ERIC ED355616: Study Skills.

46 Pages·1.1 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 355 616
EA 024 675
AUTHOR
Thomas, Anne
TITLE
Study :.ills.
INSTITUTION
Oregon School Study Council, Eugene.
REPORT NO
ISSN-0095-6694
PUB DATE
Jan 93
NOTE
46p.
AVAILABLE FROM
Oregon School Study Council, Unive-sity of Oregon,
1787 Agate Street, Eugene, OR 97403 ($4.50 prepaid
members; $7 nonmembers; $3.00 postage and handling on
billed orders).
PUB TYPE
Classroom Use
Teaching Guides (For
Guides
Teacher) (052)
Collected Works
Serials (022)
JOURNAL CIT
OSSC Bulletin; v36 n5 Jan 1993
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
Academic Achievement; Elementary Secondary Education;
Learning Strategies; Metacognition; Reading Habits;
*Student Motivation; *Study Habits; *Study Skills
IDENTIFIERS
*Oregon
ABSTRACT
Three developments lend support to the idea that
schools must help teach study skills: (1) advances in cognitive
psychology that suggest children are active learners;
(2) society's
concern for at-risk students; and (3) growing demands for improved
student performance. There is evidence that systematic study skills
instruction does improve academic performance. Study skills entail a
beneficial study environment, self-management, and time and stress
management, as well as the more traditional skills of effective
listening, reading comprehension, note-taking, and sophisticated
writing skills. Motivation is essential for instilling study skills.
Research suggests that behavioral self-management, mood management,
and self-monitoring are successful tactics in developing motivation.
Development of study skills should be addressed at every educational
level. Programs to enhance teachers' preparation to teach study
skills are important, because the perception they are unprepared
negatively affects student performance. Efforts in Oregon demonstrate
both the need to develop study skills and the outlines of some
successes. Students' eagerness to acquire study skills dissipates
quickly, demanding a strong commitment from school boards,
administrators, teachers, parents, and students to make study skills
instruction maximally effective. An appendix lists eight study skill
programs. (Contains 21 references.) (TEJ)
***********************************************************************
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
***********************************************************************
STUDY SKILLS
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Offics of Educational Roswell and Immwoment
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)
(his
document has peen reproduced as
received from the Person or organization
Anne Thomas
originating it.
C Minor changes nave been made to improve
reproduction Quality
Points of wevr or oranions stated in this dcc
Li-
mon! do not necessarily represent official
OERI position or policy
"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER SERIC1."
\)
Oregon School Study Council
January 1993 Volume 36, Number 5
SSC BULLETiN
D'j
REST COPY AVAILARE
STUDY SKILLS
Anne Thomas
Oregon School Study Council
January 1993 Volume 36, Number 5
ISSN 0095-6694
Nonmember price: $7.00
Member price: $4.50
Quantity Discounts:
15%
10-24 copies
25-49 copies - 20%
25%
50+ copies
OSSC STAFF
Philip K. Piele, Executive Secretary
Stuart C. Smith, Editor
Linda S. Lumsden, Associate Editor and Production
Deborah Drost, Assistant Editor and Production
Audrey Muller, Publications Sales
OSSC GOVERNING BOARD
Dave Cone, School Board Member, Gresham Grade SD 4
Mike Delvin, School Board Member, North Bend SD 13
James Maxwell, Superintendent, Lane ESD
Philip K. Piele, Professor and Executive Secretary,
Oregon School Study Council
Policy and
David Conley, Associate Professor, Division of Educational
Management, University of Oregon
Bill Korach, Superintendent, Lake Oswego SD 7J
Bob Stalick, Superintendent, Greater Albany Public SD 8J
Association
Diane Harr, School Board Member, Oregon School Boards
OREGON SCHOOL STUDY COUNCIL
1787 Agate Street
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon 97403
[phone]
Fax: [phone]
employer.
The University of Oregon is an affirmative action, equal opportunity
Preface
Marilyn Spencer has just finished a U.S. history lecture on the roots of
the Revolutionary War, and her students have a few minutes before the end
of class to begin reading tomorrow's assignment.
She looks around the room and observes various students tackling the
assignment. Becky Jones is carefully reading and taking notes. She has
divided her paper in half and written questions on the left side of the page.
As she reads, she writes the answers on the right side of the page opposite the
questions. The teacher recalls that Becky also carefully listened during the
lecture and took notes when an important point was made.
Now the teacher's gaze settles on Bobby Smith. Bobby seems to be a
bright student but was inattentive during the lecture. He's reading now, but
the pages are turning quickly, and he is not taking notes.
Even though it is early in the year, Marilyn Spencer already has a
pretty good idea how these two students will fare. Their study skillsor the
lack thereofare an indicator of their success.
Study skills are a relatively recent addition to schools' curriculum, and
several school districts have already embraced the concept. But is it neces-
sary? Can't students figure out how to study on their own? If they are taught
study skills, will it improve their performance?
This Bulletin explores study skillswhat they are, how they can be
taught, and whether they workand the implications such teaching has for
public schools.
Anne Thomas has a master's degree in journalism from the University
of Oregon. She has teaching experience on the elementary, secondary, and
collegiate levels and has worked for the Cottage Grove Sentinel, Ashland
Daily Tidings, and Springfield News.
Appreciation is due M. D. "Mark" Gall, professor of education, Uni-
versity of Oregon, for his contribution to the editing and revision of an earlier
draft.
iii
Contents
Preface
iii
Introduction
1
1. Do Study Skills Help Children Learn?
2
Why Teach Study Skills?
3
How Learning Occurs
3
Is There Evidence That Study Skills Help? 4
2. What Are Study Skills?
7
Study Skills Involve More Than Note Taking
7
Academic Techniques and Skills
10
3. how Should Study Skills Be Taught?
15
Success Leads to Success
15
How Early Should Study Skills Be Taught?
16
Should Study Skills Be Part of the Main Curriculum?
16
The Role of Educators
17
The Role of Parents
20
The Role of Stuaents
20
4. What's Being Done in Oregon?
22
Skills Assessment Survey Results
23
Two Examples of Local Programs
26
Experimental Programs
27
5. Where Do We Go from Here?
30
Not Everyone Goes to College
30
Establish a Policy
31
Teach the Teachers First
31
Enthusiasm Motivates
32
G
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Interviews
Introduction
It is not uncommon for students to progress through elementary, junior
high, and high school with few hints about how to listen to lectures, take
notes, write papers, or prepare for and take tests. When they reach college,
these students often find themselves lacking essential skills needed for
academic success. If they are unsuccessful in developing those skills, their
college careers end abruptly.
Ron Johnson, superintendent of the Lowell School District in Lowell,
Oregon, recalls that approximately ten years ago the district surveyed some
of its graduates who had gone on to college and asked them what was lacking
from their high school education. The answer: learning how to study. As a
result, the Lowell district started a program called Study Technologies Equal
Pupil Success (STEPS).
Many educators are wondering how schools can better help students
learn. Researchers, too, have wondered why some students encounter aca-
demic difficulty during their school years or later in college. They are
finding that a major reason is inadequate study skills for the learning tasks
that students are assigned.
It is increasingly difficult for people to sort through and assimilate the
amount of information available through advances in technology. Students
who have learned how to learnthe essence of study skillswill be the ones
who can process this information and use it in school, the world of work, and
personal life.
As Sharon J. Derby (1988) says,
Students who receive good strategy training during their years in
school can acquire a form of knowledge especially useful in coping
with the wide variety of learning situations they will encounter
throughout their lives. Given the amount of time that people spend in
school, in job-related training, and in acquiring knowledge associated
with their interests and hobbies, the ability to find good solutions to
learning problems may be the most important thinking skill of all.
In other words, students who acquire study skills are not just learning
one particular subject, they are learning how to learn.
1
Chapter 1
Do Study Skills Help
Children Learn?
is just another fad.
Some educators may think that teaching study skills
been taught before? Further,
If such skills are so important, why haven't they
help children achieve scho-
how do we know that teaching study skills will
lastic success?
Oregon's College of
M. D. "Mark" Gall, professor in the University of
Making the Grade, thinks
Education and coauthor of Tools for Learning and
have not been taught much is that teachers, lacking
one reason study skills
teaching them.
training in teaching study skills, feel uncomfortable
Another reason is that teachers are expected to teach content, not
(1991) raised the question
skills. When George White and Scott Greenwood
they sug-
why many middle schools don't have adviser/advisee programs,
teachers have been trained to teach
gested one answer was that middle-school
"content specialists."
in secondary schools, and they see themselves as
job of the guidance counselor,
"These teachers typically believe that it is the
they say. They further suggest the
not the teacher, to counsel students,"
adviser/advisee pro-
teaching of study skills as a good way to institute an
gram.
model based almost
Gall believes education needs to move from a
taught the skills and
exclusively on content to a model in which students are
He suggests that teachers
attitudes they need in order to master the content.
assumption that many students
and administrators often operate under the
but it has been imbedded in
will fail. This attitude is not intentional, he says,
in the early part
educational philosophy for decades. He points to education
farms and the expectation was
of the century when many youngsters lived on
deeply buried expectation
that they probably would not finish school. This
change."
remains, he says, because "systems are so slow to
2
Why Teach Study Skills?
In recent years, three developments have 1snt support to the idea that
schools must take more responsibility for teaching study skills: (1) advances
in cognitive psychology indicate that students are not passive but active
recipients of information, and it is to their benefit if they know how they
learn; (2) society has renewed concern for the at-risk student, especially as
dropout rates climb; and (3) schools are pushing for higher standards of
student performance.(Gall and others 1990).
With all the recent attention given to dropout rates and a decline in
SAT scores, the perception by taxpayers and employers alike is that many
students are not equipped to perform meaningful tasks. Perhaps the acquisi-
tion of study skills can help students change these perceptions.
How Learning Occurs
Students learn through their senses, but in school the primary senses
that are engaged are hearing and sight. Students listen to lectures and assign-
ments; read textbooks, handouts, and what is written on the blackboard; and
observe their teachers.
During their hours in school, students are besieged by information
ranging from mathematics to history to vocational techniques such as short-
hand or typing. How do they take it all in?
Psychologists acknowledge a difference between short-term and long-
term memory, noting that information is first stored in short-term memory
and more effort is needed to get it into long-term memory.
A telephone number, for example, is stored in the limited short-term
memory. Once the number is dialed, it is forgotten, leaving room for more
information to enter. Getting information stored in long-term memory re-
quires the use of some kind of strategy to embed it. Repetition is one such
strategy. Multiplication tables used to be learned by saying them over and
over until they were ingrained in the pupil's mind. Such tasks as driving a car
also rely on overlearning. After a person has driven the same car for some
time, driving becomes second nature, and the driver doesn't even have to
think about what to do next.
Much of the information students are exposed to in school does not
lend itself to endless repetition. One can learn a few dates, but repeating the
entire sequence of the Civil War is another matter. In addition, repetition
does not encourage a student to relate one concept to another. Learning of
relationships comes about only when a student has had the opportunity to
analyze various pieces of information from several different angles.
3
I_0