It is not uncommon for a student to come into my office hours and say exasperatedly that they studied really hard on the exam but didn’t get the result that they were hoping for. How did you spend your time studying, I would ask, which is usually followed by an explanation of the amount of hours spent re-reading the textbook, going over all posted lecture slides and their notes again, sometimes even making flashcards to memorize important definitions. While those might be good learning strategies for some courses, it is most certainly not for the class I teach. BIO345, or Evolution, is a class with mostly sophomores and juniors, most of them biology majors, a whopping 300 of them, in which we require them to use the knowledge we give them.
I believe that as teachers our main responsibility is not to be just the vehicle of knowledge transfer, but to establish a new generation of critical thinkers. Most knowledge has an expiration date while critical thinking is needed for the rest of one’s life. In Evolution, we strive to teach our students the important role of evolution plays in many aspects of their lives. I aim to inspire them to ask big questions about the world around them such as “Why do species go extinct instead of adapt?”, “Why have we not yet found a way to deal with antibiotic resistance?”, and “Why did we not evolve to never get sick?”. My ambition in teaching is to plant the seed of questioning, a practice that they will continue to do outside of the classroom as well. Therefore, we assess the students much on their ability to apply what they have learned to real-life situations. For that, they need to practice, a lot of it. Good old reading and re-reading the textbook or making flashcards is not going to get you there.
In the School of Life Sciences Book Club, we have been reading the book “Make it stick – the science of successful learning”. I highly recommend this book for each student who still relies on reading the text book and studying their notes. Much more effective study habits are quizzing yourself on your understanding and explaining the material to a friend, dog or your goldfish. Or find real-life examples by yourself and make exam questions using these. At least, this is what science has found and this is what makes sense to me and what I preach. But I’m not in their shoes. So, who best to ask than the top-performing students in my class? I asked for their study habits at the end of the semester and boy did they deliver. How best to get advice than straight from the horse’s mouth. While these habits are specific for our class, it occurred to me that these are great general study tips too so hopefully they serve a purpose beyond my classroom. You can download the student tips HERE. Feel free to share and distribute.