Soliciting Student Advice to Instill Adaptive Mindsets

My Story

I teach an introductory biology course taken mostly by UT students in their first semester. Many are pre-med/pre dental and other pre-health students. What I have found over the years is that students come into college biology with a variety of learning backgrounds. While they are all excited to learn and excel in biology concepts, many get discouraged after not doing well on the first exam or two. This can lead to loss of confidence or commitment in pursuing a career in healthcare or fields related to biology. 

I felt that students would benefit from reminders that they are capable of doing well and succeeding in the course, so long as they adopt good study strategies, ask for help, and use available resources. I wanted to create a writing exercise where students reflect on their course experience and what they need to do to be successful. In particular, I suspected that hearing from previous students about their experiences in the course would be very helpful and relatable for students. 

What does this practice look like?

With the help from a team of psychologists, I surveyed previous students about their experiences in my course. For example, one of the questions asked, “What did you do when you got your first low grade in the course?” Based on the responses we received, we designed an exercise that included (1) providing students with a general information on learning college level biology, (2) a representative response from a past student about their experience and (3) a prompt for students to write their own advice to a future student. 

For example, students read the wording like the following, adapted from what former students had said:

After reading responses, students responded to the following prompt:

See Soliciting Student Advice Activity.docx for the full wording.

How did it impact students?

This activity seems to resonate with students, especially midsemester. Reading past students' experiences helps remind students that they are not alone in their struggle. As students write their own advice for future students, they are reminded to use good study strategies, use available resources, and ask for help so they can overcome any challenges.  

I was impressed with how eager students were to share their experiences with future students. For example, students wrote:

Many student responses reflected common themes such as (1) it’s okay to be confused, (2) asking questions in class and during study sessions, (3)  working with peers is helpful, (4) study strategies they found effective, and (5) it’s normal to struggle initially. These themes were replicated in student survey responses such as:

Implementation Tips and Resources

This practice can be implemented at any time in the semester depending on the challenge you want to address. I typically give it midsemester to be a helpful ‘mindset booster’ to remind students that they are not alone in their struggles and what they can do to be successful in the course.

Survey past students and use that to design the exercise based on their responses to ensure it is most relevant to your students. Consider prompting meaningful responses by focusing on challenging points in their course or careers, such as when:

• they got a low score on an exam
• they found a topic in the course confusing
• starting difficult content
• they felt they were losing confidence in their ability to succeed

The social psychologists I worked with (David Yeager & Cameron Hecht) suggested the following, which we implemented:

• Not to be too individualistic and have a clear emphasis on learning collaboratively, not just studying on their own.
• There should not be an overly-strong emphasis on self-control and discipline, but rather setting up good strategies to deeply understand the material (not just performance)
• Quotes should normalize difficulty (everyone struggles at first) and clarify that struggle is worth it because it improves understanding
• Point to existing structures in the class that support learning (e.g., looking at the syllabus, collaborative learning sessions)
• Avoid painting an overly-fatalistic picture of initial circumstances: things shouldn’t be portrayed as “hopeless”, and there needs to be a “turn” where the student overcomes a challenge

Use a combination of responses students give about each challenge to adapt and write a prompt for this exercise. We published a peer-reviewed article (Peer-Modeled Mindsets: An Approach to Customizing Life Sciences Studying Interventions) that provides a similar process for doing this.

Anything else to consider?

Understanding how our students are experiencing our class is very helpful as we can adjust accordingly for their learning benefit. For example, I didn’t realize my students were struggling because they were reluctant to ask for help. Through this exercise, having students read about past students’ experiences, helped them realize that they were not alone and it was okay to ask for help. 

The initial prep time may take longer than other activities as it involves surveying, gathering responses and writing scripts of former students addressing different challenges. But once you have initial scripts, they can be used or slightly adapted for future classes.