Students come to UWM with a range of strengths and weaknesses. Some students report they are putting in many hours studying, which may be true. The problem may lie in their use of ineffective learning strategies. Although students may be exposed to information about effective study strategies in a number of campus venues (e.g., first-year seminars, orientation materials, the Student Success Center, the Academic Opportunity Center, Panther Academic Support Services), more widespread exposure to effective learning strategies could increase student success.

Stephen Chew, Samford University Psychology Professor, and U.S. Professor of the Year in 2011, developed an acclaimed set of free, open access videos grounded in cognitive science that has been shown to enhance the effectiveness of students’ study strategies, and improve their academic performance. The video series (below) is entitled, “How to Get the Most Out of Studying” and has been used in a variety of introductory college courses (e.g., English, Physics, Geography, Economics, Psychology). The videos are only 7 to 8 minutes in duration and could be viewed in class or outside of class. The links could be emailed to students, embedded in syllabi, or added to the D2L course site. Ideally, students could be held accountable to view each one with an associated assignment relevant to the course.

For example, students could view each video and then write a reflection or discuss the video in an online discussion forum. As a common experience, the videos could be a springboard for discussion, or an information literacy assignment where students go further and research using UWM Libraries resources to find out more related to the cognitive science presented about in the video. The video content is relevant to the topics of memory and learning in psychology and could be used as part of lecture. Video 5: I Blew the Exam, Now What? could be viewed after the first exam and strong encouragement provided or an incentive to view the entire video set. The possibilities are wide open.

In addition to these videos intended for undergraduates, Stephen Chew has produced a free, open access set of five videos for instructors entitled, Cognitive Principles of Effective Teaching that could be employed to further enhance teaching excellence and student learning on the department level, particularly among adjunct instructors who have limited opportunities for professional development related to teaching and learning. Departments are encouraged to view these videos and discuss the content together in order to make use of the strategies discussed therein.