University College Cork Applies a BrainSMART Strategy to Help Students Have a Successful First Year

Dr. Eithne Hunt, registered Occupational Therapist and lecturer in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at University College Cork, Ireland, includes one of Marcus Conyers’ and my strategies in an article for first-year students.

I found this article a good read and imagine that it could be of great interest for students when they first leave home and go off to college. In this piece, Dr. Hunt references our BrainSMART strategy “Explain It to Your Brain” as a way to assist students to become more metacognitive. Metacognition has been called the #1 key for success across professional contexts.

She summarizes our strategy as follows: “Students who use self-explanation tell themselves what they are thinking and doing when learning, a strategy closely related to metacognition, which is a characteristic of successful student learning and of professional success across careers.”

Using Mistakes as an Opportunity to Teach

Everybody makes mistakes—even teachers. Showing your students that you make mistakes and then demonstrating how you correct them can be an important way to help them build their problem-solving skills.

An effective way of modeling cognitive strategies is to demonstrate to students how you work through a mistake. Students may giggle when you as their teacher make a mistake, but you can use such a situation as an important problem-solving exercise by working toward correcting your mistake out loud and in full view of your classroom.

Marcus Conyers and I discuss the use of metacognition—that is, thinking about your thinking—as a pathway to becoming functionally smarter in our book, Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching: Connecting Mind, Brain, and Education Research to Classroom Practice. As students become more cognitive and able to identify and work through their own problems, this strategy may be extended to include student-to-student problem solving aloud.

Be The Lead Learner

In our study of metacognitive strategies, we have found that the best way to teach is to embrace the concept of metacognition as part of our own learning process. In the classroom, it is important not only to be the teacher but also to be the lead learner by modeling the use of metacognition and cognitive strategies. When students see their teachers putting these strategies into action, they can more effectively learn how to use the cognitive processes themselves.

For instance, when reading aloud a passage, it's often a good idea to think aloud about the author's perspective to underscore the importance of his or her point of view.  Or when undertaking a class project, the teacher can model planning and organization by developing a checklist of tasks that need to be completed and sharing this with students.

An important way we learn is by making mistakes. The phrase "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" can be adapted quite nicely into a neat little axiom: "Nothing ventured, nothing learned." When teachers make a mistake, they can analyze these mistakes out loud. Students may get a "kick" out of realizing that even adults make mistakes, but they can also see how the adult in charge of their classroom works through a mistake, making it a learning experience rather than a source of embarrassment or frustration.

Marcus Conyers Walking the Talk

Marcus is known for his great work communicating wellness findings teaching others across the world to become healthier. Importantly, he walks the talk. This weekend he will be running in Sarasota's (FL) half-marathon event! Let's cheer him on from far and near!!!!! The link is below...

http://eventful.com/sarasota_fl/events/first-watch-sarasota-half-marathon-relay-/E0-001-037637951-6?fb_ref=edp&fb_source=profile_multiline