1. Metacognition, Study Habits, Learning, and Grades Muhammad Dawood, PhD Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM dawood@nmsu.edu 575-646-5498 Keywords: Metacognition, study habits, study skills, learning, grades

2. Why? What problem are you solving? – Students are often not clear about the potential of their own confidence in themselves, their own study skills, strategies, and habits, and how these can impact their learning and grades What are your educational objectives? – To make students aware of the potential impact of Self-Efficacy and Metacognition on their learning and grades – To make them realize that their own study strategies and habits play a much greater role in their learning – To encourage them to use some well-known study strategies to improve learning and their grades

3. When and Part of What? Developmental history of the innovation – Attended a workshop “Get Students to Focus on Learning Instead of Grades: Metacognition is the Key!” by Dr. McGuire’s in October 2013 – With permission modified and improvised some of Dr. McGuire’s material for my EE310 class –many thanks to her for her active guidance – Since then every semester (see below) for my EE310 class as well as ET240 and ENGR100 classes in the College of Engineering (CoE), NMSU Semester EE310: Exam1 (N, # of Students) ET240: Exam 1 (N, # of Students) ENGR100: Exam 1 (N, # of Students) Group 1 (T1)Group 2 (T2)Group 1 (T1)Group 2 (T2)Group 1 (T1)Group 2 (T2) Fall201358% (N=7)95% (N=6) Spring 201473% (N=12)82% (N=10) Fall201470% (N=9)74% (N=21) Spring201567% (N=7)82% (N=28)56% (N=9)71% (N=11)75% (N=28)85% (N=10) Fall 2015 67% (N=11) 78% (N=19) Spring 201664% (N=9)75% (N=10) Fall 201661% (N=11)69% (N=18) Weighted Averages 66% (N=66, 37%) 78% (N=112, 63%) 56% (N=9, 45%) 71% (N=11, 55%) 75% (N=28, 74%) 85% (N=10, 26%) Table 1: Results of Self-Evaluation Study Strategy Instrument (SESSI)

4. Where? Have you tried this in other institutions? – Not yet at other institutions, but reached out across CoE – Based on preliminary results, submitted 6 proposals to NSF, 3 times as PI, 2 as Co-PI college-wide, 1 in an advisory capacity – One as Co-PI and as an advisor funded; 1 as PI is recommended for funding – Together these will provide good effort across CoE and a vehicle for broader participation at other institutions Is this developed for a single class, a full course, or a curriculum? – Began as a single class, extended to 3 other classes, is being extended to all freshmen in CoE – Easily extendable to cover other classes as students become aware of its potential

5. What? Learning activities and materials developed – Dr. McGuire’s workshop material is modified (with permission) into the following: – A “Self-Evaluation Study Strategy Instrument (SESSI)” to assess current study habits of students (Results shown on slide 3) – A 50-min lecture covering study strategies based on metacognition, self-efficacy, bloom’s taxonomy, etc. – A “Study Cycle Student Handout (SCSH),” to choose from suitable study strategies to adopt and follow for rest of the semester and beyond My theory of change: – Data-driven feedback make students as well as instructors to take note – The feedback coupled with the research-based workable common-sense self-study strategies make them more willing to adopt some of these – Nothing succeeds like success – seeing doing well in one course encourages students to use these strategies for other courses – habit forming? What has worked really well? – Results of SESSI were surprising for many of us and were taken very seriously – 50-min lecture helped students to link learning and what they do/can do to learn – SCSH provided them a doable strategies to improve learning and grades – Feedback about this effort that how it impacted students confidence is/was really encouraging

6. Prognosis? How are you documenting impact? – On going data collection and processing using MATLAB and SAS – Writing a journal paper for broader dissemination How do you plan to scale-up? – Teamed up with ~12 colleagues from CoE, Education, English, and Psychology – Wrote a few NSF proposals, some getting funded What challenges are you currently facing? – limited time to do it more thoroughly - will change as my NSF proposal gets funded (hopefully!) – Faculty is slow to adopt these interventions – perhaps my own limited efforts are to blame What advice would you like from others at FOEE? – Did you do something similar in your courses and how did it go? – Do you see any pitfalls in my approach both in terms of “educational research” and the mode of delivery and administering it? – May I team up with you and we try this in your class at your institution?