Angelo and Cross (Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 1993) suggest using this assessment activity to help students reflect on the learning strategies they use during class. This activity works best for a course, or portion of a course, that has a significant amount of lecture. This is also a good activity to use with students who are new to college or if the instructor notices many off-task students in class.

How it works:  The instructor proceeds with a lecture or demonstration as planned. After about 10 minutes, the instructor pauses and asks students to get out a scrap piece of paper. Students are to write down what they were doing during the previous 10 minutes. The following prompts might be used:

• Were you concentrating on the lecture? If not, what distracted you? How did you get your attention back on the lecture?
• Did you take notes or capture your learning from the lecture in some way? Looking back, do they make sense?
• How did you seek out connections with this new material and what you learned previously in this course? In other courses?
• What do you anticipate will come next in this lecture / demonstration?

These initial responses are not collected. The instructor then proceeds with the lecture as planned. After another twenty minutes, the instructor repeats the activity above and lets students know they will be collecting students’ responses. After reviewing students’ written responses, the instructor provides a summary to students of what helped students concentrate on the lecture to generate ideas and strategies for use in the future. The instructor may also use this as an opportunity to identify or decrease distractions in the learning environment (such as extraneous materials on handouts, noise from an open window, etc.). Optionally, the instructor could include a discussion of the findings from this activity with a presentation on strategies and techniques for how to learn effectively and avoid distractions in class.

This activity can be extended by repeating it throughout a semester and asking students to keep their responses in a journal or folder and to periodically refer to earlier points in the semester to see if they have made progress on improving their learning strategies. While this assessment activity may not contribute significantly to students’ grades, it is a powerful strategy to support students’ ability to reflect on their learning strategies and reduce distractions during class.

In my first full-time position at a university, my supervisor would often tell me she was too busy to meet with me to work on my project because all her time was needed for putting out fires. These were not literal fires (the only thing ever on fire in the office was the occasional bag of popcorn), but fires in the sense that she was responding to issues that had to be addressed right away. At another institution, an associate dean I worked with told me he worked best only when there was a fire, and that he would not start working on a project until the day it was due. Not surprisingly, his work often appeared hurried, incomplete, haphazard, and late. He felt like he thrived when working on a project at the last minute (or perhaps he was hoping projects would have extended deadlines or be cancelled), but it resulted in poor quality results. The Baldrige Excellence Framework calls this approach to work “Reacting to Problems.” The problem with this approach, as described above, is that it is inefficient and ineffective (and there is the damage caused by the “fire”).

The next step in moving toward a more proactive approach is developing what the Baldrige Excellence Framework calls a “General Improvement Orientation.” A general improvement orientation would focus efforts on putting out fires more effectively – moving hoses closer to places where fires start, ensuring fire extinguishers work, and so on. While a good step beyond a pure reactive stance, this is still about putting out fires. Even though they might be extinguished more quickly, there are still fires that reduce effectiveness and efficiency, cause stress, and produce smoke and fire damage.

In contrast, a fully proactive approach is to develop processes and systems that prevent fires in the first place. The Baldrige Excellence Framework calls this engaging in “organizational analysis and innovation.” Instead of putting effort into planning for how to extinguish fires, attention is focused on using fireproof materials, removing combustible items, and preventing fires from occurring. This approach is about anticipating problems that might arise and stopping them before they start.

For example, a hypothetical director of donor management is tasked with organizing a donor recognition luncheon on a Saturday morning at a park near campus. Unfortunately, the week before the event, the athletics office announces the football game has been moved to the same time on that Saturday morning. The director now must scramble to figure out parking for the event since the lots that were going to be used are now reserved for football tailgaters. Then, early in the morning on the day of the event, a major rainstorm is forecast. The director must scramble to get tents set-up so the event can proceed in the rain. This is a reactive approach!

A fully proactive approach would be to select a time and location for the event that avoids likely conflicts with major sporting events and can be held – without last-minute scrambling – in a wide variety of weather conditions. A fully proactive approach also saves tremendous stress and time on behalf of the director and the event’s attendees.

Moving from a reactive to fully proactive approach – just like moving from a focus on putting out fires to a focus on preventing fires – requires a different mindset. Fortunately, this is a mindset that can be learned and, with practice, can become a habit. One strategy for supporting the development of this mindset is to keep a journal or planning guide for major events or projects you complete on a regular basis. In this planning guide, leave yourself notes for what went well, what challenges and issues arose, and what fires began burning that you had to extinguish. Then, when the project or event comes up again, refer to these notes and modify your approach to prevent those issues from arising again.

A proactive approach is at the center of organizational improvement. When being proactive becomes a habit, you will have much more time for other important work activities – such as getting your popcorn out of the microwave before it starts on fire!