In a recent opinion piece for The Conversation, Deena Kara Shaffer (Toronto Metropolitan University) discusses how students must be taught how to learn in order to improve student retention rates. Students who were preparing to enter postsecondary education during the pandemic often demonstrate notable learning gaps, explains Shaffer, including gaps in their understanding of how to learn from a university-level course structure. The author writes that these students benefit from initiatives that help them to develop their learning strategies for planning and prioritization, note-taking, studying and test-taking, and research and groupwork. Shaffer writes that more explicit education on how to learn could help improve student retention across the institution.
