By James Culhane

Dr. James Culhane earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. Following the completion of his doctoral degree, he accepted a faculty appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nesbitt School of Pharmacy and Nursing at Wilkes University, where he served for 10 years. In 2008 he joined the administrative team at Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Pharmacy as the founding Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and is currently a Professor and Assistant Dean for Student Academic Success Programs. Dr. Culhane is an active member of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He also holds an advanced academic coaching certification through the National Tutoring Association. He was named several times as an American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Teacher of the Year and was the recipient of the Wilkes University Carpenter Award for excellence in teaching, service and scholarship in 2007.. Dr. Culhane’s research interests include the use of evidence-based learning strategies in studying, metacognition development and the role of academic coaching in student success. His forthcoming book, Evidence-Based Study Methods for Student Pharmacists, published by the American Pharmacists Association will feature much of the work he has done in these areas.

Several studies of undergraduate and graduate students have demonstrated that most tend to gravitate towards using ineffective and passive learning strategies to include re-reading and recopying notes, reading, highlighting and then re-reading the text, re-listening or re-watching lectures and engaging in cramming or blocking of study when they study (1) (2). In professional degree programs like pharmacy or medicine where students have to quickly learn large amounts of information, these approaches can significantly undermine the development of a durable, working knowledge base that is critical for academic success and effective patient care.

As a faculty member and academic coach, I spend considerable time helping students be more academically successful by improving their metacognition. This includes teaching them about evidence-based learning strategies like retrieval practice, spacing and elaboration and how to monitor and self-regulate their learning (3) (4). I have found that helping students to employ more effective learning strategies is not as simple as telling them to self-test more often or space out their studying so as to avoid cramming and blocking. Many need to be shown how to implement these strategies, allowed to practice and then given feedback. This is especially important when students are learning about retrieval practice.

There are three common pitfalls that I see my students fall into when they are first learning to implement retrieval practice in their study. Many will engage in retrieval immediately following restudy of information rather than spacing it out. This can create an illusion of knowledge and negates the benefits of introducing desirable difficulties into their recall practice (5). I also find that students will spend excessive time converting learning materials to other formats like flash cards in preparation for retrieval practice, rather than using that time to engage in retrieval practice.  Finally, it is not always intuitive to my students that tracking and monitoring the success of their retrieval practice can help provide them with valuable data to gauge the success of their learning and regulate future study.

My students and I have developed an easy to learn and implement methodology for operationalizing retrieval practice, which we call the Boxing Technique. It can be used on any Word or Power Point based learning materials, and can help students to track and monitor their learning in real time, so that they can make more strategic decisions about future study.

To implement the Boxing Technique students must first open a Word or Power Point file that contains information from class that they need to learn. For this example, we will use Power Point slides. As the student goes through each slide they are instructed to critically read and evaluate the information. As part of the evaluation, the student should attempt to briefly summarize important concepts on the slide or page and identify what key concepts need to be learned. Once this has been achieved a blue “box” (square or rectangle) is drawn over information contained in the slide. Students are encouraged to use blue boxes when they initially cover up information as this color designates that active recall on this information has not yet been attempted.

Once the information to be retrieved is “boxed out”, the student can add retrieval cues to the blue boxes. Retrieval cues are statements or questions that direct the student in their recall. Depending on the nature of the material and the instructor’s learning objectives, retrieval cues can direct the student to recall basic facts, demonstrate an understanding of concepts or how to apply them. They can also be used to test a student’s ability to use concepts and information to analyze, evaluate or create (6). Developing effective retrieval cues is also an important part of learning the information as it encourages students to identify important concepts and predict, based on learning objectives and what was taught in class, how they might be tested.  As their learning becomes more sophisticated, students are encouraged to increase the complexity and difficulty of their cues. In addition, when creating retrieval cues there is a tremendous opportunity for students to tap into other evidence=based learning strategies. For example, they can develop retrieval cues that encourage elaboration, identify concrete examples or engage in dual coding.

Once the boxes and retrieval cues are created, students are now ready to engage in active recall. To do this, they simply attempt to answer the retrieval cues in the boxes by recalling facts and information or using elaboration to explain more complex topics or applying information. Immediately following a retrieval attempt, the blue box is moved to the side and the student checks their answer for depth, breadth and accuracy. Based on their retrieval success they will then change the color of the box from blue to either green, yellow or red. A green box indicates complete and accurate recall of information, understanding or utilization of information. A yellow box indicates partial retrieval success and a red box indicates no success.

The color-coding system allows students to track their learning by generating visual data that will help them to quickly identify areas of strength and weakness. This is especially useful in PowerPoint when the slide sorter view is used. The slide sorter view gives the student a “birds eye view” of all of the slides and colored boxes in a presentation. In the example below, it is easy to see that the student has quite a bit of work yet to do on this material. There are very few green boxes and many yellow and red ones. Additionally, the blue boxes indicate that the student has not yet attempted active recall on information in slides 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

The visual information generated by the Boxing Technique helps students to avoid poor judgements of learning by teaching them to rely on actual data (colored boxes) rather than their feelings to gauge the extent of their learning. Additionally, many of my students report reduced pre-exam anxiety as the data takes out much of the guesswork associated with exam preparation.

References:

1. Kornell, N. Bjork, R. The promise and perils of self-regulated study. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 2007, 14 (2), 219-224.

2. Persky, A. Hudson, S. A snapshot of student study strategies across a professional pharmacy curriculum: Are students using evidence-based practice? Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning. (2016) 8,141–147.

3. Dunlosky, J. et al. Improving Students’ Learning with Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 2013. 14(1) 40-58.

4. Dunlosky, J. Strengthening the Student Toolbox: Study Strategies to Boost Learning. American Educator. Fall 2013. 12-21.

5. Bjork, R. A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual Review of Psychology. 2013. 64, 417–444.

6. Anderson LW, Krathwohl D. A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Allyn & Bacon.  Boston, MA; 2001.