Teach Yourself How to Learn: Strategies You Can Use to Ace Any Course at Any Level by Saundra Yancy McGuire
My rating: 5/5
I recently read “How to Teach Yourself to Learn” by Saundra Yancy McGuire. Here are my biggest takeaways from this and how I’ll be implementing these as a neurodivergent high school math teacher.
Overall Content
McGuire divides the book into the following sections: importance of metacognition, effective learning strategies for all students, self-motivation and discipline techniques, and ways to overcome learning obstacles. Generally, the chapters are short, clearly written, and easy to read. She does not employ technical jargon.
Even though I’m no longer a student, I could immediately see the value in McGuire’s work. There were many elements I wished I had known when I was in college, and I was quite excited daydreaming how I’d introduce these to my students.
Previewing – My Favorite Strategy
I think the strategy I’d start with would be previewing. In my experience, math students almost never look at the textbook. And, if they do, it’s just to see the problem, maybe the answer, and then move on. (Personally, I’m guilty of this as well!)
As a math teacher, I emphasize literacy to my students. I have them create math glossaries, in their own words, based on the vocabulary skills I teach in class. My reasoning is – it’s okay to not know something, but to ask for help, you need to know what you don’t know. When I was in school, I rarely used any of the technical terms. This meant that when I was stuck, I didn’t know how to search for or understand resources to help me.
My Own Experience
McGuire really emphasizes the importance of “previewing” before a lecture. To demonstrate, she includes a really vague paragraph and instructs you to guess what it’s about. Afterwards, she tells you – and you’re left feeling very silly!
In college, professors operate using a “flipped classroom” environment. You’re expected to preview the work and texts before coming to class. In hindsight this seems simple enough. Yet I think I rarely, if ever, did this in college. I can see now how previewing would have been extremely beneficial.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think this is a great book. During my first semester as an AVID teacher, I’ll certainly be deploying the skills and strategies laid out in this book. It will be particularly interesting to me to see how these can be used by students with learning disabilities.