Category Archives: Uncategorized
A Conversation (with Students) About a Deep Learning Experience
If students are to excel in rigorous courses, they must learn deeply. Furthermore, they must learn in ways that enable them to efficiently retrieve their learning products and transfer them to their respective learning tasks. For the past decade, I have been conducting Transforming Good Students into Great Learners projects. These 4-part sessions routinely help students …
Data-Informed Learning: Using Students’ Cognition to Deepen Learning and Improve Test Performance
Students’ studying experiences are driven largely by intuition. Learners rely on gut feelings to determine which content they need to learn. Their sense of “I-got-it-ness,” which serves as the guiding force of their studying, is generated by instinctive cues based on precollege success measures. But what happens when these students transition to college and their …
Playing to the Middle: Transforming the Academic Culture from the Center Outward
In October 2011, The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business and GE Capital teamed up to hold the nation’s first Middle Market Summit, Leading from the Middle. I came across an online report about the summit and was fascinated by the title. I’d just presented Playing to the Middle: Building Academic Success from the …
What “Good” Students Need to Succeed: Five Key Insights from the Field
In the article Why “Good” Students Do Bad in College, I shared insights about why capable, hardworking students struggle in college. (Click here to view Why “Good” Students Do Bad in College.) In this post, I identify five things good students need in order to succeed. I must be upfront: My view of success reaches …
3-Part Webinar Series: Transforming “Good” Students into Great Learners
Webinar Hosted by The LearnWell Projects Event Dates: Tuesday, July 10, 17 & 24 All times are from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm, EST Register Now at: This event has already occurred. Only 31% of students at four-year public colleges and universities graduate in six years, and only 53% at private institutions. Recent data shows …
From Good to Great Learning: 4-Week Academic Study
Challenge Accepted! Are you tired of seeing good, hard-working students under-perform in college? Do you believe there are a different set of factors underlying students’ academic problems than the usual pejoratives: “they’re lazy”, “high school didn’t teach them anything”, or “they don’t care about their learning.” Are you seeking interventions that can boost students’ learning …
Adjusting to Rigor: Changing Students’ Default Settings
Every technology product we purchase comes with default settings. These settings are basic operational parameters that are preset by the manufacturer. The same presets exist in every device. So even though millions of us hold individual cell phones, we share the same default operating system. Our defaults are automatic and operate without our knowledge. For …
What is Academic Rigor to Students? A View From the Other Side
Did you know that students bring more than 16,000 hours of learning with them to college? (And this does not include out-of-class studying.) According to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 Hour Rule, which asserts that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice before one reaches expert level, students should be expert learners by the time they reach …
Pointers vs. Painters: What Are We Really Capturing in Writing Scores?
Do you remember the fun you had playing with LEGOs as a child? The multicolored plastic bricks are timeless toys enjoyed generation after generation. But, have you ever closely watched a child building with LEGOs? The process unfolds in one of two ways: The child thoughtfully selects and places each piece as if following a …
Applications of the ThinkWell-LearnWell™ Diagram
Try this experiment: Ask one of your colleagues a basic question such as, What are your two favorite foods? Jot down the answer and then ask, Why do you like those particular foods? Record that answer and conclude with the following question: What about the foods do you like and don’t like? Record this answer …
