A Guide to Study Skills – Strategies, Techniques, and Insights into Teaching Study Skills

A Guide to Study Skills - Strategies, Techniques, and Insights into Teaching Study Skills

[00:00:00] Narrator: You're listening to The Teaching Toolbox with Brittany and Ellie. Join them as they talk all things middle school.

[00:00:20] Ellie: Welcome to another exciting Teaching Toolbox podcast episode. I am one of your hosts, Ellie, and I'm here with Brittany.

[00:00:28] Brittany: Hello.

[00:00:30] Ellie: Together we've spent over five decades in the world of education shaping the minds of countless students. Today we're diving deep into a topic at the core of what we do as teachers, teaching study skills.

[00:00:41] Ellie: But this isn't your typical study skills lecture. We're not here to bore you with long lists of do's and don'ts. Instead, we've got a journey. To transform your students into motivated independent learners. In today's episode, we will share the keys to helping your students ACE exams and empower them to become lifelong learners.

[00:01:00] Ellie: We'll reveal specific strategies, techniques, and insights you can use to supercharge your teaching toolkit. Let's get started.

P1 - What are Study Skills?

[00:01:10] Ellie: So Brittany, what do you think of when we say study skills?

[00:01:14] Brittany: So, I'm gonna be honest here. I went out of college and

[00:01:19] Brittany: straight into a little tiny charter school that had no curriculum, nothing.

[00:01:26] Ellie: Oh boy.

[00:01:27] Brittany: And so I, when people said study skills, I, I didn't know what that meant. 'cause everything we had, we had to create on our own.

[00:01:39] Ellie: Mm-Hmm,

[00:01:40] Brittany: And so I thought study skills was basically the same as like I had used in college.

[00:01:46] Brittany: It was like A-P-S-A-T book or a, you know, a Just a prep book where you picked up a booklet and it had tons of problems in it. I didn't realize that there was so much more to study skills at that time.

[00:02:01] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:02:02] Brittany: And so it took quite a few years for me to realize how intricate and deep study skills can be for students.

[00:02:11] Ellie: Okay. Yeah, thinking back to when I was in college, I can't remember very well whether or not I used any specific study strategies, like I think for . Maybe Spanish. I used span, you know, flashcards that I made or rewriting notes or things like that. But I don't know how many different things I actually used when I was in college either.

[00:02:35] Ellie: But I was pretty lucky in the first couple years of my teaching career. Our team of fifth grade teachers at the time put together a big study skills packet for our students that had all kinds of different strategies in there. So fairly early on in my teaching career, I was lucky to have that benefit and, and have other people that were also focusing on that.

[00:02:54] Brittany: That's great.

[00:02:55] Ellie: Yeah. So what exactly are study skills then, if it's not just going through practice problems?

[00:03:03] Brittany: Well, I think it's flashcards.

[00:03:05] Ellie: I think quizzing other people like taking your own information that you're supposed to be studying but asking other people about it or telling other people about it, even though it might not seem like a study skill, it's definitely studying 'cause you're teaching it or asking other people about it

[00:03:19] Brittany: Yeah. Repeated review.

[00:03:23] Brittany: Just reviewing.

[00:03:23] Ellie: day after day

[00:03:24] Brittany: Yeah,

[00:03:25] Ellie: That kind of thing.

[00:03:26] Brittany: over and over and over.

[00:03:27] Ellie: Okay. How about maybe using color,

[00:03:30] Brittany: I love,

[00:03:31] Brittany: I love color coding things. Yeah, that's a

[00:03:34] Brittany: big one.

[00:03:34] Ellie: Okay. Yeah.

[00:03:37] Brittany: Mnemonics.

[00:03:40] Ellie: Mnemonics. Yeah. I guess we'll get more into that as we, as we go through this, to give specific examples. Um, chunking is good,

[00:03:48] Brittany: Yep.

[00:03:49] Ellie: your information. Even like if you're learning to spell chunking the words.

[00:03:53] Brittany: Breaking things into timelines and adjusting things based on time.

[00:04:00] Ellie: Okay. And even practicing within time limits, right? Especially if you're thinking about a test that might be timed. So practicing within there. All right?

[00:04:10] Brittany: Time can be very but I think it really, you know, it's the reality of life and so we get

[00:04:16] Ellie: Hmm.

[00:04:16] Brittany: used to it.

[00:04:17] Ellie: That is true. That's true.

[00:04:19] Ellie: All right, so there are so many strategies and we're gonna talk about very specific examples of some of these,

P2 - Why do we want to use study skills?

[00:04:25] Ellie: but why do we wanna do that in the first place? What's the point of having these study skills?

[00:04:31] Brittany: Well, it definitely improves academic performance. You're gonna get higher scores from your students, which may in help you as a teacher if you're in that kind of district.

[00:04:44] Ellie: Hmm.

[00:04:44] Brittany: But it's also gonna help the students in a lot of different ways. So, teaching study skills helps students manage their time, helps them take organized notes.

[00:04:58] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:05:00] Brittany: different strategies for active learning. It helps them practice self-assessment so that they're better prepared for exams when those come around, I think they become efficient and effective learners leading to improved grades a deeper understanding of the subject matter. So this. This success of in their study boosts their confidence because overall they're doing as a

[00:05:35] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:05:35] Brittany: student

[00:05:36] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:05:36] Brittany: and they get a more positive attitude towards learning. So, so overall it's going to them with time management. It's going to make them a more active learner. It's gonna help them with note taking and organization with critical thinking skills, with their own test preparation and self-assessment. It can reduce stress and anxiety. It can give them and consistency and just better skills within themselves for responsibility. And then it can give them some self-assessment and feedback when that, when those test scores come back in.

[00:06:25] Ellie: Awesome. Those are fantastic benefits of learning study skills. It just hits you all around as a student and so. As you said, it's not just preparing them for their tests, it's giving them the tools that they're gonna need to be lifelong learners, right? So when they master their study skills, they develop the ability to be independent, to acquire information independently, to apply that knowledge throughout their lives.

[00:06:50] Ellie: And that gets them on the path of continuous self-improvement, always being able to learn, enabling them to adapt to new challenges. New opportunities long after they leave your classroom and potentially when they're entering the, the job force, plays a, a vital role in shaping individuals into lifelong learners for a few reasons.

[00:07:10] Ellie: When they're taught study skills, they gain exposure to various effective learning strategies, and the strategies often include techniques for active reading, critical thinking, and problem solving. Those skills go beyond memorizing and wrote learning and teach students how to engage with and understand the material very deeply. These skills are not just applicable to school subjects, but can be transferred to various aspects of life. As we said, fostering a natural inclination toward continuous learning.

P3 - Strategies for Teaching Study Skills

[00:07:40] Ellie: So thinking about active reading, critical thinking, problem solving, do you have any particular strategies that you might have used to help students in those areas?

[00:07:50] Brittany: I like to teach students how to break down a question or a problem like circling the underlining the words after the verb, what the verb is asking you to do,

[00:08:04] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:08:05] Brittany: Boxing, any words that are important to the question so that you're really focusing in on what you're being asked to do, because it, becomes critical for a student as they get older and older to know the difference between When a question asks you to examine versus identify.

[00:08:27] Brittany: You know, examine is asking you to really look at and explain things. Where identify is just asking you to, to notice and, and give, just give the details of,

[00:08:42] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:08:42] Brittany: not really explain it.

[00:08:44] Brittany: So those kind of key words, Can really just change the question. And so it's important for kids to see those words and know what they're dealing with.

[00:08:55] Ellie: Right, right. That makes sense. There are times that students do need to memorize things or remember things specifically for assessments. And so we've got some very specific strategies we can talk about there too. I have a wonderful book. It's called Special Needs in the General Classroom - Strategies That Make It Work.

[00:09:16] Ellie: And although this book is entitled Special Needs there are strategies and things in here that apply to every single student in every classroom. And there's a wonderful chapter that is called Strategies to Enhance Memorization and Recall. So there are a bunch of ideas in here, and I'll just mention a few of them.

[00:09:36] Ellie: We can talk about a few of them. One of them is to use mind mapping where students can map out the main ideas and details of a concept. And so if they're trying to review for a test or just kind of get the information into their head a little bit better, they can make a mind map. They can put the main concepts on there and the details that they can recall.

[00:09:57] Ellie: They can draw some little pictures to help generate a connection in their, in their mind to help it make it more memorable. And they can make other little notes in there. And that just gives the information a, a visual that they can remember, that they can connect with. And then if they're kind of testing themselves, they could take that mind map and compare it to the information that was in the book, or the information that was in the notes, and see what did they get, what did they remember, and then maybe what did they miss? And they could add that to their mind map and then use that to study. According to the book and other research, when students draw, it does help them to learn. A quick practice you could use in the classroom.

[00:10:36] Ellie: It's not exactly the, the studying part, but in the classroom when you're teaching, you could teach for 10 minutes or so and then stop and have students draw what you were teaching about and that would kind of build that mind mapping, drawing strategy on a regular basis.

[00:10:52] Ellie: So when they go ahead and use it to study for a test, it's something that they're, they're used to doing. So, so mind mapping and, and incorporating some drawings is one great idea that's in there.

[00:11:05] Brittany: That's awesome. Very neat. Yes. I think along the lines of the memorization, I just saw last night on the news

[00:11:16] Brittany: that a lot of are asking for and putting back in place the old. The old school memorization that maybe we used to do when we were in school of Timestables. And,

[00:11:34] Brittany: you know, memorize your timestables, memorize your explorers, memorize your great lakes, you know,

[00:11:42] Brittany: and those . ,

[00:11:43] Brittany: Those kind of things are actually coming back into the classroom you can't teach a kid pre-algebra or calculus if they don't know what two times seven is.

[00:11:55] Ellie: No

[00:11:55] Brittany: And so

[00:11:57] Ellie: And there is something,

[00:11:58] Brittany: yeah.

[00:11:58] Brittany: If

[00:11:58] Brittany: they're constantly

[00:11:59] Brittany: having to hunt for the basic answers,

[00:12:03] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:12:03] Brittany: you can't build Uh, bigger skills

[00:12:07] Brittany: and so

[00:12:08] Brittany: memorization is starting to come back

[00:12:11] Brittany: in.

[00:12:11] Brittany: And so that's, it's kind of off topic a little bit, but yet sort of related.

[00:12:16] Brittany: Yeah.

[00:12:16] Ellie: Because honestly, it is a brain exercise.

[00:12:20] Brittany: Mm-Hmm.

[00:12:21] Ellie: I mean, there's something to be said in the, like getting off topic about the multiplication tables and you know, thinking, okay, we want them to understand the strategies. We want them to understand how they got there. Absolutely. But then they're, they do need to use their brain for that type of exercise because it makes the brain stronger.

[00:12:40] Brittany: Yeah, it makes your brain

[00:12:41] Brittany: grow and stretch and

[00:12:42] Brittany: yeah,

[00:12:43] Ellie: right.

[00:12:44] Brittany: All right. So another study strategy you can use is mnemonic devices like phrases, words, can help remember key facts, or key information that you are trying to teach like HOMES.

[00:12:58] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:12:58] Brittany: teaches the kids the Great Lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. They're not in that order across the United States, but it gets them the names of the lakes.

[00:13:11] Ellie: But if you wanted to remember them in the order, you could probably come up with a different device,

[00:13:18] Brittany: Mm-Hmm?

[00:13:18] Ellie: maybe a sentence or something that would help you remember the order

[00:13:23] Ellie: and

[00:13:23] Ellie: the names. Sorry, go ahead,

[00:13:26] Brittany: And there's, "I am a person." for the oceans. I haven't heard that one, Ellie. Did you come up with that one?

[00:13:34] Ellie: I did not, I found that in the book that I referenced. Yeah,

[00:13:37] Ellie: so so Indian . Atlantic Arctic Pacific

[00:13:42] Brittany: Oh,

[00:13:42] Ellie: it had in there for the oceans. "I am a person." IAAP for the first letter of each word of the sentence gives you the different ocean names.

[00:13:53] Brittany: Okay, but now there's a Southern Ocean, so we've gotta add an an S word

[00:13:57] Brittany: on

[00:13:58] Ellie: the book was written in 2005, so

[00:14:00] Brittany: true. Okay.

[00:14:01] Ellie: it is a little bit older. Yeah. So we could make up something different

[00:14:04] Brittany: So "

[00:14:05] Brittany: Surely, I am a person." There we

[00:14:07] Ellie: There you go. Perfect.

[00:14:09] Brittany: And then we have acrostics, like, "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally," for the order operations where you parentheses, exponents, multiplication division together,

[00:14:19] Ellie: Exactly.

[00:14:21] Brittany: addition subtraction together.

[00:14:23] Ellie: Right. Exactly. Yep. So you gotta put, "my dear," and, "Aunt Sally," close together so

[00:14:28] Brittany: yes.

[00:14:28] Ellie: mix up that order.

[00:14:31] Brittany: Students can also come up with these on own. And know, if wanna learn the digits of pie,

[00:14:39] Ellie: Hmm.

[00:14:39] Brittany: You know. They go 3.1 4 1 5 9. You can do a three letter word, then a one letter word, then a four

[00:14:46] Brittany: letter word,

[00:14:48] Ellie: Okay.

[00:14:48] Brittany: that kind of thing. Or

[00:14:50] Brittany: you could

[00:14:50] Brittany: do it by, something else.

[00:14:53] Brittany: So

[00:14:54] Brittany: Mnemonics or acrostics are a great way to just have fun and do some kind of silly thing in classroom

[00:15:03] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:15:03] Brittany: and get the the study skills and memory going.

[00:15:06] Ellie: Right. Excellent. All right. Another important thing to help us in study is the use of color. In the book I mentioned, she quotes Brain-based learning book, in which Eric Jensen stated that we remember colors first and content next. So colors affect us on both a physiological and psychological level according to that research.

[00:15:31] Ellie: And so you can add color to your notes or your handouts. You can have kids highlight things in a certain color, they can do it on their own to associate this specific color with this specific idea. You can use alternating colors for different points or different concepts. According to the research that she talks about, color enhances learning and improves retention by more than 75%.

[00:15:54] Ellie: So using color in the notes and in learning in general, is very, very beneficial. It can potentially speed up the study time, because if they're associating something with a color and they, they remember it that much more quickly, it speeds up the amount of time they have to spend studying or shortens up the amount of time they have to spend studying because they've got it.

[00:16:14] Ellie: Not exactly on study skills, but related to color. I recently heard a tip that if you wanna be less engaged with your cell phone because, cell phones are very engaging, change the setting on there to gray scale and take out the color. It's a, that would be a great tip for students who wanna spend less time on their phones.

[00:16:33] Ellie: Without the color, the phone is less engaging and then the desire to stay on the phone will likely go down. So color is so powerful.

[00:16:42] Brittany: I love using color for different things,

[00:16:44] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:16:45] Brittany: we will likely touch that topic again.

[00:16:48] Ellie: I'm sure.

[00:16:50] Brittany: Another great study technique is a three card match review. You provide the students with cards or they make them themselves when they're studying. One card can be the word or concept. one is a picture or a mnemonic, and then the third card would be the definition, the description, the math formula, something like that. Then once all the cards are created, students put them together on the surface, face up, and then they try to match them. And the back of the cards would all have a number on them so students can flip them over to see if their match was correct. Obviously if the students make the cards themselves, they're gonna retain that information better because they're more hands-on the information and learning from it, rather than you just printing 'em out and handing them to 'em.

[00:17:44] Ellie: Awesome. Most of these study skills are things that don't require technology, but these days we do have more things that, you know, we can incorporate technology. So do you have any specific ideas or things that you liked that might be helpful for study skills that use technology.

[00:18:01] Brittany: I love Quizlet

[00:18:03] Ellie: Hmm

[00:18:04] Brittany: Quizlet's, like a flash card program.

[00:18:06] Brittany: You just enter

[00:18:06] Ellie: mm-Hmm.

[00:18:07] Brittany: your terms and then your definitions. And you can practice your flashcards over and over and you can enter pictures and that sort of thing as well. My daughter uses Quizlet endlessly. You can make one Quizlet and you can share it out among a class.

[00:18:27] Ellie: Oh, okay.

[00:18:28] Brittany: She often does that, just to be nice to her classmates.

[00:18:31] Ellie: Aw,

[00:18:31] Ellie: That's awesome.

[00:18:32] Brittany: And so she'll make Quizlets for every chapter or every topic that they're studying and then shares 'em with the class. And by the end of the semester, she might have like a thousand different flashcards for her

[00:18:44] Ellie: Oh my

[00:18:45] Ellie: gosh.

[00:18:45] Brittany: Yeah.

[00:18:47] Brittany: It helps her study so quickly and she can do it in the car, on her phone as we're driving around town and she can rapidly go through them it just helps her so quickly.

[00:18:58] Ellie: That's nice. That comment about doing it in the car as you're going around town leads us pretty nicely into some ideas about time management and organization with their study skills. That's something that is great to focus on when you're talking about study skills because sometimes students don't really understand how much time they need or when they can study or what they should work on first.

[00:19:21] Brittany: Yes.

[00:19:23] Ellie: So if I could share, for quite a few years, I used to spend time teaching students how to plan when to do their homework and study as part of our study skills, because for quite a few years I would have students come in and say, well, I couldn't, I couldn't get my homework done, or I couldn't study because I had this event, or I had to go to my brother's soccer practice, or my sister had a violin lesson, or whatever the case was, or my mom took me to the store.

[00:19:50] Ellie: Things like that. And so. I made a week at a glance type of sheet for students and had them block off the times that they knew they had afterschool activities, or even when their siblings had afterschool activities that they were gonna have to go to 'cause they couldn't stay home alone. And that way they could see what open times they had for studying or their homework.

[00:20:11] Ellie: And if they had so many things on the schedule, we would talk about the idea of taking the homework in the car. Doing things in the car, maybe, you know, quizzing your parents or quizzing your brother or sister when you're in the car. And if it was a sibling's activity, they'd take the homework along and they could work on it while their sibling was doing whatever it was, instead of waiting until everything was done to go home and start working on the homework and stuff like that.

[00:20:35] Ellie: So if there were projects or . A test coming up, I would encourage them to put those on their calendar as well so they could kind of work backwards and see, I need to review this many days in advance and put that on the calendar, or I need to work on the project for this many days. That type of thing. And that was really helpful.

[00:20:54] Ellie: They really appreciated that. 'cause they never really thought about about doing that.

[00:20:58] Brittany: Yeah, that's cool. would teach the kids how to prioritize.

[00:21:02] Ellie: Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:03] Brittany: We would take their homework assignments and we would go through them with green, yellow, and red highlighters.

[00:21:08] Ellie: Oh.

[00:21:09] Brittany: And whatever was due that night got highlighted red

[00:21:14] Ellie: mm-Hmm.

[00:21:14] Brittany: and or that day, the next day. And then whatever was due in like in two days or three days that they maybe had a little time on highlighted yellow. And then whatever was, you know, a long ways away or was the parent's responsibility like, I need lunch money. You know, that kind of thing was highlighted green.

[00:21:38] Brittany: And so they could go quickly down their planner and see, okay, I need to tackle the red things first I, and then I need to tackle the yellow things and so forth. But doing things in the car is how my son... survived lementary survived elementary and middle school

[00:21:56] Brittany: because my daughter is seven years younger than my son,

[00:22:00] Ellie: Hmm.

[00:22:00] Brittany: and so our commute to school was an hour one way between

[00:22:07] Brittany: dropping her off at daycare and then getting all the way up to where our school was,

[00:22:12] Ellie: Wow.

[00:22:12] Brittany: And so,

[00:22:14] Brittany: we we would do, spelling words in the car,

[00:22:17] Brittany: math practice, in the car, everything

[00:22:20] Brittany: in the car together As I'm driving, I, I would have a little, a little tiny strip of paper,

[00:22:26] Brittany: you know, next to me, um, on the left hand side of the car taped to the dashboard.

[00:22:33] Brittany: And I would just give him spelling words

[00:22:35] Brittany: or math practice or history terms, and he would have to Recite things to

[00:22:41] Brittany: me. So that's how he survived elementary and middle school.

[00:22:44] Ellie: Honestly, that's how like my kids learned their multiplication facts because that's what we would do as we would drive, we would do the multiplication facts and things like that. And I remember quizzing them on spelling too.

[00:22:53] Brittany: Yeah.

[00:22:54] Brittany: Yep.

[00:22:56] Ellie: Excellent. So by teaching them these study skills, we are encouraging self-directed learning.

[00:23:03] Ellie: It empowers them to take ownership of their education by helping them set goals, help helping them seek, learn to seek out resources and monitor their own progress. And, the sense of self, self-regulation instills a sense of responsibility and independence, which are some fundamental attributes of lifelong learners who actively seek out knowledge and growth opportunities throughout their lives.

[00:23:26] Ellie: Did you do anything in particular as far as monitoring progress, having students monitor their own progress?

[00:23:32] Brittany: I took this formative assessment course as part of it, we learned better to instill some self-assessment into the classroom.

[00:23:42] Brittany: And so we would give these, we would give every student a sheet of paper that had many, uh, bullet points or, or. Terms that we wanted kids to learn. So for instance, if we're in math and we're in the fractions unit, we might have adding fractions, subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions, dividing fractions. So on the sheet we're gonna have four columns.

[00:24:11] Ellie: Okay.

[00:24:11] Brittany: The columns are gonna step up, so they're gonna slightly get longer every time. And at the top of each column, gonna have a light bulb or a book or a calculator or something related to your subject. Something just kind of fun for the kids.

[00:24:27] Brittany: , and the kids will write down in each column. The topic that they're covering, so that in the first column they would write adding fractions, and the second column they would write subtracting fractions and so on. so then as they're learning how to add fractions, start coloring in that column they start to feel more and more comfortable with. the procedure and how to do it.

[00:24:56] Brittany: And so when they feel like they have mastery, then they get to color in the light bulb or the book or the calculator at the top of the column.

[00:25:03] Brittany: And so by the time they've achieved mastery of the whole sheet, then they should be ready to test.

[00:25:11] Ellie: Awesome.

[00:25:12] Brittany: And so testing kind of. Evolved more into being in their hands rather than on a set date.

[00:25:19] Ellie: Okay.

[00:25:20] Brittany: But that's how we self-assessment and, stuff. It

[00:25:25] Brittany: made kids a lot more responsible in the classroom,

[00:25:28] Ellie: Ooh, that's awesome.

[00:25:29] Ellie: Excellent. So once they learn some of these skills in one subject area, . You know, it gives them the ability to adapt those skills into different areas, different subjects, different environments. And they learn how to approach different types of content, whether it's, you know, their math, their fractions, a history textbook, a science article, um, or other more complicated math problems.

[00:25:50] Ellie: And that adaptability is crucial in a world where this information is constantly evolving as it allows individuals to tackle new topics with confidence and curiosity.

[00:26:03] Brittany: Yes, so teaching study skills also promotes resilience. A growth mindset.

[00:26:10] Ellie: Hmm mm.

[00:26:11] Brittany: Students understand that setbacks and failures are opportunities for growth and improvement, that it doesn't define them, that it's just a stop along the way. This mindset is essential for lifelong learning it encourages individuals to persist through challenges. They hit a challenge and they have to keep going. They view failure not as a stopping point, but as a learning experience, and they continuously strive to enhance their skills and their knowledge.

[00:26:44] Ellie: Excellent. Yeah. We've got so many benefits of learning the study skills,

[00:26:49] Ellie: and I did wanna note, the book that I referenced earlier, this author has other books, but she has a second book, that she wrote with her daughter. And this one is called, "Um, Studying, What Is That?" And that one is a book for high school and college students who are maybe overwhelmed and frustrated by all the studying that they have to do and giving them some more strategies and techniques to use.

[00:27:11] Ellie: And even though it is labeled as high school and college. There are definitely ideas in there that would be great for middle schoolers as well, so we'll link both of those books up in the show notes.

[00:27:22] Brittany: Alright, so in summary, study skills goes beyond just prepping students for exams. It equips them with a mindset and a skillset that paves the way for a lifetime of learning by teaching effective learning strategies, time management. Self-directed learning, and resilience. Educators empower students to embrace learning as a lifelong pursuit, enabling them to thrive in an ever-changing world.

[00:27:54] Ellie: And so there you have it. We have explored the power of teaching study skills, and it's safe to say that this is more than just another teaching technique. It's the cornerstone of building brilliant self-sufficient minds. Teaching study skills encourages independence and responsibility, as we talked about.

[00:28:12] Ellie: And by giving students these skills or sharing these skills with them, you guide them toward self-regulation, allowing them to take control of their learning. They are . Becoming accountable for setting goals, managing their time, and seeking out resources for improvement. The sense of ownership, over their learning, not only benefits their academic journey, but also helps them develop crucial life skills like problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making.

[00:28:37] Ellie: As you take these insights and strategies back to your classroom, remember you're not just teaching subjects. You're guiding your students on a lifelong journey of discovery and personal growth. By empowering them with the tools to learn effectively and independently, you're providing them with a gift that will serve them well beyond the walls of your classroom.

[00:28:55] Brittany: Thank you for joining us on this enlightening episode of The Teaching Toolbox. We will be back with more inspiration and insights to help you become the best educator you can be. Until next time, keep inspiring, keep teaching, and keep unleashing the future.

[00:29:10] Ellie: And remember to check out the show notes for everything mentioned in this episode. See you next time.

[00:29:16] Brittany: Bye.