Although many students recognize that cramming is an ineffective way to study, most still use this approach (Hora & Oleson, 2017). Effective course design can help students space out their learning. For example, in a large, general biology course, faculty found that a “moderate structure” class increased exam performance for all students — but it had a particularly positive impact on first-generation and African-American students (Eddy & Hogan, 2014). Each week, students were assigned practice problems or an ungraded reading guide to promote active reading - to engage with the text through formulating or answering questions - and encourage them to study on a regular basis. In class, students worked for about a third of class time in groups to solve clicker-type problems. In writing-intensive courses, a parallel strategy is the scaffolding of larger papers through a series of drafts assigned to students throughout the term.

A recent study suggests that most students tend to look to faculty for cues about when to study (Hora & Oleson, 2017). Simple announcements about upcoming exams can help remind students to initiate studying. The same research found that the most frequently used learning approach by students was re-reading the text or lecture notes, which others have found to be an ineffective learning strategy, especially for retaining information (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013). Therefore, instructors can offer helpful guidance by pairing recommendations for how to study along with when to study. For example, one recent study suggests that students are better able to allocate their time towards reading on the weekend, and syllabi, reading quizzes, or even simple reminders could be structured with this rhythm in mind (Sharma, Van Hoof, & Ramsay, 2017).

Low- or no-stakes practice tests are one of the most powerful tools for learning, and practice tests can help students keep up with material and gauge where gaps lie. Often, one practice test per exam is sufficient, and for time-strapped instructors, there is some evidence that feedback is not necessary in order for students to reap the benefits of this approach (Adesope, Trevisan, & Sundararajan, 2017).

Even practiced readers can have difficulty keeping up with all the reading that goes into a four-course load or to understand how a monograph in history might be read differently than an empirical article in sociology or a textbook in physics. Reading guides – which range from .pdf annotation of a sample text to questions the student should answer through the reading – can offer helpful signposts. This Sheridan guide on promoting effective course reading offers more detail on this strategy for faculty, and A Writer’s Guide to Mindful Reading is a useful resource for students.

Checking to see if students have grasped a concept can help instructors decide if a course can move forward or if spending more time on an idea would be beneficial. However, most checking for understanding in classrooms happens at an individual level, by asking questions like, “Does that make sense? and “What is X?” (Hora & Ferrare, 2014).  Classroom assessment techniques — or ungraded group-based understanding checks – offer cues for instructors about how to pace a course.

Examples

A multi-institution collaboration found that the following small strategies were helpful for giving all students tools to understand and navigate course expectations (Winkelmes, Bernacki, Butler, Zochowski, Golanics & Weavil, 2015):

• Provide criteria for success (e.g., rubrics) and annotated examples of successful work to students – what makes it work?
• For assignments, detail the purpose. How might the knowledge or skills involved in the paper or project be important in students’ future lives?  The researchers found that a discussion of relevance and purpose helped cue student motivation to engage in the task and their learning from it.

This template offers some examples about how to increase transparency in assignments.