BYU–Hawaii President Steven Wheelwright unveiled the university’s new Framework for Student Learning with students in March 2011. Four sessions were held to accommodate students’ schedules and to create a more personal setting. Introducing the Framework, President Wheelwright passed out a case study, then broke the audience into groups of four to six people and asked the students to discuss the issue with a specific question in mind: “Why don’t students often learn what we plan for them to learn?”
After a few minutes of small group discussion, President Wheelwright asked students to share not what they had discussed but how they had discussed it. Students noted that in their small groups, nearly everyone participated and built on one another’s comments with personal experiences or other knowledge; they taught one another.
President Wheelwright then asked students to answer the question they had discussed in the small groups, and suggested that one reason students do not learn the planned curriculum may be because the concepts of prepare, engage, and improve are not practiced in the classroom, whether by student or teacher. He asked students to think of a class for which they were generally prepared, asking “Why were you prepared for this class?” Students responded that expectations from themselves and professors, good habits, and passion about the subject were among the motivations for preparing before class.
Students agreed that when they were prepared for a class, they were much more likely to engage in that class. They were also likely to participate in class if the teacher genuinely respected and welcomed their comments or if their grade was affected by their level of participation.
President Wheelwright then asked the question, “After you had prepared for and engaged in class, what did you do to make sure you retained that information?” Students answered that they talked about their new knowledge with friends, practiced the skills they had learned through homework, or did further research on the topic. Their improvement came from retaining the knowledge and practicing true concepts.
President Wheelwright also shared that the President’s Council and the BYU–Hawaii faculty are working together to make classrooms more conducive to a prepare-engage-improve atmosphere. He encouraged students to reflect on their own personal learning and, from the information presented in the new Framework, to think of ways to improve their own educational pursuits.
BYUHSA President Nicholas Narayan, who helped organize the student meetings, commented, “The sessions were a model of what we should be doing for our classes. By preparing before class, engaging in class, and then improving after class, we will retain more information and, in turn, be able to do better in school, work, and in Church when we apply these three simple principles.”
The Framework for Student Learning involves six principles to help students prepare, engage, and improve in their learning experiences.
Learning occurs best when we are:
1.Motivated by faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, and centered on serving God.
2.Active in the learning process.
3.Self-directed and take responsibility for our learning.
4.Engaged in meaningful reflection and self-assessment.
5.Open to changing how we thing, feel, and act.
6.Constantly improving our capacity to study and learn effectively.
A new interactive model of the Framework for Student Learning is available online.