SocProf reviewed Teach Yourself How to Learn by Saundra Yancy McGuire
Review of 'Teach Yourself How to Learn' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Saundra McGuire is an engaging writer and clearly cares deeply about student success. This book is the student counterpart to her Teach Students How to Learn. The audience is students and therefore the content is presented in a friendly fashion. It is though a slow go: the actual strategies only come after several chapters of not much except stories of students who turned around their grades by following the not-yet-disclosed strategies. The strategies themselves are remarkably simple: preview, show up for class, take notes by hand, review, etc. McGuire provides more details. My beloved mind maps do make an appearance as a good preview / review tool. At the same time, McGuire does not mince words: you gotta get the textbook, you have to read it (the right way), and you have to do homework.
My only quibble is whether the individual success stories will convince students reading this book …
Saundra McGuire is an engaging writer and clearly cares deeply about student success. This book is the student counterpart to her Teach Students How to Learn. The audience is students and therefore the content is presented in a friendly fashion. It is though a slow go: the actual strategies only come after several chapters of not much except stories of students who turned around their grades by following the not-yet-disclosed strategies. The strategies themselves are remarkably simple: preview, show up for class, take notes by hand, review, etc. McGuire provides more details. My beloved mind maps do make an appearance as a good preview / review tool. At the same time, McGuire does not mince words: you gotta get the textbook, you have to read it (the right way), and you have to do homework.
My only quibble is whether the individual success stories will convince students reading this book to change their learning strategies. There's ample research showing do indeed study the "wrong" way. How will they get to this book in the first place? And also, McGuire is a chemist. Most of her strategies are designed for problem-based, one objective, correct answer type of work. There isn't much for disciplines that do not operate that way.