Learning from the Learners: Successful College Students Share Their Effective Learning Habits

This book turns the traditional approach to student success on its head by examining the learning habits of successful students based on what they have told us about their learning strategies, on what they do to succeed in college, and on the teaching practices they think best foster their learning. This approach is in stark contrast to most recent studies of learning at the college level which focus on what students need to do to succeed, but are written from the point of view of "experts" who provide advice to struggling students. Learning from the Learners: Successful College Students Share Their Effective Learning Habits is based on what "expert" students tell us about what they - as learners - do to succeed. It is grounded in a 10-year study that rests on a rich qualitative data set that includes open-ended survey responses gathered on a term-by term basis and in depth interviews during the freshman and junior years with over 700 students of diverse backgrounds. Additionally, since many students interviewed were the first in their family to attend college and from backgrounds traditionally underserved by higher education, the book's insights will be of particular interest to educators elsewhere who are increasingly expected to help similar students succeed. Themes include student success, academic challenges, diversity, pedagogy, and technology in the classroom. No other book on the widely discussed subject of student success relies on such a wealth of quantitative and qualitative data about what works from the point of view of students themselves.

Table of Contents:
Foreword - Harrold Hellenbrand Part I: Project Parameters Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Learning Habits Project: Methods and Procedures - Bettina J. Huber Chapter 2: Who Are the Learning Habits Students and Why Do They Persist? - Bettina J. Huber Part II: Differing Patterns of Engagement within Major Student Subgroups Introduction Chapter 3: Being the First To Go to College - Steven Graves Chapter 4: The Role of Gender in Fostering Persistence and Effective Learning Habits - Bettina J. Huber Chapter 5: Campus Diversity and College Learning Through the Eyes of Learning Habits Students - Bettina J. Huber Part III: Key Themes in Teaching and Learning Introduction Chapter 6: Reading with Understanding: What Do College Students Say? - Elizabeth Berry and Linda S. Bowen Chapter 7: Gains in Written Communication between the Freshman and Junior Years - Irene L. Clark and Bettina J. Huber Chapter 8: PowerPoint Fatigue and the Rabbit Hole of Internet Stuff: Students and Technology - Donal O’Sullivan Chapter 9: Sliding Into Learning: The Power of Webnotes - Carrie Rothstein-Fisch and Sharon M. Klein Part IV: Fostering Student Initiative Introduction Chapter 10: Factors Influencing Academic Help Seeking by College Students - Mark Stevens and Peter Mora Chapter 11: Self-Regulated Learning Habits - Daisy Lemus, Mary-Pat Stein, and Whitney Scott Chapter 12: Encouraging Students to Be Thoughtful about Their Learning - Bettina J. Huber Part V: Conclusions and Recommendations Chapter 13: What Did You Learn? What Are You Gonna Do About It? Appendix 1. Participants in the Learning Habits Seminar Appendix 2. Master List of Questions Posed During Face-to-Face Learning Habits Interviews Appendix 3. Questions Posed at Project Registration and in All End-of-Term Assignments

About the Author :
Elizabeth Berry is professor emerita at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). She initiated and was director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, the faculty pedagogy support center at CSUN. She has served as codirector of the Learning Habits Project since 2007. Bettina J. Huber was CSUN’s director of Institutional Research (IR) until her retirement in 2017. She was also codirector of the Learning Habits Project from 2007 until 2017. Cynthia Z. Rawitch is professor and administrator emerita at CSUN. Prior to coming to CSUN as a part-time instructor in 1972, she was a reporter and editor at the Associated Press in Los Angeles and “professor-in-residence” for the Los Angeles Times’ Minority Editorial Training Program (METPRO).

Review :
The Learning Habits Project is an impressive ten-year study that addresses one of the key questions of higher education—how can students be successful and graduate from college? It has several advantages over other studies or projects addressing this issue: it comes from a strength-based rather than deficit perspective; it centers research on students’ voices and perspective; it engages the quality of learning, not just college completion; and it looks at student experience holistically—what happens in the classroom, outside the classroom, and in student lives outside campus. While providing important insight about specific issues, such as how students can best use technology or advice to improve their reading comprehension, it sheds light on important overarching issues, such as the importance of students’ metacognitive strategies in student success. This balance of big-picture issues as well as detailed advice around specific challenges and programs provides the type of systemic and multilevel recommendations needed to truly help students succeed. Learning from the Learners gives fresh perspective on what works for traditionally underserved students, with specific guidance on an array of habits of learning, including reading, writing, and study skills. The book presents well-documented and myth-breaking findings on the effects of family background, financial challenges, race/ethnicity, and gender. Learning from the Learners tracks students in a public, regional, comprehensive university across a range of majors and demographic backgrounds, investigating the factors that influence their success—including academic preparation and finances but also family life, study habits, and even attitudes about college itself—that change as they experience it. And then, remarkably, the authors sustain their gaze for ten years, through changes in campus leadership, a debilitating recession, and dramatic changes in enrollment. The resulting analysis vividly conveys the attitudes, misconceptions, and learning habits that affect today’s college students. Along the way, we get concrete, practical ideas for shaping those influences in our students’ favor. It’s also a welcome illustration of how to think differently about student success, defining it beyond persistence in good academic standing to include agency, the fresh understanding that the world is theirs to improve on, lead, and take care of—starting with the world of the campus. These are crucial hallmarks of college learning, happening right before our eyes, but they are also notoriously hard to describe and measure. Berry, Huber, and Rawitch show us how.