Teaching College Students Basic Studenting

Do you take time to teach your lower level students basic student skills? How do you do it? Detail of Sculpture by Tatsuya Tanaka Increasingly, I’ve had students who don’t seem to know how to take notes during class. Or know that they should take notes. This is one of several abilities college professors tend to assume their students will have been habituated into by the time they get to us, but perhaps such assumptions are based on outdated views of pre-college pedagogy and an underestimation of just how much culture and technology has changed how students conceive of their own role in their education. In addition to in-class notetaking, other basic student skills that may need shoring up include: reading taking notes on readings keeping track of when assignments are due finding reliable information online. Perhaps you have others to add to this list. What, if anything, do you do to communicate your expectations to your students regarding these basic skills? Merely mentioning them on…