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Why Students Resist Learning: A Practical Model for Understanding and Helping Students
However personally committed faculty may be to helping students learn, their students are not always as eager to participate in this endeavor, and may react with both active and passive resistant behaviors, including poor faculty evaluations.
The purpose of this book is to help faculty develop a coherent and integrated understanding of the various causes of student resistance to learning, providing them with a rationale for responding constructively, and enabling them to create conditions conducive to implementing effective learning strategies.
In this book readers will discover an innovative integrated model that accounts for student behaviors and creates a foundation for intentional and informed discussion, evaluation, and the development of effective counter strategies. The model takes into account institutional context, environmental forces, students' prior negative classroom experiences, their cognitive development, readiness to change, and metacognition. The various chapters take the reader through the model's elements, exploring their practical implications for teaching, whether relating to course design, assessments, assignments, or interactions with students.
The book includes a chapter written entirely by students, offering their insights into the causes of resistance, and their reflections on how participating on this project has affected them.
While of great value for faculty, this book is also useful to faculty developers advising future and current faculty, as well as to administrators, offering insight into how institutional values impact teaching practice and student attitudes.
The purpose of this book is to help faculty develop a coherent and integrated understanding of the various causes of student resistance to learning, providing them with a rationale for responding constructively, and enabling them to create conditions conducive to implementing effective learning strategies.
In this book readers will discover an innovative integrated model that accounts for student behaviors and creates a foundation for intentional and informed discussion, evaluation, and the development of effective counter strategies. The model takes into account institutional context, environmental forces, students' prior negative classroom experiences, their cognitive development, readiness to change, and metacognition. The various chapters take the reader through the model's elements, exploring their practical implications for teaching, whether relating to course design, assessments, assignments, or interactions with students.
The book includes a chapter written entirely by students, offering their insights into the causes of resistance, and their reflections on how participating on this project has affected them.
While of great value for faculty, this book is also useful to faculty developers advising future and current faculty, as well as to administrators, offering insight into how institutional values impact teaching practice and student attitudes.
268 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 28, 2017
The editors have assembled an excellent array of essays addressing student resistance. I think the most valuable parts for me were those that examined the reasons behind student resistance (there are several, and they are remarkably varied) and processes of metacognition that can be explained to students to help shift them toward more active learning.
June 16, 2018
An insightful book about what makes students (or really, people in any walk of life) resist learning, how professors and other students unknowingly exacerbate or mitigate these resistance behaviors, and what we all can do to make learning environments more conducive to student engagement and deep learning. I found the book interesting from the perspectives of both a learner and of a teacher.
The first chapter introduces the Integrated Model of Student Resistance (IMSR), which includes five different but interconnected domains from which student resistance originates (institutional atmosphere, prior learning experiences, etc.). The remainder of the book explores each of these facets in greater depth, citing actual student experiences to illustrate how these principles manifest themselves in the classroom. In each chapter, the authors review the existing literature on student learning and describe how it relates to the chapter's focus. I was impressed by their objective presentation of the existing literature; in several cases (for example, in their discussion of "learning styles"), the authors summarize the current state of research but acknowledge the remaining gaps.
As a college student myself, I found these accounts extremely relatable. Although I was at first skeptical about the utility of the IMSR for understanding learning, the examples ultimately convinced me on the usefulness of thinking about student learning through the lens of this integrative model.
I should mention that I found this book useful partly because I'm not too familiar with the latest research on effective teaching. The book is well-organized by themes; if you're already knowledgeable in this field, you may wish to skim over some sections or just jump to whatever you find most interesting.
The first chapter introduces the Integrated Model of Student Resistance (IMSR), which includes five different but interconnected domains from which student resistance originates (institutional atmosphere, prior learning experiences, etc.). The remainder of the book explores each of these facets in greater depth, citing actual student experiences to illustrate how these principles manifest themselves in the classroom. In each chapter, the authors review the existing literature on student learning and describe how it relates to the chapter's focus. I was impressed by their objective presentation of the existing literature; in several cases (for example, in their discussion of "learning styles"), the authors summarize the current state of research but acknowledge the remaining gaps.
As a college student myself, I found these accounts extremely relatable. Although I was at first skeptical about the utility of the IMSR for understanding learning, the examples ultimately convinced me on the usefulness of thinking about student learning through the lens of this integrative model.
I should mention that I found this book useful partly because I'm not too familiar with the latest research on effective teaching. The book is well-organized by themes; if you're already knowledgeable in this field, you may wish to skim over some sections or just jump to whatever you find most interesting.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews