Course Description
This course is designed to introduce teachers to research based learning strategies. Participants will gain understanding of widely tested educational theories regarding the relationship between teaching efficient strategies and its impact upon student learning and achievement.
The importance of this course is underscored by the results of extensive research done over the past thirty years, changing the “art” of teaching into the science of teaching (Marzano 2001). The results of research empirically document that students who effectively utilize learning strategies in the classroom are better able to learn and retain information. As students develop learning efficiency, they will also develop a better attitude toward school and a greater belief in their ability to succeed. Though teachers must teach the academic information required by the school curriculum, they are also acutely aware of a need to teach strategies for long-term learning.

Objectives

• Acquire information related to the most current educational research regarding study strategies and their effects on student performance
• Become familiar with a variety of cues, questions and advance organizers to activate students' prior knowledge
• Learn practical strategies to increase students' reading efficiency in the content area
• Understand the importance of learning strategies for similarities and differences and incorporate it into the curriculum
• Access and use research-based strategies for summarizing
• Acquire methods for explicit instruction of note-taking and nonlinguistic representations
• Understand the research and theory in aiding the memory process and the use of recall questions

Session Outline
Session One: Course Introduction and Overview

1. Course objectives, requirements and expectations
2. Educational research
3. Effect size

Session Two: Metacognition

1. Background
2. Learning styles inventory

Session Three: Cognition

1. Cues, Questions and Advance Organizers
2. Characteristics of Successful Learners
3. Cognitive Strategies

Session Four: Content Reading

1. Active Reading
2. Characteristics of Poor/Successful Readers
3. Reading Strategies

Session Five: Identifying Similarities and Differences

1. Definitions
2. Models for teaching comparisons, classification, metaphors and analogies

Session Six:  Summarizing

1. Research
2. Strategies for teaching summarizing

Session Seven: Note Taking and Nonlinguistic Representations

1. Active learning
2. Note Taking Methods

Session Eight: Teaching Specific Types of Knowledge & Memory Techniques for Retention

1. Teaching Specific Types of Knowledge

1. Vocabulary
2. Details
3. Organizing ideas
4. Skills and tactics
5. Processes.
6. Retention
7. Memorization Strategies

Session Nine: Homework and Practice

1. Research and various homework policies
2. Final Integration Projects: Completion and beginning presentations

Session Ten: Synthesis of Study Strategies for School Success

1. Presentation of Final Integration Projects
2. Final Exam
3. Course evaluations
4. Review and sharing of ideas and resources

Student Requirements

1. Attendance and participation: Students are expected to attend and participate in all class activities.
2. Reading Assignments: Students will write informal reflections on the required reading or activity.  Reflections should not be a summary of the required readings; instead they should discuss new ideas and significant insights gleaned from the readings and how the information can be applied in the classroom.
3. Final Integration Project: Students will produce a final project that synthesizes the research-based strategies covered in Study Strategies for School Success.
4. Reading Assignments: Write an informal reflection on the required reading or required activity focusing on what you have learned and/or a reflection as specified.  Do not summarize the required readings; instead discuss new ideas and significant insights and how the information can be applied in the classroom.
5. Final Integration Project: Based on research and instructional strategies covered, design a unit of study for your students.  This unit should consist of strategies and a description of activities and content.  The Final Integration Project is worth 30 points.

Student Academic Integrity
Participants guarantee that all academic class work is original. Any academic dishonesty or plagiarism (to take ideas, writings, etc. from another and offer them as one's own), is a violation of student academic behavior standards as outlined by our partnering colleges and universities and is subject to academic disciplinary action.

Register
To register to take TEI's Research-Based Learning Strategies classroom graduate course, go to the Course Registration page.