Building a Study Skills Course from the Ground Up

I attended a Developmental Education conference recently that was sponsored by Houghton Mifflin to help faculty meet the challenges they face when teaching developmental courses. One session dealt with building a study skills course. Of the lessons learned during this session the one that could be applied to any course is to get students to engage in their own learning. One school has a course that is team taught with an instructor and a student that is considered to be a facilitator rather than a mentor. The student is trained to help the instructor in the course by keeping the discussion going, writing items on the board and help with group work. The one thing that I found most interesting was that the student was allowed time at the end of selected classes to discuss student concerns without the instructor present. The general feeling was that students have concerns that they will discuss with peers but don't want faculty to know about such as financial problems, adjustment problems and homesickness. Their peers have possible experienced all of these and can better relate to the student. In selecting students for facilitators we were caution to keep in mind that the brightest student may not be the best facilitator. If they have never experienced failure they will not also be able to relate to students that are having a hard time. Most students will listen to some one that can say "I remember being in a similar situation and this is how I resolved it...".

Carolyn Anderson