College Parent Central Podcast
You don’t stop parenting the day you drop your student off to college on Move-in Day. Your role simply changes. (Actually, it’s not simple at all, but it changes.) You’re a parent for life. Join Lynn Abrahams and Vicki Nelson, higher education professionals and former college parents, as they explore the topics that can help you be a more effective and supportive parent to your college bound student. Whether you already have a child in college, college is still a year or more away, or your student is about to step out, start now to gather the information that empowers you to be an effective college success coach to your student.
College Parent Central Podcast
#143 Help your student learn more efficiently: A conversation with Dr. Daniel Willingham
Ever wondered why some students struggle despite hours of studying while others seem to master information efficiently? Cognitive psychologist Dr. Daniel Willingham, author of the book Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy joined us to discuss the fascinating science behind this phenomenon, explaining that most college students succeed despite their study strategies, not because of them. Dr. Willingham explained why we're naturally drawn to inefficient learning methods that feel productive but yield disappointing results. He compares these approaches to "doing push-ups on your knees" – they seem easier and faster, but they don't build the mental strength needed for deep learning. Parents will find particular value in Dr. Willingham's three-part framework for supporting student success: set high expectations, express confidence they can be met, and provide support in meeting them. Whether your student is thriving or struggling, these evidence-based approaches can transform their college experience by making learning more efficient and effective.
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Welcome to the College Parent Central podcast. Whether your child is just beginning the college admission process or is already in college, this podcast is for you. You'll find food for thought and information about college and about navigating that delicate balance of guidance, involvement and knowing when to get out of the way. Join your hosts as they share support and a celebration of the amazing experience of having a child in college.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the College Parents Central Podcast. We're here again to talk about all kinds of things that have to do with being the parent of a college student, the parent of someone who's headed to college, and sometimes those students who are just stepping out of college. My name is Vicki Nelson and I am a faculty member in a communication department. I teach those things that everyone wants to avoid, and I am also, even more importantly, the parent of three daughters, who have all gone to college and come out the other side. But I have lived this as a college parent as well as a faculty member, so this is something that I deal with every day and I love talking about, and I am very excited because I am here today with one of my co-hosts I'm going to let her introduce herself and we have a very special guest. So, elizabeth, I'll hand it over to you.
Speaker 3:I'm Elizabeth Hamlet and I am the parent of two young adults who have made their way through college. I am a part-time university learning disability specialist, working directly with students registered with our office and the author of Seven Steps to College Success A Pathway for Students with Disabilities. And I am just fangirling here because Dr Willingham is my source for everything learning, and so in my job of working with students, I talk to them about time management and study strategies, test preparation and reading, and my work comes from the work that he does, and so I found his work a couple of years ago and became immediately entranced by the fact that research exists that shows us what strategies are effective and which aren't, and I use that to inform my students and work with them, and so I was so delighted when his new book Four Students came out, and it is Outsmart your Brain, why Learning is Hard and how you Can Make it Easy. And this book, yes.
Speaker 2:People are on the podcast we're recording. Thank you, we are recording this, but I'm holding it up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't even see all the highlighting in here. But not only does Dr Willingham take all of this research and make it really accessible and comprehensible in his book, but, to my great delight, because social media is a way to reach young people he is also making TikToks for his TikTok channel, and it is such a lot of effort, and so it's so exciting to me that there are so many different ways to reach students and get this information to them. So, with this rambling introduction, I'm actually going to ask Dr Willingham to tell us more about you know, how he started in his field of study and everything else that he's doing that we don't know about, and also talk about why not only did he write this book, but think it was important to take the great time and effort to make videos for students.
Speaker 4:Well, thanks so much, elizabeth, and thanks to you and Vicki for having me today. So my background is actually as a basic researcher. I got my PhD in cognitive psychology and was a researcher of human memory and the work that I did was not applied. It was not. I mean, there's a bit. There's the old joke of when you get your PhD and like your parent introduces you, like my child's a doctor, but not the type who helps people. And and I sort of went one step further, I was a memory researcher who couldn't really tell you anything helpful about your memory, like a way to learn better. So because what I did, what I was doing, was quite technical, that changed about 10, 12 years post PhD. So I got my degree in 1990 and have taught it, and we're talking about our relationship to college students, so I've taught college age students since 1990. And so for the first 12 years of my career that was my only interest in learning really was trying to teach my courses competently. That changed when I was asked, just sort of by happenstance, because I knew someone in my hometown of Charlottesville, virginia. He asked me to address a big gathering of teachers, a teacher convention with about 500 teachers, and I said that doesn't make you know, I don't know anything about classrooms, that doesn't make any sense. And he said, well, no, it's not, it's okay, we get that, we just think it would. They would find it interesting to hear something about cognitive psychology. So I rashly said, sure, I'll talk to a bunch of teachers. And then then, like six months later, the talk was coming up and I realized, oh my God, I'm going to have to figure out something to say to these people. And what terrified me was, like you know, in the interim I realized what in the world am I going to tell educators about how people learn that they don't already know like that would be practical. Don't already know like that would be practical. But I had to.
Speaker 4:By that time it was too late to back out. So I literally just went to the introduction to cognitive psychology course that I had been teaching for, you know by then a decade, and just picked out some stuff that I thought was kind of interesting and maybe applicable to classrooms. And to give you a sense of how much I was fearful and thought this was going to be a disaster, I had just started dating a woman who I would very soon thereafter marry, who was a teacher, and so we had been going out for like three months or something. I said, hey well, do you want to come to Nashville with me and watch me give this talk to a bunch of teachers? And she said, oh sure, that sounds great. And as the talk approached and I realized what a calamity it was going to be, like literally 30 minutes before, I said, like you can't come, don't come to my office, it's just going to be. I don't want you to watch this. So, to my considerable surprise, it wasn't a disaster. Teachers didn't already know all this stuff and thought it was interesting and applicable to their classrooms. And that changed my career, and that was in 2001. About that was in 2001. And I started at that point. I started spending more and more of my time trying to translate findings from cognitive psychology and, to a lesser extent, neuroscience for educators.
Speaker 4:Now, the particular book that you mentioned Outsmart your Brain, which was published in 2023, is not for educators.
Speaker 4:It's really for students and as part of my interest in education, it occurred to me that students are increasingly asked to become responsible for their own education, and I think I point out in the book like, when children first go to school.
Speaker 4:In preschool, our expectations for what the child will bring to the table in terms of helping out with their own learning is appropriately nothing Like we don't think we. If a preschooler learns or doesn't learn, it's wholly the credit or blame of the teacher. But by the time they graduate from high school, we have very high expectations of what children are supposed to bring to the table to aid their own learning. We expect that they know how to resist distraction. We expect that they know how to commit things to memory. We think they should know how to commit things to memory. We think they should know how to plan their own time. We think they should know when they actually know something right. They should be able to evaluate their own learning and much more. But none of this. I've yet to encounter a school or district that really has a systematic plan to teach children how to do these things, and that's why I thought it would be helpful to write a book about it. So that was kind of a long answer, sorry but, that's a very complete answer to your question.
Speaker 3:I got involved and for the teachers in our audience. Dr Willingham has written several books for teachers, and at the end of every chapter in the student book there are also suggestions for teachers.
Speaker 2:So there's lots of ways to learn and we can put all of those titles in the show notes so people can follow up.
Speaker 4:Yes, and you'll want at least two copies of each.
Speaker 3:I would say, at least One for the classroom and one for home.
Speaker 4:Yeah, maybe a third to give to friends.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Holidays are coming up in a few months, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's true, and strategies that you're talking about, because you talk in the book about how many different skills that it takes to really be a good student. And, granted, I went to college a few years ago. So I'm curious, it seems to me I don't have any memory of anyone teaching me study skills, teaching me a lot of the skills and strategies and things that you talk about in your book that make so much sense. And I'm just wondering have students changed? Have times changed? Was I just lucky that I sort of figured it all out?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean I think you were probably lucky. I actually don't know how it went for you, so I don't know how lucky you were.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:Well, the way I characterize it I mean, when we think about college students like these are some of the most successful students in our system. Right, these are students who have managed to graduate from high school. They were successful enough that they wanted to continue. They applied and were admitted. They're currently enrolled like things are going OK, right, so these are pretty successful students. But we do have data on the study strategies these students use, and the way I characterize it is that they're doing well in spite of their study strategies, not because of their study strategies.
Speaker 1:So most of them.
Speaker 4:It's not that, like you know, what they're doing like doesn't work at all, like they are, you know, succeeding after a fashion, but they're using extremely inefficient strategies extremely inefficient strategies and they could be spending less time and just sort of being more efficient with their time. And the reason we know this is that this work of evaluating how student colleges in particular deal with the tasks that are set for them in college this started at UCLA and then at Williams College, so some of the most selective institutions researchers just went to students and said tell us how you study, tell us how you plan your your week, tell you know, just sort of asking students, and so we have pretty good data on on what students do, yeah, and so we know that they data on what students do, yeah, and so we know that they're mostly not using very efficient strategies.
Speaker 2:I love that in your book you don't just tell them what to do, you tell them you describe what they're probably doing and why it's not working.
Speaker 4:And that's what's so interesting is, like you said, I don't remember anyone teaching me a way to do this, and that continues to be true. And again, if you ask college students, you say, ok, you've told us how you study, like why are to do it that way? It's much more often I kind of figured out on my own or that's the way my sibling did it, or I saw a YouTube video that suggested it, something like that and yet they frequently home in on similar strategies and so this gets at. You know, there's something that's guiding them. It's not that it's the most efficient strategy that's guiding them. Instead, it's a strategy that feels like it's working but isn't very effortful.
Speaker 3:And learning requires some effort, right.
Speaker 4:It does. I was actually just talking with a data scientist and learning guy about this at dinner last night of whether learning always has to feel effortful. It's not clear to me, honestly, whether it does or doesn't. Some people like the idea like it's. You know, if you're miserable, then that's a really good sign. I'm not so sure.
Speaker 3:No pain, no gain.
Speaker 4:Yeah, people, yeah, no pain, no gain. And people used to say that about Latin in particular. It's like, well, the best thing about it is kids really don't like it and that's reason enough for them to learn Latin. I definitely disagree with that. I'm unsure, and again, it gets really inside baseball.
Speaker 4:You could say, clearly, there are times when you're learning something, you're really engaged, and it doesn't feel. It doesn't feel effortful and so. But it could be that it's, like you know, by some definitions of effort, like it's actually very effortful, like you are really focusing attention at that moment that's what we mean by effort and you just don't mind focusing attention and that's why it feels like it's it's not effortful. Mind focusing attention and that's why it feels like it's not effortful. But, broadly speaking, I think that you know saying students lean towards things that feel like they're not very hard. We don't need to get super technical about what it means to feel hard or whether learning always feels hard or whatever. I think that's and again, I don't have like this is an interpretation of some other hard data on what students do. But the idea that they're doing it because it feels easy is an interpretation. It's not. We don't have great data on knowing exactly why they do it.
Speaker 2:It seems. I just sort of want to follow that thread a little bit because, as you're talking about easy and hard, it also seems that one of the themes that runs through a lot of your book is the idea of active versus passive approaches to learning. And I'm wondering if, because this is a well, maybe to ask you to talk a little bit about that idea of active versus passive for learning, but then because this is a podcast for parents and I hope they will say to their students gee, maybe you want to listen to this podcast, but are there things that parents can do to help students understand that difference and encourage them to take that more active approach?
Speaker 4:Sure, I mean, you know this is a parent's podcast, so you've, I'm sure, covered this frequently Children one who's already graduated college. I've got two who are in college now and my youngest was recently talking about she just started college and she was saying like, yeah, you know, it's really, it's really challenging, like there is a lot of reading, there is a lot of work. She said, I don't know, I feel like I need to like look up somewhere like study skills or something. And then she look up somewhere like study skills or something and she sort of realized she's like oh yeah, dad, like you know, something about random so, um, uh, so, and she said she's actually you know pretty open to uh, to suggestions, but that that is rough.
Speaker 4:So anyway, I start by acknowledging um, you know that as a parent it's not always easy to get our kids to listen to it. But I also always say and there's actually really good data on this, not in an academic realm, but actually in conversations about substance abuse In particular that when you know kids may seem like they're not really listening to their parents, but they actually are, they're internalizing it, even if they seem like they're a little standoffish, you know about, like Dad, I know you don't have to tell me Like it matters that you're sending them this message. You know you can definitely. You know, as parents, you can definitely talk to your students, talk to your children about specific metaphor that I use in the book, which is that if you just sort of leave students to their own devices, they end up doing sort of the mental equivalent of push-ups on their knees. And so the metaphor, the analogy I offer is imagine you're trying to get into condition, you want to be able to do a lot of pushups, and you end up doing pushups on your knees because you say like, wow, when I do them, this way, I can really do a lot and I can do them really fast, and you know, bonus, it doesn't feel that hard. But of course, you know that you need a challenge in order to really improve. And the same thing is true for For mental exercise. You have to do something that feels in the moment like maybe it's not working, and that's true of many study strategies. In the moment, it feels like, well, this is actually. Things are going worse, this is I'm not doing very well, because you're getting confused about learning versus performance. Learning and performance are not the same thing. Performance, learning, performance are not the same thing. And you can, without realizing it, you use study materials to enhance your performance. So it looks like you're producing a lot of answers, things are going great, but the answers are not totally coming from your memory.
Speaker 4:Now, the one thing that I'll mention in particular that I think parents can help with is planning and scheduling, because they are pretty much the only ones, in addition to the students, who are aware of, or most of, the claims against students' times. Very often in middle school or high school, in many districts and schools that I visit, they provide a planner and they give students some rudimentary instruction in how to use a calendar. But the challenge is that's just the point at which, first of all, students' time is really, you know, they're getting really busy and they've got many claims against their time, and also they're, you know, traveling among different teachers in different classes, and so there's nobody at school who, just at the time when students really need feedback about whether or not they're using their calendar in the right way, there's no one at school who's in a position to give that feedback, because nobody has full knowledge. Parents do, and so that's something I think they can be especially helpful with.
Speaker 2:And, of course, the best thing parents could do if your student is in college is to tuck your book in their luggage when the students go or send it in a care package, so it's just sitting there and then, when the student needs it, they're ready to grab it.
Speaker 3:Well, and what's so nice about the way the book is written is that it's in chunks, so the thing that they need they can find easily in a chapter, although it would be even better if they got it for graduation from high school and read it over the summer, and there is an audio version, so, for those who would rather listen than read, there are lots of different ways to get this information.
Speaker 2:I play the TikTok videos in my class all the time.
Speaker 4:Well, and yeah, I made that. We mentioned the TikTok before. So the TikTok was actually initially. This is actually kind of funny. So my publisher said when I first signed the contract and they started talking about publicity and like how I could help out and what their plans were, they said we are going to put you on TikTok. And I was like that's an awful idea. Like no way, that sounds absolutely horrible. And they were like no, it's going to be great. Like we're going to bring you to New York and we're going to like it's going to be professionally produced and all that. So I was like wow, these guys are really all in.
Speaker 4:So, like I don't know, two months later, like that just disappeared and they said that that idea was off the table. And I was like did they like see what I look like? Or what happened? Suddenly decided they didn't want to do this. But my wife said you know what? Like you should just do it anyway, cause the great thing, like just try, because the great thing about TikTok is like if it flops, nobody sees, like it's totally invisible. Like six people see the video, what do you care? So if your video is stupid, it's like no risk at all. So I just, you know, sort of got on there and made a quick video about. I don't even remember what my first one was, but my first video got like 300,000 views or something like that.
Speaker 1:So I was like oh my.
Speaker 4:God, this is easy. So I just sort of kept making them and have I don't know how many I've made now 75 or 100 or something like that, and they vary in views and so forth. But yeah, each one is sort of like one little sort of micro tip. Of course, trying to make it very, very brief, the book, you know, sort of explains like here's how your mind works and here's why this is a good idea, and so forth, and the videos videos, like you know, in typical tiktok are like do this and that's uh, that's about it.
Speaker 3:Um, it's like yeah, and that's what they want of course.
Speaker 4:yeah, that's totally what they want. They're also, like, I think, have zero interest in buying a book and, and you know, they just want to absorb it from TikTok. My youngest, you know, said, you know I've had more than one video that's gotten a million views. And my daughter said, like Dad, you've probably sold like 10 books from TikTok. And I was like I'm aware, I'm aware, but that's okay. I mean like it's still disseminating in a different way.
Speaker 3:So we were talking a little bit about what parents can do and obviously, loving, caring parents, who are all our audience, you know, I think during COVID became more aware of their students you know learning and their study habits, and in my community of disability services professionals, as I'm sure in lots of other educational areas, we're sort of starting to see the effects of the COVID teaching environment and expectations at the but have you seen any effect on students' ability to be independent learners that you've even observed in your own classes, pre and post-COVID? On this, at the college level there are surveys of elementary and secondary teachers, you know sort of confirming.
Speaker 4:They feel like they're definitely seeing a difference post-COVID in terms of students' stamina, in terms of students' self-confidence, their willingness to take on assignments. And even though there aren't like big surveys like that, there are a zillion anecdotes. I mean I haven't, I haven't I've yet to meet a college professor who's like oh yeah, like we're back from COVID like just the way they were before, like there's nobody who is saying that. And I definitely see it in my own teaching. I mentioned my introduction to cognitive psychology class and that's the one I've been. I started teaching that as a graduate student, so I've been teaching that since the 80s.
Speaker 4:And that course, you know, doesn't the content changes, of course, as the science changes, but my expectations really haven't. You know, it's an introductory course and so there's lots of vocabulary you have to get under your belt and some, you know, there's basic concepts that are unfamiliar to people. It's not an easy course. I mean it's like taking, you know, bio 101 or chem 101 or whatever. And this, post-covid, is the first time I've had students say like this is, you know, your expectations are unreasonable in this course, like no one could learn this much, you know. And I try not to be the fuddy-duddy and say, you know, like well, you know back in my day, everybody.
Speaker 4:You know, it's not just back in my day, it's like you know back in 2019 and every year up until then people did, and they didn't love it because they thought the course was hard, but they recognized that. You know this is sort of what college is. So, yes, I think I definitely see a substantial difference in student expectations post-COVID.
Speaker 3:And even before that. I was just curious. You know, since you've been doing this for some time, you know back the old, you know back in my day, but do you see differences in students study and learning habits since you initially became a professor? I mean, is it noticeable any changes?
Speaker 4:I don't think. No, I don't think. So yeah, I don't think for better or worse. It's really all post-COVID that things have changed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you know I mean the NAEP scores just came out for 12th grade reading this morning. They're really bad. I mean, this is, you know, this is a consequence of, and so you know, students who are in college right now are sort of living with the aftermath of COVID from when they were in high school. And yeah it's, they don't have the skills. And so, getting back to sort of what, what parents can do and what educators can do about this COVID problem, I mean I recommend a two part strategy. One is, like you know, expectations need to be what expectations are? What is appropriate work for a college freshman to be doing? Like if you're taking, you know, chem 101 or English 101 or whatever it is like we can't just say like, well, you know, from here on, you know, we just expect them to learn less. That doesn't make any sense. But at the same time as we you know, that is going to be new to students, right?
Speaker 4:Those expectations are going to seem much higher to students, and so we need to also expect to offer more support, because they haven't been doing work knowledge that students that we were used to five years ago or whatever, and so we have to account for that about how we're going to bring them up to speed, and also they don't have the skill set, so we need to provide that instruction and support, not just setting high expectations, but also giving students the tools they need so that they can meet those expectations.
Speaker 2:So I want to sort of follow that up with a question. I teach mostly freshmen, some sophomores, but I mostly have them deer in the headlights as they come in.
Speaker 2:And they're hit with those expectations and all of that. And it seems to me there are often. I mean, there are lots of students in the middle, but there are some students who manage they could do a lot better, but they're staying afloat and then there are those students who, when they're faced with all this, they just they crash and burn. It's a disaster. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about whether it's sometimes I think those students who crash and burn actually have an advantage, because they've figured out that everything they're doing doesn't work, where those students who are managing think they're doing okay. And I'm wondering whether, whether there are any thoughts about which is who is it easier for or harder to make these shifts?
Speaker 4:that's a really interesting observation and it it strikes me. I mean, the first thing I think of is like well, this is something that could be an empirical question and there probably there are data somewhere, like what are the outcomes for the students who have a disastrous semester, how many of them sort of get their act together and figure out?
Speaker 3:okay, like what.
Speaker 4:I was doing was just not working and then end up, you know, really sort of rocketing ahead and how many you know don't do that and give up and or whatever, and I don't know the answer to that. It is the kind of thing I mean. As you know, first gen status is a predictor of trouble in college. A lot of these students really struggle in college and there's more than one interpretation about why that is. But sort of having setbacks and then not having either the self-confidence that I really belong here. There's no doubt that I'm a college student and that I will succeed. Obviously, that sort of attribution is very important for what you do when you have a setback and everybody has setbacks when they uh, when they're in college. And then the other thing is, you know, having knowledge, it's it's all very nice to say like I need to do something different. Do you know what it is you're supposed to do?
Speaker 3:and if you don't?
Speaker 4:know what to do. Do you know where to look to, uh, to get that information?
Speaker 1:um, so yeah, that's what strikes me as relevant. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3:I'm just so excited so I just, vicki, just did a an episode recently on resources on campus.
Speaker 3:So, especially for these first gen students, you know, for parents who are listening and everybody's parents, it's really important to let your students know that there are all sorts of help resources on campus and that they exist, because we do expect students to struggle, we it's. You know there's a common expression that college is not grade 13, or at least it's common among people I know working at the college level, and so you know the expectations are increased, as Dr Willingham said, and you know they're also, in so many cases, managing their own lives. You know the time management, the personal hygiene, the, you know the sleep hygiene stuff, and so a lot of schools have writing centers, they have tutoring centers, they may have academic coaching to help students start to learn to manage their time. Counseling centers are really important for mental health, and so make sure your students are aware of this stuff Because, to Dr Willingham's point about, you know, self doubt and do I belong here? Imposter syndrome, they should be aware that a lot of students feel this way and that the supports are there for them.
Speaker 4:So that's such an important point and it because it is so much easier if you're going to ask for help at all. It's so much easier to ask your roommate or the person down the hall and so on, and that's OK, that's better than I ask anyone. But I mean, like they're not professionals. You, you know, and it's like you're talking about I mean the people, like this is their life, this is what they do professionally and they really know what they're talking about and they're very thoughtful about it and you're much more likely to get helpful advice from these professionals than you are from the very well-meaning roommate. But they're kind of like you know, there may be like three months ahead of you in all this.
Speaker 3:They may not be doing well either. They may not be.
Speaker 4:They may be putting up a really good show, but things are not great for them. The other thing that occurs to me and I wish I had mentioned this before, when I was talking about higher expectations for that that educators are placing and that they also need to make sure that they're giving students tools the other thing they need to do is express confidence to students that students can meet those expectations.
Speaker 4:And you know, I sometimes say, if you're going to boil down all of the education literature and, by the way, the parenting literature as well into a sentence, it would be something like set high expectations, express confidence they can be met and promise support in meeting them. Right, you need all three of those elements and that's yeah, definitely applies here.
Speaker 3:Vicki, if it's okay, I want to jump in with one of my questions here, because it sort of seems to dovetail a little bit on this.
Speaker 3:Again, I come to this conversation as a perspective of somebody who works in a college disability services office and as part of my job I review students' requests for accommodations and I'm seeing students coming out of high school who have been accommodated with, for instance, copies of the teacher's notes or study guides prepared by a teacher. You know being allowed to have a formula sheet or a set of notes and you know well-meaning, loving parents and again I'm assuming it's parents' request and I should not do that but well-meaning adults sometimes provide these accommodations for students in high school because things are challenging for students based on their disability. But I am a great believer, as you just talked about this concept of self-efficacy right, believing that you can do things and having the adults around you is part of self-efficacy, I guess you know, and that you succeed by doing things, and maybe not perfectly, but if you do them you'll believe in your ability to do them. So this is an awkward way to get around to.
Speaker 3:You know, are these accommodations in your view, counterproductive? Not just because, from my perspective, they're probably not going to get some of those accommodations. You know getting a formula sheet or notes. I have no data, but from the conversations in my community of professionals, it's not doesn't appear to be commonly approved Instead of copies of the professor's notes and I mean, would anybody understand your own notes, dr William, lecture notes if they were to get a copy of them? You know, in these ways they're not asking students to learn how to do things and be more independent.
Speaker 4:So yeah, so there are a few components of what you said. So first, I agree in terms of accommodations that are commonly offered on college campuses. I, of course, only know about my personal experience, but my experience certainly is consistent with what you described. I've never heard of a student getting an accommodation where they get access to the professor's notes when the rest of the class does not. It's usually much more in the vein of there's an obstacle to your accessing the content or participating in the class. That isn't really that relevant to the learning experience but nevertheless presents an obstacle.
Speaker 4:So, you know, most obvious case is, you know, the student has difficulty with the motor aspect of writing or something, and so they do get access to class notes. They probably wouldn't be my notes, they would be a peer's notes or something like that. The that, that, that instance that actually that I happen to pick, is one that it's not ideal, because the process of taking notes actually does improve your retention of your memory of the content. But if it's, you know, if you've really got dysgraphia, then it's not doing that for you, it's not helping. But yeah, any, you know something that you know. I mentioned before the difference between performance and learning, and so it's a mistake to think that learning and this is a very common misconception among students and probably among parents too learning means sitting down and committing things to memory. Studying means trying to cram things into my memory.
Speaker 4:There are many activities that you do that contribute to your learning. That may not look like learning to you. So and you know I frequently recommend this as when start this way, when students come to me and say, professor William, I'm very frustrated because I felt like I'm doing, you know, really really preparing, and then I'm not doing very well on assessments and I don't know what's going on. When I talk with them about studying again by studying, the only thing they think that matters is trying to cram things into my memory. So something like going on Quizlet to get a slide deck that someone else has prepared, they view as a great idea because that saves time.
Speaker 4:Making my own deck is like a prelude to learning. It's a precursor to learning. But I'm not going to learn anything by making my own deck, and so I have to point out to them that's not right. Like actually evaluating what's important enough to go into a deck. What kinds of questions should I pose? What are the connections among all of this content? All of that is really really good for your memory. So this is a slightly roundabout way of getting at your question. It's one way of evaluating accommodations. Is this something? Are you essentially taking something away from the students. That is really a learning opportunity.
Speaker 4:It's not just like they have difficulty doing this. They may have difficulty doing it, it doesn't mean it's actually not a pretty helpful thing for them to do. So you know, I can give you my notes. But unless taking your own notes in class is so distracting and, you know, just rattles you so much that it's really really taking away from your experience, that'd be one thing. If your notes end up looking a little messy, a little you know, and they're, you know they're not great, your notes like, maybe we can find another way for those notes to end up being more productive. But we shouldn't automatically think, oh, you can't do that. Accommodation is I'm going to give you your, give you my notes, because then in trying to help you I'm actually maybe taking something away from you.
Speaker 3:And for those wondering about note-taking accommodations, I have a Substack post that we'll put in the show notes about note-taking and how colleges often view that. And so even you know there are no current. The only data we have is from an old study and 16.8% of students in this nationally representative sample got copies of notes from a note taker. But that's also before technology exploded and all of these apps you know came along. So my guess would be that fewer students are getting human note takers, except, as Dr Willingham said, in cases of students with actual physical limitations on their ability to take notes. But also, you know, we need to be aware of the purpose of those notes, which is basically to supplement students' own notes. Colleges typically expect students to take their own notes, not because we're just mean, terrible people, but you know that's part of the learning process.
Speaker 4:Right. And now, this is. This question is especially relevant also for students without accommodations, because it's so, it's so readily available to have an app take notes for you. You just have your phone, listen to the professor's lecture and notes pop out. And so, yes, students, absolutely, you know, students' interpretation is sweet. I don't really have to listen because the notes are being taken.
Speaker 2:for me, that goes to that active-passive sort of thing.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I see that in the classroom too.
Speaker 4:We were so excited about having this conversation. Yes, yes, have a marvelous time. Okay, well, let's keep going.
Speaker 2:We'd love to, but we do need to sort of wrap things up, I think, especially for parents. I really love and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but for me there's a summary in what you said just a few minutes ago about those three things to communicate to students, because I think that is something that parents can actually do, and that is that idea of high expectations and the confidence that you really can do this thing, and then I'm going to provide the support for you or help you find the support you need. And so for any parents who've made it this far in listening and are saying, yes, that's great, but that's all information for students, I think there's really a message there that they have an important job.
Speaker 4:I'm so glad you brought that up, Vicki, and it's maybe worth explicating just a little bit the high expectations is maybe obvious, maybe not. I mean, you express high expectations because if you have low expectations, that sort of indicates like this is what I think you're capable of, right, but at the same time simply saying like I expect A's from you, that's, you know, sort of scary right. It's like, okay, like you're a, you know you're a tough guy.
Speaker 4:but like I don't think I can get A's like that. That sounds terrible to me. So it's very important that you also express like I know you can do it and I have confidence in your abilities. I think this is wonderful for children to hear from their parents. It's wonderful also for them to you know some. Depending on your relationship with your parents, you may also think like you're really naive. You know you think I can get A's. I know good and well I can't, and that's part of the reason why that third component is so important. It's like gee, dad, it's great that you want me to get A's, it's great you think I can do it. I really am not so sure I can do it and so saying like I am going to be there to be sure that you have the tools to figure this out, I'm going to be with you, we're going to figure it out together. If you struggle, that's you know. That's much more reassuring to students.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's helpful. I almost wonder whether parents and students can work together on the expectations as well. You know, let's together create what we expect. This has been wonderful.
Speaker 4:Really that's such a nice point. Yeah, you mean just sort of sitting down having a conversation about here's how it's gone. You know, I think you could do better. Like what do you think? Yeah, and I mean, from talking with educators and parents, a lot of times your kids surprise you, like you know, your kids are in a way harder on themselves than you would be on them, and they say, like this is what my goal would be, and you're like, yikes, okay, that sounds great, let's see if we can do it. But yeah, I mean, it's inspiring too, yeah, and it also helps you, like you know, help them think through a plan B.
Speaker 4:It's like okay if you don't make the Dean's list, like what would that mean, like what would still be a good outcome, and so on. So you can kind of, you know, talk them down if they're, if they are setting unrealistically high expectations and, of course, unrealistically low as well.
Speaker 3:So I was going to say, vicky, and I think in that episode that I was just referring to, you guys also talk about, you know, making sure that they know, if things aren't going the way they expect, with these high expectations, to go reach out for that support, that it isn't something about them if they don't, you know, if they get to college and they're starting to struggle, but that you know the answer shouldn't just be well, I wasn't cut out for this. My goal's right.
Speaker 2:So much to think about. Tell us and tell parents, tell our listeners how they can find you, how they can find you on TikTok, how they can reach out if they need to reach out if they need to.
Speaker 4:Danielwillinghamcom has everything to which I own the copyright and therefore could post. An article can be found at DanielWillinghamcom and there's lots of different topics there. It's also got links to my books. It's got a link to my TikTok account and my X account, so yeah, Okay, and we will put all of that in the show notes.
Speaker 2:And, once again, the book we are talking about today is Outsmart your Brain, why Learning is Hard and how you Can Make it Easy. So parents are going to want to get that for their students. Dr Willingham, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today and share so much with all of our parents. Absolutely and thanks to everyone for listening and we'll see you next time.