Strategies for Learning
Introduction to Statistics is not your typical course. Our goal is for you to work through the course materials online on your own time and in the way that is most efficient given your prior knowledge.
While you will have more flexibility than you do in a traditional course, you will also have more responsibility for your own learning. You will need to:
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Plan how to work through each chapter.
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Determine how to use the various features of the course to help you learn.
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Decide when you need to seek additional support.
Section 1: What You Need to Know about Each Chapter
Each chapter in this course has features designed to support you as an independent learner, including the following:
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Explanatory content: The content is the informational “meat” of every chapter. It consists of short passages of text with information, examples, images and explanations.
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Activities: Activities give you the chance to practice the concept that you are learning, with instructions and data sets to guide you.
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Did I Get This? activities: Did I Get This? activities are your chance to do a quick self-check to assess your own understanding of the material before doing a graded activity.
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Many Students Wonder sidebars: These short passages provide supplementary material that you may find interesting but that is not necessary to understand the main concepts presented in the course.
Section 2: Completing This Course Efficiently and Effectively
When starting an online course, most people neglect to plan, opting instead to jump in and begin working. While this might seem efficient (after all, who wants to spend time planning when they could be doing?), it can ultimately be inefficient. In fact, one of the characteristics that distinguishes experts from novices is that experts spend far more time planning their approach to a task and less time actually completing it; while novices do the reverse: rushing through the planning stage and spending far more time overall.
Improving your planning skills as you work through the material in the course will help you to become a more strategic and thoughtful learner and will enable you to more effectively plan your approach to assignments, exams and projects in other courses.
Section 3: Metacognition
This idea of planning your approach to the course before you start is called metacognition.
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Metacognition, or “thinking about thinking,” refers to your awareness of yourself as a learner and your ability to regulate your own learning.
Metacognition involves five distinct skills:
- Assess the task—Get a handle on what is involved in completing a task (the steps or components required for success) and any constraints (time, resources).
- Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses—Evaluate your own skills and knowledge in relation to a task.
- Plan an approach—Take into account your assessment of the task and your evaluation of your own strengths and weaknesses in order to devise an appropriate plan.
- Apply strategies and monitor your performance—Continually monitor your progress as you are working on a task, comparing where you are to the goal you want to achieve.
- Reflect and adjust if needed—Look back on what worked and what didn’t work so that you can adjust your approach next time and, if needed, start the cycle again.
These five skills are applied over and over again in a cycle—within the same course, as well as from one course to another.
Example
Metacognition in Action
You get an assignment and ask yourself: “What exactly does this assignment involve and what have I learned in this course that is relevant to it?”
You are exercising metacognitive skills (1) and (2) by assessing the task and evaluating your strengths and weaknesses in relation to it.
If you think about what steps you need to take to complete the assignment and determine when it is reasonable to begin, you are exercising skill (3) by planning.
If you start in on your plan and realize that you are working more slowly than you anticipated, you are putting skill (4) to work by applying a strategy and monitoring your performance.
Finally, if you reflect on your performance in relation to your timeframe for the task, and discover an equally effective but more efficient way to work, you are engaged in skill (5); reflecting and adjusting your approach as needed.
Strong metacognitive skills are essential for independent learning, so use the experience of monitoring your own learning in Introduction to Statistics as an opportunity to hone these skills for other classes and tasks.
References
Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Chi, M. T. H., Bassock, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P., & Glaser, R. (1989). “Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems.” Cognitive Science, 13, 145-182.
Dunning, D. (2007). Self-insight: Roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself. New York: Taylor and Francis.
Hayes, J. R., & Flower, L. S. (1986). “Writing research and the writer.” American Psychologist Special Issue: Psychological Science and Education, 41, 1106-1113.
Schoenfeld, A. H (1987). “What’s all the fuss about metacognition?” In A. H. Schoenfeld (Ed.), Cognitive science and mathematics education. (pp.189-215). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
