Tanya Griffin, a faculty member at Johnson County Community College (JCCC), has taught learning strategies in the College Success Department for the last five years. Tonight and tomorrow, Griffin’s 11-year-old daughter will compete against 243 student spelling champions from across the country in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, using strategies her mom teaches in her College Success courses.
Beckett, Griffin’s daughter and a local elementary school student, has spent the last year preparing for the Bee with coaching from her mom. Griffin said she used many of the concepts taught in her JCCC courses to help her daughter study the 4,000 words on the Scripps list.
Learning strategies
Griffin teaches two unique classes at JCCC – College Success Strategies and College Study Strategies. These courses help students understand their learning styles and offer key strategies in time management, memory techniques, and study skills – all of which help a student succeed both in and out of the classroom. And the credits earned in these classes often count toward the students’ degrees.
To help Beckett, Griffin started the same way she does at the start of each semester. Just like with her college students, Griffin helped her daughter set a goal, plan how much time each day she would need to spend to achieve the goal, and the steps she needed to take in order to get there.
Griffin said the number one tactic that helped her daughter — and that helps her current college students — is distributed learning. Distributed learning breaks up a large project (like learning to spell 4,000 words or studying for a licensure exam) into smaller pieces, which helps the student to actually retain the information. Beckett started by practicing about 70 words each night to support her goal of winning her school bee, then her regional spelling bee, and, finally, qualifying for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Defining your learning style
Once Beckett started to progress on the Scripps list, Griffin prompted her to think about studying outcomes and evaluating which strategies worked and which did not. Her daughter will be able to take this knowledge of her personal learning style and apply it to meeting goals across the rest of her life.
Griffin is a big proponent of students finding out their personal learning style – it’s a large focus in her courses. “One of the biggest problems for students is that they are taught to study to do well on a test,” said Griffin. “I try and teach students to study in the way that you learn. This way, instead of learning to forget once the test is over, students can understand and retain the material long-term.”
Griffin shared that the big four learning styles are visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic (doing). Determining which style works best will help a student figure out how best to receive new information and then how to study it to both retain the information and pass their courses.
Often, Griffin hears from her students that their teachers’ learning styles do not match their own, and she has tips for managing this, too. If a student is having trouble understanding course material, she suggests they ask their professors for recommendations on alternate formats to learn, like podcasts, video, or hands-on group projects. Nine times out of 10, the faculty member will be happy to help and glad to be asked.
Lifelong tools for learning
Beckett isn’t the only student who will be using Griffin’s learning strategies in the future. Griffin often hears from former students who have graduated about how taking her class helped them.
Mason A., a former JCCC student who transferred to the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, said, “Professor Griffin’s class taught me that there are many ways to solve a challenge and not give up right away. Whether it was taking notes over multiple pages of a textbook using a method she showed us or developing a growth mindset, I learned to navigate obstacles, like how to advocate for my need for accommodations with my learning disability and find the right people to support me.”
Learn more
Studies have shown that students who learn and apply academic strategies through JCCC’s College Success courses have higher GPAs, are more likely to graduate, and report feeling less stress in their college journey.
For more information on the College Success program at Johnson County Community College, please visit JCCC’s website or contact 913-469-8500, ext. 3335.
