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Valerie Macedo

Dr. Emily Elliot

PSYC 2001

23 November 2020

Most people do not remember the first thing they learned as it occurs when we are infants.

The basic act of learning is a concept that seems to come naturally to a person as they mature and

age. This is obvious in the simple act of learning how to walk and learning to speak at the early

age of one year. So, if we are already learning at such a young age, why do people need to

further “learn” how to learn? There are many different outlooks on how learning should be

approached. Some argue people should be in charge of developing their study skills, otherwise

known as, “learning to learn as they go”. This means that as one matures and goes through life

then they will develop their own skills and learn through others or one’s own mistakes. On the

opposing side is the view that children should be taught specific ways to learn and study and to

utilize these strategies throughout their life. Learning involves more processes than listening

alone. It utilizes many parts of the brain including memory. It is believed that students have

different learning styles than other students and it can be difficult to teach a method that will be

successful for everyone. However, the theory of learning styles has been proven false by

neuroscientists. It has been proven that learning happens in an interconnected way. A person uses

all their senses to process information. (Lawrence) Nonetheless, even if there is no set “learning

styles,” each person processes information differently than others and it is best if a majority of

students develop their own ways to study and learn as they tend to do better. There are many

advantages to both schools of thought, however, being taught specific strategies will result in

more students effectively learning.

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There are many different ways to learn new things. Many times, this is dependent on the

type of environment one is in and the information being taught. Many teachers have different

expectations, have different teaching styles, and require different learning strategies. Separate

strategies include rereading, doing practice problems, flashcards, rewriting notes, and countless

other strategies. It has been discovered that many students are unsure of how to study.

(Willingham) In fact, many students have not mastered the concept of learning by the time they

reach graduate school if they are pursuing higher learning. Most common methods, such as

reading or spending hours on one topic have been proven to ineffectively promote long-term

learning. (Winerman) Many students are taught how to learn by their own family members.

However, the methods their own family may teach have become outdated as some new skills and

techniques have been discovered to be much more effective. The skills that may have led

someone to success earlier are no longer sufficient to lead to success now.

There is a need for change in teaching, learning, and assessment. (Lawrence) Many

students ride by in high school by simply memorizing facts and answers instead of learning how

to apply this knowledge to the real world. Often, once the students have been tested on this

information, they forget a majority of what they just spent hours cramming in to learn for an

exam. Students do not know how to learn properly. They teach themselves how to take a test and

how to pass these tests. There is not a great interest in learning the information, rather learning it

well enough to get a good grade. The motivation behind learning has been misplaced in many

students and this has caused development of very poor study habits. In order to help, teachers

should help students learn effective study strategies, especially before the students enter high

school. A good example of this is a class called ‘Study Skills’ given to eighth graders in order to
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prepare them for the rigor of high school and college. Teachers control the environment in

which students learn, including what they learn and how they learn.

Many strategies are being taught that are a waste of time and it is important to utilize the

strategies that could make a large difference for students across all classrooms. The most

effective include strategies that do more than aid memorization but promote application of the

knowledge and help transfer information to new situations. Andrew Butler conducted a study

that compared whether students did better on tests after restudying material or taking a practice

test to remember specific information. (Schwartz) The results revealed that those who took

practice tests were able to make inferences much better than students who simply restudied

material. Students should also be encouraged to spread out their studying and work over a longer

period of time as it has been proven to be effective than cramming material. The term “mass

practice” is less effective and results in less learning. (Schwartz) Teachers can incorporate these

very methods into the classroom very easily. The way teachers assign work is very important and

it can and will ingrain into the student’s study habits, good or bad. (Schwartz) This can be done

by introducing “low-risk” quizzes that are more for the student's benefit than the grade book.

For some reason, many students will rely on methods that worked extremely well in

grade school, worked mediocre in high school, and are surprised when they are not sufficient

methods in university. These students accumulate stress and frustration as they see themselves

pour hours into studying and the outcome reflects poorly. These are prime examples of

study/learning methods that many students take years to discover. It may take them until their

undergraduate education to finally learn the effective ways to grasp the material. By

incorporating methods that have been proven to enhance learning in grade school students will

be able to grasp material quicker. (Broyde)Teachers should emphasize which strategies will
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ensure maximum retention and application and incorporate assignments that further develop

these study strategies to ensure students can see the outcomes. Instead of arriving at university

and discovering they have been learning “wrong.” This normally occurs after failing the first test

in courses and results in a stressful semester. Nonetheless, there are benefits to allowing the

student to discover their own methods of learning.

While there are many benefits to teaching students certain strategies that are known to

work and many students thrive on, there is the possibility that these methods may not be the best

for certain students. The act of learning relies on the person and their desire to learn. It is not

something that can be applied to everyone as a sort of blanket. There is a common saying that if

you can master a subject on your own then you learn more. Many skills need to be acquired

much earlier than other skills—such as reading, writing, and thinking in one’s own language—

and learning these skills will lead to the development of good study habits. (Robinson) These are

developed at one’s own pace. What contributes the most to an effective self-learner is a good

environment. This will allow the student to focus solely on the task that is being presented to

them and will develop critical thinking skills in order to solve their problem. This is made

evident when homeschoolers begin to progress intro to higher levels of math and science. Many

of these students use Saxon which is a Math curriculum that teaches new concepts while

reviewing past taught concepts. Each homework assignment includes problems to work from the

new concept as well as increasingly more difficult problems from all past sections. These

specific books were written so that it can be mastered by students on their own without any

outside help. (Robinson) It is generally a much more gradual learning process than if in a normal

classroom setting with normal teaching methods, but the end product is a deeper understanding

of the learned concepts. The student who masters it themselves develops the ability to teach
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themselves and continues to take this skill with them into science and other subjects. This student

has developed this ability regardless of whether or not a teacher with prior knowledge of the

subject is present to explain the concepts. Once the student has mastered the ability to self-teach,

they begin to master their own study habits and thinking abilities that lead to a very successful

academic career.

Children who learn to self-teach and develop their own study habits achieve far more and

skip over one or more years of college, through Advanced Placement examinations. By allowing

children to “teach themselves” in the classroom setting you are allowing them to develop their

own learning strategies that work the best for them and at their own pace. This method requires

time, patience, and dedication which are all things that many schools are unable to give at the

amount needed to fully utilize this method of learning. The most mundane term that can be said

is that “different people learn information in different ways.” (Pashler 2) So, giving students the

opportunity to develop their own study strategies can ensure that what they develop will work for

them and enables a drive to learn. It is commonly thought that if the instruction to a student is

tailored to their individual learning style then the student’s potential to learn effectively is raised

than if the teacher taught in a generic way meant for all.

There are clear advantages to both methods of learning, and it is difficult to decipher

which method would result in a higher percentage of students with successful learning strategies

that are carried into adulthood and into their careers. However, the most adaptable and successful

students will be the students who are taught explicit learning strategies early on and further

develop these skills as they mature and encounter harder material. Children who attend school

and experience classroom settings where teachers talk to the children demonstrated “superiority

in basic memory and cognitive skills.” (Ornstein) Memory is very important when it comes to
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learning new material. The better one’s memory is the more likely they are to absorb the

information and they will be able to build on that foundation. The development of mnemonic

techniques is very important and normally occurs in the classroom setting during grade school.

(Orstein) The reason this method of teaching will yield better results than allowing students to

fend for themselves is because it offers a solution to something many students believe there is

none. The learning as you go method is the method most commonly being used. Teachers in

grade school believe that children are too young to be taught methods on how to study and

simply allow students to develop their own skills. For a select portion of students, this method

works as they are able to reason and figure out a successful way to study and learn. Other

students struggle and expect some type of clarification in high school. However, a majority of

high school teachers expect students to have already developed their own learning style and

expect students to adjust themselves to their teaching style. This is detrimental to many students

which is reflected in low grades and dropout rates. Reading has been proven to be of the utmost

importance in academic settings and is one of the most common study strategies taught to

students. However, reading is the bare minimum that students take from this method. To enhance

reading and learning students should be marking their texts as they read. This method has been

proven to promote the retention of information that is read and needs to be retained. Along with

marking texts students should also be taking notes that teachers say in class. This holds appeal

for both encoding benefits and storage benefits. (Miyatsu)

Explicit methods should be taught at an early stage and then continued to be refreshed

each year as one matures. The student will be able to learn about each method and when to use
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them as some would work best for science and others would work best for humanities. Teachers

would also provide assignments where these methods would need to be utilized to ensure

everyone is attempting to learn to learn. The reason leaving everyone on their own to learn to

learn would not work is it allows students to “survive.” When a child is under stress they

become, “apprehensive and they don’t learn.” (Ornstein) This would occur naturally when one

comes across material that is difficult to learn and instead of sitting and attempting to figure a

solution out, as the method of teaching yourself suggests, the student will most likely give up and

perform poorly on the exam on the material. This becomes detrimental when it is a fundamental

concept that is continued to be built upon and the student has no clue on how to approach the

problem. However, if the student had been taught multiple strategies then they could think to

themselves\ how do I approach to learn this and what can I do to succeed. This is what a teacher

can hope for once the strategies are taught. To go one step further would be to “make sure the

students understand why the strategies fit how the brain learns and emphasizing that students can

use the same strategies beyond class.” (Schwartz)

Now, as both methods have been discussed and analyzed there is much to ponder. The

advantages of teaching explicit strategies are much higher than leaving students on their own and

expecting the best results. The interest to apply results from cognitive science to enhance

educational practices is growing. (Miyatsu) With this interest comes the need to make changes

based on findings. These changes can include placing higher importance on teachers to take the

time to go over learning strategies to succeed in schooling. These same strategies, if embedded

into their habits, will be carried into their careers and result in a higher success rate . Individual
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differences may change the success of learning strategies for individuals, but it does not affect

the overall rate of success that has been proven. Psychologists hope that students use the

strategies that are suggested to help them study more effectively and that teachers become aware

of the impact they may have on students learning abilities and offer guidance.
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Works Cited

Broyde , Michael J, and Ira Bedzow. “Why We Should Teach Legal-Reasoning Skills to
Students.” Education Week, 18 Nov. 2019, www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/06/18/why-
we-should-teach-legal-reasoning-skills-to.html.

Lawrence, Breanna C, et al. “It Is Complicated: Learning and Teaching Is Not About ‘Learning
Styles.’” Frontiers for Young Minds, 2020,
kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2020.00110.

Miyatsu, Toshiya, Khuyen Nguyen, and Mark A. McDaniel. "Five popular study strategies:
Their pitfalls and optimal implementations." Perspectives on Psychological Science 13.3
(2018): 390-407.

Ornstein, Peter A., and Jennifer L. Coffman. "Toward an Understanding of the Development of
Skilled Remembering: The Role of Teachers’ Instructional Language." Current
Directions in Psychological Science 29.5 (2020): 445-452.

Pashler, Harold, et al. "Learning styles: Concepts and evidence." Psychological science in the
public interest 9.3 (2008): 105-119.

Robinson, Arthur. “Teach Them to Teach Themselves.” Robinson Curriculum, 20 Jan. 2012,
www.robinsoncurriculum.com/rc/teach-them-to-teach-themselves/.

Schwartz, Katrina. “Why Teachers Should Help Students Learn Effective Study Strategies.”
KQED, 21 May 2017, www.kqed.org/mindshift/48139/why-teachers-should-help-students-
learn-effective-study-strategies.

Willingham, Daniel. “Students Should Be Taught How to Study.” Daniel Willingham--Science

& Education, 2012, www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-
education-blog/students-should-be-taught-how-to-study.

Winerman, Lea. “Study Smart.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological

Association, 2011, www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/11/study-smart.