Teaching how to learn
“Good university teaching should mean doing yourself out of a job,” says Associate Professor Martin Shanahan, first year economics lecturer and co-winner of one of this year’s Carrick Australian Awards for University Teaching.
In August, Prof Shanahan, together with Adjunct Professor Erik Meyer, Paul Kershaw and Ken Adams in the School of Commerce, was awarded a Carrick Citation for sustained excellence in the scholarship of building students’ awareness of their own learning and enhancing students’ capacities for independent learning.
"While a lot of what we do obviously involves teaching economics, what we are trying to do is help students to learn to learn."
And with more than 2000 students a year, this is no easy task.
In order to deal with such a large number of students individually, Prof Shanahan and his colleagues have developed a new online, self-diagnostic tool that allows students to see their own individual approach to learning using a colour-coded system.
"We invite students to take their learning profile and analyse it by writing about what it means to them and by discussing it with their tutors. As part of tutorials we also ask what it means to really learn something at a university level and encourage students to share their techniques with each other. For many students it is the first time they have been asked to consider how they learn, and what learning something really means," Prof Shanahan says.
"The literature and the theory show that if students are aware of how they learn, they can recognise when they are genuinely learning something, when they are just skimming over things and wasting their time."
Prof Shanahan says students often fall into the trap of just collecting facts and trying to memorise things – a learning method that puts them at a significant disadvantage.
"If students are conscious of how they learn, whether it is through problem-solving or analytical methods, they can modify their behaviour so they are using the most effective learning method for them."
Most students’ stay at university is comparatively brief. Prof Shanahan and his colleagues believe their ongoing efforts will provide students with the basic foundations for successful and independent lifelong learning.