Lesson Idea Draft

Svinicki, M., McKeachie, W. (2014, 14th ed.). McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. ISBN: 9781133936794.

Chapter 4 Reading as Active Learning

When I was an undergraduate psychology major, I had to take statistics, at which I was not very good. I blamed it on the topic because everyone knows that statistics is hard. It wasn’t until I started teaching that I learned that a lot of my problems in statistics came from not knowing how to read the texts. As a math- phobic student, I glossed over the problem examples and read all the prose. It turns out that I had it backward. In courses like statistics and math, you should skip the prose and work the problems! Research today has demonstrated that working through the examples is one of the best strategies for this type of skill learning (Moreno, Reisslein, and Ozogul, 2009). If only someone had told me!

Along the same lines, most experts in learning through reading advise students to have goals for their reading. But when I ask my stu- dents to follow this advice, they have goals like “read and understand chapter 12.” Pretty vague and pretty useless unless your goal is to just get through the reading. Unfortunately, that may be the goal that a lot of students actually have for their reading – read it start to finish, maybe highlight a few things, but mostly with the purpose of just gathering in- formation, not really questioning what they read or integrating it into what they already know.

As teachers who believe in the value of learning from text, we are faced with two difficult issues. First, we want our students to learn the skills of reading like a professional in the field. Second, we want them to put those skills to use and actually read the text assignments we have so carefully selected. The purpose of this chapter is to help you teach students to be actively engaged in intentional reading and motivated to read what you assign.

TexTbooks or TexTs?

For decades, the demise of the textbook has been eagerly predicted by advocates of each of the new panaceas for the problems of education. With electronic access becoming more and more available for a variety of materials, I think that we should stop thinking about the textbook as the only real book and start thinking about the “text” as any printed materials we want the students to access. Reading text will always be an important part of the teacher’s compendium of tools, and the newer teaching methods and aids supplement rather than supplant reading. In fact, a substantial part of higher education is education in how to read— how to read poems, how to read social science, how to read legal briefs, how to read the literature of our culture and our professions. One of the best long-term outcomes of higher education could be the ability to read any kind of text for deep understanding. If you explore the literature on learning from reading, you’ll find that there is a lot known about intentional reading, and also that there are some themes that run through it to describe what happens when good readers read. If I try to describe it as a psychologist, I would say that all the models have at their base “mindful learning” and “deep processing.” These two ideas come from many sources, but the ones I like the best are Ellen Langer (1997) for mindful learning and Marton and Säljö (1976a) for deep processing.

Mindfulness refers to being aware and proactive Mindfulness refers to being aware and proactive in learning. Too many times we just read the words without thinking about why the author chose those words and where they fit with one another and with what we already know. Let me illustrate mindfulness in a different context. Have you ever started driving home at the end of a tough day following the same route and suddenly find yourself in your driveway without any recollection of how you got there? Your driving was essentially “mindless” because it proceeded without your conscious attention. On the other hand, think about a time when you were in an unfamiliar environment, but you needed to get to a particular place using somewhat general directions. You would be consciously checking around to see where you were in re- lation to where you wanted to be, looking for landmarks, and using the big picture of what you know about the area to guide you. That would be “mindfulness.” I think there’s actually a third state in which the directions are so precise and complete, or you’re using a GPS that tells you ex- exactly where to go, that you never see much less remember anything else.

These three “states” may actually describe what happens to stu- dents when they read. In the first case, their automatic reading behavior kicks, in and they essentially read without being aware of what they are reading, blindly highlighting the first sentence of every paragraph. Suddenly they find themselves at the end of the chapter without much idea of what was in it. Skipping, for a minute, to the third state, if students are given extremely precise instructions (like very specific questions that have a right answer), they follow the instructions closely, answer the questions carefully, but miss the big picture. The middle state, “mind-fulness,” requires them to pay more attention to what they’re reading because they have a general goal of understanding, with some directions that focus on the overall intent.

Deep processing could be said to result from such mindful behavior. Marton and Säljö (1976a) describe deep processing as going beneath surface features to see the underlying structure of an idea or a reading, one that makes clear how the idea fits with other ideas and what makes it unique. Keeping with our travel analogy, we learn the lay of the land as well as the landmarks and what they mean.

A sample reading strategy students can Use

Most of the work on quality reading seems to reflect this notion of looking beneath the surface to construct a unique representation of the text that shows how its parts fit together and where they don’t. In general, there are some fairly traditional models that have worked well over the years and can be tied to the modern theories of reading. I’ve picked just one to illustrate how we might teach our students to be more mindful and do deeper processing. The model reading process is the SQ3R (Robinson, 1961). You may have heard of it or even used it yourself. It’s not perfect, but it follows the path that seems to be at the base of most reading strategies.

Survey The first S stands for Survey. Readers are encouraged to skim through the reading the first time to get a general impression of what the reading is about. They look at the title, the main headings, the figures and tables, not in depth yet, but just to construct a mental impression of the way the reading is going to lay out the content.

Question Then comes the Q, which of course stands for Questions. Jotting down what look like the main ideas and turning them into questions is the main task here. Preferably the questions are not restricted to “what” questions, which are more like definitions and rules. We should encourage the students to build in some “why,” “how,” and “when” questions because those are the questions that lead to deeper processing, especially the “why” questions. The questions then become the plan for intentional reading.

One idea that reading research advises for this phase is for the reader to create a visualization of the structure of the text. Examples of such visualizations would be a concept map, a flowchart, a decision tree, or even a metaphor. The visualization becomes the scaffold on which the reader builds an interpretation of the text by adding details, concepts, and insights. By representing the text in a different format, the reader may get a better map of the territory he’s exploring (Caverly, Mandeville, and Nicholson, 1995; de Simone, 2007).

Sometimes as instructors we can provide the questions, especially for those new to the content. Study questions intended to guide the students’ reading are often helpful, especially for novice or beginning learners. Marton and Säljö (1976b) found that questions designed to produce more thoughtful, integrative study were more effective than questions of fact. For example, in the assignment description, you might ask the students to compare the assertions of the author in one reading with those in another reading. How are they similar? How are they different?

Nevertheless, study questions do not automatically guarantee better learning. Marton and Säljö found that students sometimes tended to look only for answers to the questions while disregarding the other content of the chapter. Andre (1987) reviewed research on study questions and concluded that questions generally do aid learning and that higher-level questions, rather than low-level factual questions, increase the effectiveness of student processing of the reading. Similarly, Wilhite (1983) found that prequestions focusing on material at the top of the organizational structure (big ideas, for example) facilitated learning, especially for the less able students, who are less likely to think in those terms in general.

You need questions that get students to think about the material. One way to encourage thoughtful reading is to ask students to post their answer to a thought-provoking question on the class discussion board to share with peers. The posts then get discussed during class time, looking for common themes or points of agreement and disagreement.

Another strategy that I have used involves having a set of questions that are asked about each reading or each theory. The repetition of the questions with different content helps students begin to have heuristics for reading, the way a professional reads. In my graduate class on instructional psychology, for example, we read sequentially about several different learning theories with a goal of being able to use them to design instruction. For every theory we ask the same four questions:

By the time we’ve looked at just three theories, this becomes the way they think when reading about learning theories. Read, Recite, Review, Getting back to the SQ3R model, the three Rs stand for Read, Recite, Review. Read is the actual process of reading the material. Recite is the part where the reader tries to answer the questions constructed at the beginning. And review is the self-monitoring step in which the reader compares his answers after reading to what was actually in the reading. Examples of the recite phase might vary depending on the type of text. For example, echoing my own failures as a reader of statistics textbooks, there is strong evidence in the literature that when working with a problem-based text, a student should work out all the problems for him/herself, starting with the example problems that illustrate the author’s point (Moreno, Reisslein, and Ozogul, 2009). These problems are models that the reader should be trying to understand. A corollary in a non-math based reading is to work out the author’s argument for yourself. Why does the author makes the claims he or she makes? What kind of evidence is given? Do you agree or disagree with the conclusion?

There is ample evidence that students benefit from specific instruction in selecting main ideas, asking themselves questions, looking for organizational cues, and attempting to summarize or explain what they have read. Particularly in introductory classes, you will help learning if you make explicit reference to your goal in assigning a particular chapter and discuss ways in which students can best achieve that goal (McKeachie, Pintrich, and Lin, 1985; Weinstein and Mayer, 1986).

The above strategy is a general one that can be used for almost any kind of reading. It is also useful to show students how it might be modified to fit different types of texts. For example, Williams (2005) suggests what she calls the SQ6R, a modification of our model strategy expanded to fit the needs of reading the research literature. Her steps include: Survey the reading first, write down some Questions that it seems to address, and then Read, Reflect, Review, Rehash, Rethink, and Re-evaluate. She has found that pointing out this strategy to her students opens their eyes about what it means to read carefully. For a fuller description of ways to help students become better learners, see the chapter “Teaching Students How to Become More Strategic and Self-Regulated Learners.”

How Do You Get tHe StuDentS to ReaD tHe aSSiGneD ReaDinGS in tHe FiRSt Place?

The main reason students come to class unprepared is that they don’t see what difference it makes. In many courses, reading assignments and lectures are independent parts of the course, sometimes overlapping, sometimes supplementary, but often not perceived as interdependent. Lei, Bartlett, Gorney, and Herschbach (2010) reviewed the literature on why students don’t read assigned articles. They found that the students didn’t have self-confidence in their ability to read articles, they weren’t interested in the topic, or they didn’t understand the importance of the readings for their learning. They also examined why more instructors didn’t challenge the students to read at a higher level and found that instructor expectations and beliefs about student abilities was at the roots of most of their reluctance. These authors, along with others, have made some suggestions with the caveat that each situation is different and there is no one right solution. Here are the most commonly suggested strategies.

Build Links to the course as a whole frequently

Culver and Morse (2008) suggest that the first strategy for encouraging reading is frequent use of the phrase “As you read in your reading assignment for today...” or the question “What was your reaction to [the author of the reading]’s discussion of...?” They also suggest making the text material the basis for group work. The goal here is to help them understand how the readings related to the rest of the course.

Use the readings in class exercises

A second strategy is to consistently use the readings as the basis of in- class activities. For example, have students write a one-minute paper at the beginning of occasional class periods on: “The most important idea (or two or three ideas) I got from the reading assignment for today.” Alternatively, you can have students write a question—either something they would like explained or something that was stimulated by the reading. The class then revolves around what they’ve written.

One instructor (Roser, 2008) reports good results when she has her students participate in a jigsaw information-sharing activity. This method was developed by Elliot Aronson (1978) as a way to develop cooperation between ethnic groups. It has since been expanded for use in cooperative learning. In Roser’s case, each student is assigned to two small groups: an expert group and a teaching group. Each expert group is assigned a different reading and works together to prepare a handout analyzing that reading and its main ideas for the rest of the class. These groups are then split into teaching groups, each teaching group having one representative from each of the expert groups. Each member of the teaching group then in turn uses the handout to explain their particular reading to the others. This technique has the students practicing critical reading (in the expert group) and summarization (in the teaching group), two key strategies in improving reading comprehension.

Build Reading assessment into the grading structure

Probably the surest strategy is to announce that there will be a brief quiz of some kind on the assignment. A group of four faculty members at Bucknell University decided to put this to the test by employing three different quizzing strategies in their courses (Carney, Fry, Gabriele, and Ballard, 2008). The three strategies represented different conditions, in terms of whether they were pop quizzes or non-random quizzes (an- nounced or regularly scheduled), involved answering questions before coming to class or during class, and whether or not there was an ele- ment of chance involved with regard to which days, questions, or grad- ing would be in effect. The most unusual version was called the Monte Carlo system, developed by Peter Fernald in 2004. Under this system the students had reading questions that represented different levels of Bloom’s taxonomy that could be applied to any reading in the course. On the days when there were reading assignments, the instructor rolled some dice to determine whether or not there would be a quiz that day and which of the questions would be the quiz question (hence the name Monte Carlo quiz). The situation really increased students’ preparation for every reading assignment, but also heightened anxiety. So our four curious faculty members modified that method in two ways. One way was to have a quiz whenever there was a reading (non-random timing) and allow the students to use their notes. The second way was to have the students write learning logs based on a set of questions while they were reading, which were turned in every time there was a reading due. This time the dice were used to determine if the answers were graded or not, and which of the questions was graded. While all three methods resulted in better preparation of the reading, the last one had the most positive reaction from the students.

Another strategy based on inclusion in the grading system is Team- Based Learning (Michaelsen, Sweet, and Parmelee, 2008), a method I use in my own class. On days when there is a reading assignment, we start class with each student taking a short quiz independently. Those are turned in and they take the quiz again but in their class groups (three students in a permanent group). Performance on the group quiz is added to the individual performance. Then we follow up by going through the items as an entire class, particularly those that students didn’t do well on. Discussing why some answers are right and some are wrong has been a great way to spend class time because it goes more deeply into the reasoning behind answers.

The Bottom Line

As you might expect, it is giving credits to encourage reading that has the biggest impact on whether or not students read and to what depth. Students have busy lives and need to make strategic decisions about how they spend their time. Building the reading into the evaluation system makes the most direct connection from the readings to the grade; the associated benefits of better learning are more subtle outcomes that sometimes the students just don’t see, but teachers do.

Supplementary Reading

J. Hartley, “Studying for the Future,” Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2002, 26, 207–227. This article not only discussing reading, but changes in several other study skills that new forms of learning will require.

F. Marton, D. Hounsell, and N. Entwistle (eds.), The Experience of Learning (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1984). As an early pro- ponent of deep processing, this book offers an argument for the kind of deep reading that we hope to encourage our students to do.

C. Haas and L. Flower, “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning,” College Composition and Communication, 1988, 39(2), 167–183. This really good discussion of the state of reading research informs the kind of higher level reading processes we’d like to see our students use. Reading is a lot more complex than we think, but if you really want to do some deep processing yourself, it’s worth reading this paper.

R. Fillipo and D. Caverly (eds.), Handbook of College Reading and Study Strategy Research (Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, 2000). This is a fascinating set of chapters covering not just reading, but test preparation, note-taking, and many more study skills that college stu- dents need.