Teach Yourself How to Learn: Strategies You Can Use to Ace Any Course at Any Level

by Saundra Yancy McGuire

Following up on her acclaimed Teach Students How to Learn, that describes teaching strategies to facilitate dramatic improvements in student learning and success, Saundra McGuire here presents these "secrets" direct to students.

Beginning with explaining how expectations about learning, and the study efforts required, differ between college and secondary school, the author introduces her listeners, through the concept of metacognition, to the importance and powerful consequences of understanding themselves as learners. This framework and the recommended strategies that support it are useful for anyone moving on to a more advanced stage of education.

In a conversational tone, and liberally illustrated by anecdotes of past students, the author combines introducing listeners to concepts like Bloom's Taxonomy, fixed and growth mindsets, as well as what brain science has to tell us about rest, nutrition, and exercise, together with such highly specific learning strategies as how to read a textbook, manage their time, and take tests.

With engaging exercises and thought-provoking reflections, this book is an ideal motivational and practical text for study skills and first year experience courses.

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Self Help, Teaching, Productivity, College, Psychology

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️8/10
- Has many concepts that are already well known by students but it has a few things I would've never thought of
- Very educational but not in a way that will bore you
- Uses many real life examples to help you understand things and to show that these work

[Abigail Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! It was very easy to read, engaging, and incredibly helpful. I will definitely be using some of the learning strategies in this book going forward. I highly recommend for any student—even those who already have good study habits would likely appreciate it.

[August Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

" Your score is a reflection of your behaviors, not your intelligence."

"Pay close attention to your thoughts. With whom do you find fault when things do not go as you would have liked? Are you thinking with a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? What is your self-talk like?"

"The greatest influence in education, when it comes to a student's motivation, is their belief in their ability to succeed. Will all the work pay off?"
^
There is a difference between telling a student they have what it takes and them genuinely believing they do. Anyone can do the first. The second, however, comes through intentionality and personally walking alongside the student. Your time invested in them backs up the claim that they do have what it takes.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent resource! I am very excited about hearing the author speak at the 36th Annual Conference of the Learning Assistance Association of New England (LAANE) at Greenfield Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts, on Friday, October 25, 2019. www.laanechapter.org

[William Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a teacher, I read this book to better help my students become better learners. I think the target age to teach them learning strategies would be in high school so that when they embark to college on their own they are more prepared for success. I felt that a good portion of this book was spent trying to convince you that the authors strategies were correct and will produce results. I did get some useful information from this book that I plan on trying to have my students implement. Overall, I think if you are a teacher, a student, or a parent of a student for high school level and higher then you might also find some helpful strategies in here which will be beneficial.

[Connie Hayek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great resource for high school or college students. If you are trying to learn a difficult subject, or just want to improve your study skills, this book would be a the top of my recommended reading list.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great resource with tons of examples! Highly recommend for college students!

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I had this book when I was in school (and that I would have had the determination to use it). I would have earned better grades and wouldn't have struggled as much.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a required textbook for COL 101.

Very informative and a lot of great information.
I highly recommend this to anyone and everyone, not just students.

[Bikash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has some key insights that other learning books don't. An enlightening read on how to learn.

[Liesl Kendall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this to get extra credit for one of my classes. Overall, the book was decently helpful.

[Samwell Raleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently read “How to Teach Yourself to Learn” by Saundra Yancy McGuire, and I’m here to share my biggest takeaways from this and how I’ll be implementing these as a neurodivergent high school math teacher.

Overall Content
McGuire divides the book into the following sections: importance of metacognition, effective learning strategies for all students, self-motivation and discipline techniques, and ways to overcome learning obstacles. Generally, the chapters are short, clearly written, and easy to read. She does not employ technical jargon.

Even though I’m no longer a student, I could immediately see the value in McGuire’s work. There were many elements I wished I had known when I was in college, and I was quite excited daydreaming how I’d introduce these to my students.

Previewing - My Favorite Strategy
I think the strategy I’d start with would be previewing. In my experience, math students almost never look at the textbook. And, if they do, it’s just to see the problem, maybe the answer, and then move on. (Personally, I’m guilty of this as well!)

As a math teacher, I emphasize literacy to my students. I have them create math glossaries, in their own words, based on the vocabulary skills I teach in class. My reasoning is - it’s okay to not know something, but to ask for help, you need to know what you don’t know. When I was in school, I rarely used any of the technical terms. This meant that when I was stuck, I didn’t know how to search for or understand resources to help me.

My own experience
McGuire really emphasizes the importance of “previewing” before a lecture. To demonstrate, she includes a really vague paragraph and instructs you to guess what it’s about. Afterwards, she tells you - and you’re left feeling very silly!

In college, professors operate using a “flipped classroom” environment. You’re expected to preview the work and texts before coming to class. In hindsight this seems simple enough. Yet I think I rarely, if ever, did this in college. I can see now how previewing would have been extremely beneficial.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I think this is a great book. During my first semester as an AVID teacher, I’ll certainly be deploying the skills and strategies laid out in this book. It will be particularly interesting to me to see how these can be used by students with learning disabilities.

[Jackson Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a helpful, clear, and concise guide to one of the most important things that often goes under the radar: learning how to learn. This book is most specifically for people in academic contexts like middle school, high school, or university, but there are concepts that can easily translate into picking up different skills. Dr. McGuire is a learning specialist at LSU and has so many stories of experiences she had in her own academic journey, as well as stories that of success that she has had with students along the way. This book would be helpful for teachers, tutors, parents, college students, or anyone providing learning support of any kind really.

[Alverto Ortega-Garcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was average, but if you are looking for a quick read for tips and advice on studying more efficiently or learning then this is your book. This book hopes to convince you that one should not have a fixed mindset in terms of growth and success but instead a growth mindset. Provides examples of students applying techniques. Readers who have no knowledge of studying methods or want a different approach could benefit from this book.

[eliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

had to read this for my tutoring job lol. this was a quick read and had a lot of interesting graphics and activities to break up the text, but i found the tone the author used in this to be... perplexing at times. i had a good laugh at this quote "it's important to come prepared to meetings with your instructors because you do not want to be perceived as an annoyance by someone who is assigning your grades." tbh obsessed. crazy advice.

[Ruslan Dubas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teach Yourself How to Learn - has improved my learning 100% I highly recommend it to all. Learning effectively is at the base of everything and this book gives great advise and points out to great recourses. I have discovered true value of this book when I put to practice all the great advice in it. I love coming back to the text again and again! Five Stars
Ruslan Dubas Sarasota, FL

[Brit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book for a pedagogy class. In the pedagogy class, we learned how to be a "guide on the side," and this book encourages growth mindset and metacognition. This book teaches you how to support your own learning endeavors with various strategies. I'm currently rereading the growth mindset chapter.

[Carleigh Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mentor recommended this book to me and I was pleasantly surprised as to how much I enjoyed reading it. Dr. McGuires use of graphics and questions enable readers to evaluate their current strategies and areas of weakness. Her success stories are very impressive - I would recommend this book to everyone pursuing higher education and/or graduate school.

[Erika Higgins · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of these strategies were the same ones that have been repeated to students since middle school. I won’t say that it’s unhelpful, but many of the anecdotes from the author portray students as, frankly, total morons. The most helpful sections of the book were the appendices listing resources and strategies. I recommend skipping straight to those.

[Parlei · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent reduction of its more teacher-oriented version. I'm giving a copy to each one of my students and I think it will make a huge difference in helping them view what learning looks like from a teacher's POV.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can only say that I wish I’d read this book earlier in life or had mentors that could teach me how to learn. I’m really looking forward to applying the strategies in this book to advance my professional life. Thanks Saundra and Stephanie!

[Sinet Sem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short book for someone looking for strategies to help them in their learning. The author provide real life examples of how the strategies are used along with the results supporting the strategies. Otherwise, I expect to hear more from the author.

[Zac Hyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an educator in higher education, I found this book incredibly useful in working with students searching for ways to better their academics. This book clearly spells out many strategies to help student success. I believe that even young high school students should read this book.

[Sulpicia Cresswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible book for students to learn better study habits and how to approach schooling and self-teaching. I used it in a community college class and I think it made a real difference to my students!

[Danyel · Rating 4 out of 5]

really good and i had some revelations along the way. the redundancy of student/success stories got old and in the way about half way through; especially after realizing i can read them later or again at the back of the book.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very short but it was still too long for what it was trying to say. It was also very focused on actual like school education as opposed to like learning skills in general.

1 star just because its not THAT relevant to what i was looking for.

⭐️

[Solanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

- metacognition
- pretend you are going to teach material to someone else

1. preview reading and concepts
2. class
3. review notes
4. intense study session
4.1 set specifc goals
4.2 do active learning tasks
4.3 take a break
4.4 review

- this can all happen in ten minutes ( 1 min set goals, 8 mins for work, 1 min for review) but the average is 1 hour

- before you start textbook reading, ask potential questions so that way you are attempting to find the answers as you read and can stay on task

[Ryan Cohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who does all of the strategies and more provided within this book, it was pretty boring. However, I could see it being very helpful for me in the future to remember and also recommend to others. Pretty quick read too.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth sharing with my students.

[Anisley Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book to any student. It will change your life!