Supporting physics teaching with research-based resources

Reading is an important information-delivery tool, but most students do not read text effectively, simply re-reading or highlighting text. This results in an illusion of fluency through familiarity.

Ask students questions about what they are reading. Students' main study strategy is re-reading a text and highlighting, but it just results in an illusion of fluency. Give them questions they can respond to, or require that they self-test with study questions in the book.

Teach students metacognitive strategies. Helping students learn how to learn has large paybacks, and helps them read and engage in class content more effectively. Some strategies for students’ reading skills include previewing what they will read, identifying questions they want to answer, and reading and paraphrasing. Relevant links and reading in the FTI online resources.

Use Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT). Also called "preflights" or "warmups," Just-in-Time Teaching gets students ready for class by requiring them to answer questions online before class. Instructors use the responses to direct their presentation and share examples of student thinking in class. Types of JiTT questions:

• Open-ended conceptual questions.
• Metacognitive reflection prompts
• Questions related to the reading (e.g., summarize, compare and contrast, sketch, define).
• Connect reading to real-world or prior experience
• Solve a problem

Tips for effective use of JiTT:

• Explain the purpose of JiTT on the first day.
• Use JiTT routinely, throughout the term.
• You do not need to review all student responses, just enough to get a sense of student thinking and to give credit.
• Always say something positive in response to the student work you show in class.
• Consider changing a challenging open-ended JiTT question into a multiple-choice think-pair-share question during class to provide an opportunity to solidify learning.
• Give students an incentive (e.g., participation points).
• JiTT is just as good for upper-division courses as for lower-division courses. Upper-division students can make connections to pre-requisite courses and go deeper.
• Use a variety of online sources for good example questions (e.g., PhysPort's JiTT page).

This Expert Recommendation is based in part on S.Y. McGuire, Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation (Routledge, New York, 2015), and A. Gavrin, "Just in Time Teaching" workshop materials.