements as they study. Asking and then answering how and why questions while studying can help any student think about the issues surrounding that topic to better grasp the main idea.
The strategy will also help an interested student learn to memorize information in more detail, create new explanations for concepts studied, and relate the new information to any pre-existing knowledge. Once the questions are developed, students must answer them by referring to their knowledge base, thus establishing a link between the new and old information.
- Double coding
Dual coding combines words and visual information, such as pictures, tables, charts, graphs, and graphic organizers, during studying. Students should pay close attention to the visuals and then associate them with the text by explaining its meaning in their own words. Using both information formats (words and visual images) provides two different ways to remember information and improves comprehension and memory, allowing students to retain information better than before.
- Concrete examples
Using concrete examples involves taking abstract concepts and creating examples based on real experiences to solidify the student’s understanding of the concepts. Abstract concepts are vague and can be difficult for students to understand. Generating concrete, relevant and specific examples helps learners better understand the information. Creating a connection between the concept a student is studying and a real-world example can more easily connect it to a student’s existing knowledge, helping to boost retention.
However, it is important to ensure that student-generated examples are accurate. So, if in doubt, they should be checked with the instructor.
While first-generation students typically perform lower academically than their next-generation peers, educators can help these students experience continued success by helping them improve their learning and study skills.
