What the Best College Students Do

Psychologist Carol Dweck defines a growth mindset as one in which people “believe that they can master something and grow in their abilities if they try” (109). A growth mindset counters the common belief that human intelligence is fixed and that there’s only so much a given person can learn. Instead, intelligence is like a muscle that grows with use. Thus, students who initially struggle with a subject can, with persistence, learn to master that material. This applies as well to students from populations who have been told they’re not smart enough. The idea is that knowledge, understanding, and mastery are open to anyone willing to do the work to achieve them, especially if they adopt a growth-mindset attitude. 

Well-structured problems have straightforward answers. One plus one equals two. The sun rises in the east. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. Ill-structured problems are messy and have no easy answers. They involve complex issues, many dealing with moral quandaries, whose causes and solutions are complex and impossible to solve neatly: “What caused the Civil War? What causes overpopulation? Should we vaccinate everyone against an epidemic, even if some will suffer severe allergic reactions to the vaccine?” (135). Many such problems involve controversial issues of justice that require complex political solutions. 

In Paul Baker’s classes in Texas at Baylor and Trinity universities, lines, space, motion, time, and silhouette were the five basic facets of the real world that students explored to increase their creative abilities. Through various exercises—walking across a stage, drawing a sketch, writing a journal—students altered their perception of patterns, movement, rhythms, and colors. This process loosened up the students’ overly regimented viewpoints and attitudes: “they slowly realized the unique qualities they could bring to any of these dimensions. They began to value the creative process as the central core of their own education” (19). 

Psychologist Kristin Neff developed a system for nurturing the self when times get tough that she calls “self-compassion.” The first part is “self-kindness,” which primarily involves not being “harshly self-critical.” The next part is “common humanity”: “whatever pain or failure you may face, others have gone through something similar” (172). The third part is mindfulness, or “acknowledging ‘painful thoughts and feelings’ but not ‘over-identifying with them’” (172). Students stressed by the demands of study often beat themselves up; if they practice these three steps, their anxiety will decline, and their ability to cope with pressure and disappointment will improve.  

Often, students believe their abilities are fixed—either they’re smart or they aren’t—and that problems they struggle with are proof of their limitations. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is the belief that one has the skills and the ability to solve problems: “People who overcome failure possess strong measures of self-efficacy” (118). Built into self-efficacy is the idea that intelligence isn’t a fixed resource but can grow with effort and practice, and that problems currently beyond reach will later succumb to improved abilities and skills. 

Researchers Patricia King and Karen Kitchener suggest that thinking advances in seven stages, like a ladder with seven steps, from the most basic ideas to “reflective judgments.” At the lowest rung, people think in terms of simple knowledge; on the next level up, they search for answers from authorities. Level three is the realization that authority isn’t absolute and that evidence matters. On the fourth step, knowledge seems awash in uncertainty. At step five, perspective is all that matters. Step six is where minds begin to assemble the many viewpoints and accumulation of evidence.

The top, or seventh, level is “reasonable inquiry”: The arguments are organized with a view to arriving at a rational conclusion based on evidence without personal bias and are evaluated based “how well thought-out the positions are, what kinds of reasoning and evidence are used to support it, and how consistent the way one argues on this topic is as compared with how one argues on other topics” (155). 

The brain tends to forget facts quickly unless it’s tested. Each successful answer reinforces a memory so that it lasts longer. Thus, the best way to lock in knowledge is to test it right away at first—after a few minutes—and then a few hours after that, then a few days later, and so on. If practiced throughout a course of study, this spaced-learning technique gives the student a leg up on preparing for tests. A number of computer apps automate this process; they include Anki, SuperMemo, and Quizlet. 

Some students study their course materials with a view toward learning the facts that will impress the teacher, earn good test scores, and garner academic awards. This approach, strategic learning, is designed to maximize career opportunities and open the door to high-paying jobs. Its weaknesses are that it sidesteps the opportunity to understand deeply the material under study, and it trains the student to avoid risky, creative efforts that can pay off later on the job. A better method is deep learning, which tends to reward students with good, if not perfect, grades, and instills in them in an inspired, questing approach to problem solving that can lead to greatness in later years.