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18 Helping Students Create a Plan to Learn
Lynn Meade
Self-regulated students plan to learn.
You won’t always be motivated, you must learn to be disciplined.
Denzel Washington
One of our primary challenges as educators is helping students recognize and embrace this fundamental truth– learning requires active participation. As Todd Zakrajsek noted at a Lilly conference, “There is no such thing as passive learning. It has to be active or it is not learning at all.” We must coach our students to become active participants in their learning journey.
Professor Robert Leamnson captured this principle eloquently in his letter to students titled “Learning, Your First Job”:
A fundamental idea that you will encounter over and over again, that learning is not something that just happens to you, it is something that you do to yourself. You can’t be “given” learning, nor can you be forced to do it. The most brilliant and inspired teacher cannot “cause” you to learn. Only you can do that.
Coaching Students to Plan Their Learning
To help students develop as self-regulated learners, coaches should guide them through four essential areas:
Identifying personal motivations for learning
Designing ways to help students keep the motivating factor present
Developing effective time management strategies
Recognizing and utilizing available resources
Understanding Student Motivation
As coaches, we can help students explore their motivations through targeted questions:
What drives you to learn?
Why did you choose to attend college?
What do you hope to achieve through your education?
The answers to these questions can help you know how to proceed when coaching your students. You can identify in what ways your students are intrinsically motivated and in what ways they are extrinsically motivated. Intrinsically motivated students do things because they find them fulfilling and extrinsically motivated students do things for the reward or praise. Students typically experience both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and teaching them to identify and lean into what motivates them is one step on learning how to learn.
Practical Strategies for Coaches
1. Help Students Identify and Connect with Their Motivations
Consider this case study: I worked with a student approaching burnout in his final year. When his mother sent him a photo of the dress she bought for his graduation, it became a powerful motivational tool. During our coaching sessions, we would reference this photo and discuss his deeper motivations: making his family proud and building a foundation for his own future family. Notice how this approach combined external motivators (family pride, future financial stability) and internal motivators (personal achievement, self-pride).
2. Help Students Keep Motivating Factors in Sight
Encourage students to:
Display motivational quotes in their study space
Keep visual reminders of their goals
Connect their learning to meaningful causes
Research from Dominican University supports this approach, showing that individuals are more likely to achieve their goals when they:
Share weekly progress reports with friends
Make public commitments
Document their goals in writing
The study highlighted that the most successful technique was when a student would send the progress of their goals to a trusted friend or mentor. You can encourage your students to send you updates or to have a trusted friend hold them accountable.
3. Help Students Identify Obstacles
In addition to helping your students think of their goals, you can help them brainstorm obstacles they might encounter and how they plan to overcome them. In the chapter on Helping Students Build Resilience, we already failure immunity and how we can help our students reflect on past failures as learning opportunities, now our goal is to help students foreshadow failure and help them decide when they are making their fears blown out of proportion so they don’t have to try or if the obstacle is real and to have a plan how to overcome that obstacle. For some, an upcoming exam may feel like an obstacle, but they can plan to fail, or they can plan to use their resources to study.
Randy Pausch, in his famous Last Lecture speech, describes obstacles as “brick walls” and challenges us to think about them.
We Can Help Students with Forethought By Asking These Questions
These questions are available as a downloadable document at the end of the chapter.
Planning questions: What kind of a task is this?
What is my goal, and how will I know I have reached it?
How motivated am I to perform the task?
How can I increase my motivation if it’s low?
How much time and how many resources will be necessary?
What do I already know about the topic?
What additional information, if any, will I need?
What strategies should I use?
What strengths can I bring to the task?
How can I compensate for my weaknesses?
What might interfere with completing the task, and how can I prevent this interference?
Monitoring questions: Am I sure I know what I am doing?
Does my approach to the task make sense?
How well are my strategies working?
Am I making good progress towards my goal?
What changes in approach or strategies should I make, if any?
What material is the most important?
What material am I having trouble understanding?
What material am I having trouble recalling?
How does what I am learning relate to what I already know?
How does it relate to my experience or my future?
How is my thinking on the topic changing?
Self-Regulated Learners Plan to Use Time Wisely
Practical Strategies for Coaches
1. Help Students Learn to Use a Planner
Effective planning goes beyond simply owning a planner—it requires developing a systematic approach to organizing time. When working with students:
Schedule dedicated planner review sessions where students bring their planners to coaching meetings
Demonstrate how to map out major assignments across weeks or months
Conduct follow-up “planner checks” to review and refine their organizational system
Help students choose between digital and paper planning tools based on their preferences and needs
2. Teach Assignment “Chunking”
Breaking large projects into manageable pieces helps prevent students from feeling overwhelmed
Guide students through this process:
Example: Research Paper Timeline
Week 1: Topic selection and preliminary research (2-3 hours)
Week 2: Detailed research and note-taking (4-5 hours)
Week 3: Create an outline and organize research (2-3 hours)
Week 4: Write first draft (4-5 hours)
Week 5: Revision and editing (3-4 hours)
Week 6: Final polish and formatting (1-2 hours)
Have students practice creating these timelines during coaching sessions, ensuring they account for their existing commitments and energy levels. Teach them the value of cutting major assessments and major tests into smaller segments. In the next chapter, we will talk about why studying a little at a time is better than cramming. You can show students how to add study sessions to their calendars.
3. Show Students How to Leverage the Alarms on Their Phones
Modern smartphones offer powerful tools for time management. Help students:
Set up recurring alarms for:
Regular class meetings
Assignment due dates
Study sessions
Online course check-ins
Small microstudy sessions
Use calendar apps to block study time
Create reminder systems for long-term projects
Utilize task management apps that sync across devices
Block incoming calls and texts while working
Block incoming calls and texts while sleeping
During coaching sessions, have students set up these systems—don’t just talk about them. This immediate action increases the likelihood of continued use.
4. Engage in a Discussion About Challenges to How They Use Time
Have students provide answers to these questions about how they use their time.
Use This Tool to Engage Students in a Discussion
of How They Use Their Time
These questions are available as a downloadable document at the end of the chapter.
Have the students answer these questions using this scale:
most of the time, usually, sometimes, rarely, or never
1. I admit it. Just like everyone else, I feel that I am lazy when it comes to getting my assignments and/or work done.
2. I am disorganized when it comes to getting my assignments and/or work done. 3. I get confused about what I am supposed to do for the assignment or task. 4. I have a hard time saying “no” to others which puts me behind in my work/studies. 5. I have this sinking feeling that I will succumb to the usual reasons for procrastinating, no matter what they are.
6. I just don’t think I have the organizational abilities to be able to stop at least some of my procrastinating.
7. When I was in high school it wasn’t a problem studying for most tests the night before.
8. I work best under pressure, so I think that procrastinating is really good for me.
9. When what I have to study or accomplish is just not that important to me, I find it more tempting to procrastinate.
10. I have a hard time talking myself into maintaining a better attitude about not procrastinating.
11. I think I have more time to finish something than I usually do.
12. It annoys me that some instructors assign so much homework when I have a life outside of school, too! So, I believe that it can be their fault that I have to procrastinate on certain things.
13. I am very social and spending time with my friends sometimes gets in the way of doing my work.
14. I can’t seem to stay away from social media.
15. Here is something (or perhaps more than one) not on this list that also causes me to procrastinate. (Possible issues might include a disability or some kind of learning challenge, homelessness or some other kind of living situation challenge, pregnancy, work hours and responsibilities, and/or personal life stress.)
Self-Regulated Learners Plan to Use Their Resources
Breaking Down Barriers: Understanding Student Resistance to Tutoring Services
Research reveals that students who could benefit most from student services often hesitate to use them. When we understand why they resist using these programs, we can better guide our coaching discussion.
Research Insights on Tutoring Resistance
A study at a Pacific Northwest college examined why students with academic challenges avoided using writing center services. The researchers interviewed 345 students who were identified as struggling academically but had not accessed tutoring support. Their findings revealed several key barriers that kept students from using the services.
Fear of Judgment
Concern about peer perceptions
Anxiety about tutor evaluations
Fear of appearing “unintelligent”
Stigma
Association of tutoring with academic failure
Perception of tutoring as a “last resort”
Concerns about being labeled as struggling
Misplaced Attribution
Blaming instructors for academic challenges
Believing tutoring can’t compensate for perceived teaching issues
Assuming content issues stem from external factors
System Navigation Challenges
Lack of awareness about available resources
Uncertainty about how to access services
Confusion about tutoring processes
Time Management Issues
Difficulty scheduling tutoring sessions
Competing commitments
Poor planning of academic support needs
Common Tutoring Myths and Realities
Myth 1: Tutoring is Only for Struggling Students
Reality: Tutoring serves students across all academic performance levels:
High-achieving students use tutoring to maintain excellence
Average students leverage tutoring to enhance performance
Struggling students benefit from targeted support
Many professional programs (law, medicine, etc.) incorporate tutoring as standard practice because students who want to be successful use tutoring
Myth 2: Tutoring Indicates Academic Weakness
Reality: Seeking tutoring demonstrates:
Proactive learning behavior
Strong self-awareness
Commitment to academic excellence
Strategic use of available resources
Myth 3: Tutoring is Only for Wealthy Students
Reality: Most institutions provide accessible tutoring options:
Free tutoring services through academic departments
To help students overcome these misconceptions, coaches can normalize tutoring, address barriers, build confidence, and reframe how they think about services. As academic coaches, we play a crucial role in helping students overcome barriers to accessing tutoring services. By understanding and addressing common misconceptions, we can help students view tutoring as a valuable tool for academic success rather than a last resort for struggling students. The key is to present tutoring as a normal, proactive strategy used by successful students at all levels.
University of Arkansas Resources
At the University of Arkansas, there are many free tutoring resources that you can share with your students.
Tutoring is offered to help students understand the key foundational concepts to succeed. Tutoring can be in person or online and can be as an individual or as a group.
Supplemental Instruction, SI, offers a series of weekly study sessions for students in historically challenging courses. Each session is facilitated by SI leaders – students who have excelled in the course and want to share their experiences. SI offers the opportunity to gather with classmates, discuss ideas, ask questions, and develop strategies for learning.
Peer Coaches help students develop their skills and strategies for learning efficiently and effectively. While a tutor works with you on course content, an academic coach works with you on strategies for learning the content. Coaches can help you:
define a specific game plan that can be used for an upcoming exam
evaluate and implement learning styles & strategies
learn how to master reading college texts
create outlines, notes, and study materials
review tips for effective studying & successful learning
address text anxiety or other stressors
assess time management to maximize study time for challenging areas while balancing college life and other time demands
The Writing Studio provides one-on-one writing consultations to all students at any stage of the writing process. Students can work with a Writing Studio Consultant on any type of writing: course papers, scholarship essays, personal statements, other application documents, and more. In a consultation, they will learn revision strategies for developing academic and professional writing skills.
Benefits of Self-Regulated Learning
Self-regulated learning is a skill that can be developed through practice. By helping students identify their motivations, create concrete plans, and prepare for challenges, we empower them to take ownership of their learning journey. The key for coaches is to maintain a balance between supporting students and encouraging their independence, always remembering that true learning comes from active engagement.
Downloadable Resources
Helping Students Create a Plan to Learn Downloadable Resources
Robert Leamnson’s letter sent out to students the first week of class called Learning, Your First Job
William Knaus’s handout on Overcoming Procrastination: A New Look
This three-page handout provides some thought-provoking ways to talk about procrastination
Karl Wirth and Dexter Perkin’s book chapter Learning to Learn This 29-page book chapter written to students provides an academic view of learning and addresses major theories and actionable suggestions.
Key Takeaways
Coaches can help students…
Identify personal motivations and use those motivations as driving forces to succeed in college.
Help students keep motivating factors in sight by writing out their goals, posting their goals where they can frequently view them, and sharing their goals with others.
Identify possible obstacles and create a plan for how to overcome the obstacle.
Develop effective time management strategies such as using a planner, chunking assignments, leveraging the alarms on their phones, and self-reflecting on how they use their time.
Overcome resistance to using student support services by helping them understand why they hesitate to use the resource and learn the benefits of using resources.
Identify the resources available at their university and teach students how to access those resources.
Nilson, L. B. (2013). Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students’ self-awareness and learning skills. Stylus Publishing.
Nilson, L. B. (2015, September 14). Metacognition and specifications grading: The odd couple. Linda B. Nilson’s Teaching & Learning Blog. https://www.lindanilson.com/blog
Sousa, D. A. (2011). How the brain learns (4th ed.). Corwin Press.
Tatter, G. (2019). Unlocking the science of motivation. Harvard Graduate School of Education. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/19/03/unlocking-science-motivation
AI acknowledgment: This work was written by the author in its entirety. Claude AI and ChatGPt were used to refine wording, suggest stronger headings, and proofread the reference page.
