Intro

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 0:00

when you reread and reread and reread, that's not studying. When you review, not studying. flip through your notes, not studying. When you review your teacher's slide decks, not studying. Students aren't sleeping enough, Students are lonely. They're not connecting in social ways We want students to have more time to take care of themselves and to do the things that they wanna do, but their so-called strategies are often inefficient because they are not taught them.

Vanessa Vakharia 0:28

Hello. Hi, it's me, Vanessa, and I am here to say welcome to another episode of Math Therapy. Okay, let's be real. It's June, which for most of us, aside from the ones who are done already, I'm looking at you, Texas, we are in the thick of exam season. Like, it's happening right now, and that's why I decided I needed to have a conversation with someone who is an expert learning strategist, whose literal life mission it is to make sure that every single human on the planet understands what it means to prioritize, to organize, to actually learn anything in a way that leads to meaningful retention. Because the thing is, anxiety around exams and around math, it's never just about content. It's often about feeling too overwhelmed to even see the content for what it actually is, and today's guest, Dr. Deena Shaffer, is going to completely change the way you look at learning. Deena is a keynote speaker, author, mentor, training facilitator, and the founder of Awakened Learning. She has spent over twenty years promoting more equity and justice in learning and enabling the success of more than five thousand students, educators, and business leaders through learning strategies. And if you're an educator like me, I know that you know that part of the reason students are so anxious in math and in school is because no one has taught them how to learn. Isn't that crazy? They go into this building to learn all of this content, English, science, math, whatever, but no one teaches them how to learn it. They're just expected to know the, like, scientifically backed best practice for taking notes, retaining information, solving problems, getting unstuck. But I always say that learning to think, learning to study, learning to engage, and learning to learn should be taught the same explicit way we teach content. These are skills that we need to learn. Learning is a skill, just like factoring. We need to teach it. But because we don't, I have Deena here today to finally shed light on, number one, the one thing we all get wrong about to-do lists. Number two, the best and worst ways to study for a math exam and any exam. Number three, how we can use AI ethically, not to do our work for us but as a true study tool tailored for each of our unique learning needs. You're gonna wanna take notes because this episode is that good, and you're going to want to share it with every student and educator you know who's in the midst of exams right now. This episode is the one that is going to move the dial immediately. So let's get into it. Deena, hi.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 3:07

Vanessa.

Vanessa Vakharia 3:08

There's so many reasons I wanted to talk to you today. Recently, I released an episode of the podcast where I essentially had, I was on the verge of a meltdown, you know? And I was, like, talking myself through it, and at the same time, you know how, like, sometimes the algorithm, like, does exactly what you need it to do? the same time, like, you popped up on my feed, and there was a quote. I think you had done this on breakfast television, and I believe the quote said something like, "Having a to-do list does not mean getting stuff done," or something. What was it?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 3:38

C-correct. It's insufficient to getting work done. The to-do list does not equal the work getting done.

Vanessa Vakharia 3:45

That, okay, well, that blew my mind, because for the past three weeks, I have, no joke, been obsessed over finding the perfect to-do list that will allow me to feel organized, because I think, I think if I have the right to-do list, I'll get shit done, and I'll feel organized. So yeah, we're, we're here because I need this therapy from you but also because have realized that this whole being organized, prioritization, all the stuff we're gonna talk about, is a key reason why so many kids struggle in math, and we never talk about it. We focus on the math, and we don't focus on these skills. So hello, welcome to the podcast. You have a lot of work to do here today with me.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 4:30

Hi, I'm so excited, and obviously this is like a three-hour long form multi-session. Like there's so much I wanna respond to. I love it.

Vanessa Vakharia 4:40

with a question, because that's how podcasts should work. Um, question is,

How to study the right way

Vanessa Vakharia 4:45

why don't you tell us a bit about what you do, because I actually think it's so cool, but I want you to say it in your words. Like, what is your thing?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 4:52

Yes. Great. Thank you. I'm a learning strategist, I help any learner of any age, of any learning profile, of any discipline, subject, program learn how to learn. I help them learn with less suffering. I help them learn in a way that feels like relief and sometimes even joy. So we have, in the agency I run, Awaken Learning, we have math strategists. So we combine math tutoring with executive function, social-emotional education, psychoeducation, where you won't even need us for very long. We're gonna teach you how to move through the next math quiz, math homework, math presentation, math data collection and analysis.

Vanessa Vakharia 5:39

I would like you to walk me through what a math tutoring combined with executive function socio-emotional learning hour looks like versus a just one hour of tutoring math. Like, what, what are you doing with that student?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 5:54

So what we're trying to do at the same time, of course, this learner is bringing in, I've got math homework, I've got a math test." But what we're also trying to go is, "Well, here are best practices around studying, and what did you get on that last exam? How are we gonna integrate feedback? How do you even, um, integrate feedback when it's difficult? Oh, you've got a math project with other people, but you hate working with other people. You just do the, like, divide and conquer group work method, which isn't really a method." What we do is we bring in this layer of you can carry forward these strategies around really solid study practices, test-taking practices. What if it's multiple choice? What if it is short answer? What if you have to present about it? What if you have to read something in math, like a word problem, but your eyeballs are darting everywhere and you feel overwhelmed?

Vanessa Vakharia 6:44

Okay. Well, this is so fascinating and so timely because been noticing, you know, exams are coming up, so we're tutoring a lot of students. Would say there's a nice little marriage here between what I see in my tutoring

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 6:55

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 6:57

And the b-- a big similarity is idea of we use these words, right? We use these words like show your thinking, show your work, study, learn, and, uh, take notes. This is a really I found.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 7:09

Mm.

Vanessa Vakharia 7:10

Notes. Students will literally be like, "Okay, yeah, I'm supposed to take notes," but no one has shown them how to take notes. No one has shown them how to study. So like, to your point, they could be doing this thing they call studying, studying means I open the book and I read the problem 10 times in a row. I look at the solution, I memorize how to do it. So they are studying, but they're not studying in an effective way. So why do we not teach this in school?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 7:36

Yes. I mean, my life is dedicated to that. I don't really know the answer. I can tell you this: it is not taught in teacher education, so we recycle ideas about what studying is there are academics who are studying learning science that doesn't translate. It doesn't get rippled down. So I don't really know how curricular changes come to be, except where does funding come from? Who gets to influence policy? But I'm so impatient for that to happen, and it always feels so political about what happens to be on trend, and then there's always this pendular swing, and then everyone gets mad at that particular way of doing things. And I just think, listen, this is an equity and student mental health and academic performance piece. You would solve, like a multi-solving co-benefit approach would be if you taught directly the skills of how to learn. Because when you reread and reread and reread, that's not studying. When you review, not studying. When you flip through your notes, not studying. When you review your teacher's slide decks, not studying. Not studying. And if we add to this, so this is like let's bring in more of the learning strategy piece or the holistic learning strategy piece, students aren't sleeping enough, right? So we want, we wanna buy students more time. Students are lonely. They're not connecting in social ways and in community ways. We want students to have more time to take care of themselves and to do the things that they wanna do, but their so-called strategies are often inefficient because they are not taught them.

What IS studying?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 9:12

Do you know what studying is?

Vanessa Vakharia 9:14

I like, like... don't even know what to say right now because I'm like, "Oh my God, all of those things you listed, go through the slide deck, review your note." Those are the things I was taught to do when you are engaging in the act of studying. No, what is studying? What is studying? Tell me.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 9:30

are only two things that count as studying:

Vanessa Vakharia 9:32

my God. What?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 9:34

Practice questions and practicing them over time. If you go to a test or exam, are you asked to rewrite notes?

Vanessa Vakharia 9:43

No.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 9:45

are asked to solve problems. The only thing you need to do to up your confidence and your marks on your next quiz, test, or exam is practice questions. Here's the other funny thing students do. So they'll get maybe a mock exam to prepare for, maybe it's like final exam season.

Vanessa Vakharia 10:04

Yeah.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 10:04

they'll give, be given a package by your beautiful folks, or they'll AI it. There's wonderful ways, right? We can use NotebookLM, we can use, um, Wolfram Alpha, we can use lots of different AI tools. Beautiful, beautiful tools.

Vanessa Vakharia 10:15

we're gonna have to go back but

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 10:17

I obsessed with these ethical AI tools in a massive way. So you can get a practice test made for you,

Vanessa Vakharia 10:25

Okay.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 10:30

For my mock exam. I have to prep- I have to study first." No. Take the practice test first. No notes- No phone, just do the practice test. And it will be a struggle, and it will be frustrating, great. That's a diagnostic that will tell you exactly what you need to ask questions about, go back and reteach yourself, do extra practice questions with.

Vanessa Vakharia 10:58

Oh my-- Well, and I imagine, like this is the thing, is so many students in my practice think that the problem is that they are not good at math,

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:05

Yes.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:06

in math. I'm not a math person." But I'm looking at this and being like, "No, no, no, no, no. This is not a skill issue

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:12

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:17

or not learning

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:18

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:19

you ca-

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:20

Right, and

Vanessa Vakharia 11:24

trying to read the textbook. Or, oh my God, the thing that drives me the most nuts, they'll be like, "Oh yeah, I did all the practice questions." And I'll be like, "Okay, did you check the answers?" And they'll be like, "Well, no." And I'm like, "Oh my God!" so you could just be practicing them all the wrong way though, And also now you feel, the student feels they

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:41

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:41

trying. So it's not even like they're not trying.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:44

Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 11:44

been fucking studying. They spent hours doing homework, da, da, da, da, da. But they were doing it in a way that did not allow them to actually learn for real the information,

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:53

Yeah,

Vanessa Vakharia 11:54

like shit.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 11:55

And maybe in a textbook there are a few questions that they can practice from, and they do them, but there was one that was really difficult for them. But they did it, and they're like, "Okay, well, I guess I learned it 'cause I did that one practice question." No, no, no, no, no. Take a picture of that practice question, run it through NotebookLM, say, "Give me five more variations of this." And so then we get to zero in on what is difficult instead of just like, "Oh, linear, I did the five practice questions. I am done." You get to personalize your own skill building that will change what, how you perform o- on the next quiz, test, or exam.

Vanessa Vakharia 12:30

What does that look like? Like, I have a-- someone has a math test, they have a math exam. What does distributed practice for that assessment look like?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 12:38

The first thing I wanna say as a rough guide, and obviously it depends if you're in grade six or it depends if you're in third year. a general rule, if it's a quiz, I want students studying one week in advance. If it's a test, I want them studying two weeks in advance, or if it's an exam, three weeks. Distributed practice then says, "Don't study every day. Study every other day. Study twenty-five minutes or ten questions." You can do it by amount of time, or you can do it by number of questions, but enumerate it somehow. Like have a constraint so that instead of studying, which if we go back to to-do lists, is one of the worst things you can write on a list 'cause how do you know what you're doing when you're studying and how do you know when it's over? Studying isn't a lot of fun, and who wouldn't want to avoid a generic word like studying? But if you say, "ten practice questions," great. I'm really clear. Uh, it's defined. There's a beginning and an end. So I would want ten questions every other day for depending upon if it's a quiz, test, or exam. We like the idea of touching the material at least four times, like at a bare minimum because of what we understand about forgetting. So you and I will have this conversation. We might talk about some strategies around humane prioritization or non-toxic productivity. We might talk about some different methods that really kick to-do lists butt. But if we don't talk again or if we don't revisit it by the end of the conversation or by tomorrow, like half of that is lost. So it's the same with a student. They might understand everything in a math class. am getting it. I am locked in. I really understand what the teacher is getting at today, then I look at the material a week from now, two weeks from now, I'm like, "I could not tell you what any of this means." Can salvage that. We can protect that if we practice a little bit tomorrow, and then we practice two days later, and then we practice a few days later. So we really wanna keep touching the material, but we never have to do it for very long, like little increments over time.

Homework: hero or villain?

Vanessa Vakharia 14:36

What are your thoughts on homework? Like, do you think, like, kids need to be doing homework in order to be touching the material?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 14:42

It's such a beautiful question, and, and for some reason, I just don't-- it doesn't land as very provocative to me. Homework feels like an active practice. The mistake sometimes with homework is there's just, like, a sheet of questions, like uninspiring, that would just suck the joy out of anybody. So what we practice at our home is can you do a couple? Can you do one from each column? Can you do three from each column? You have a student who has first semester high school math and then doesn't have math for an entire year, including a summer, uh, we could call it homework. That's just humane to, to practice the material again in small doses. So I am not about homework that is purposeless. do think homework is humane, but not when it just goes on endlessly, and not when it's the same question over and over and over again. I like things like quizzes. I really love low-stakes quizzes. I think they are a beautiful way to keep material at the forefront of a student's mind and heart.

Vanessa Vakharia 15:58

So the way we're talking about this too, like it sounds... Okay. Oh, yeah, and this reminds me, I wanna just go back to your question about AI, 'cause I actually don't know about these things that you're talking about that sound very cool. I know you're gonna

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 16:09

not

Vanessa Vakharia 16:09

blow my mind in two seconds.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 16:10

excited. I'm so excited

Vanessa Vakharia 16:13

No, no, I love that. That's what I was gonna say too. But the, the reason I bring everything up in this moment is because I'm like, this sounds like unless you had a parent at home or an older sibling who can help you, this sounds very self-guided. Like, e- especially being like, "Oh, I haven't had math in a semester. I'm not gonna have it until next September." You're kind of like putting it on the student to be like, "I am going to give myself self-guided practice for the next eight months," right? Like, that sounds not like somebody is... I'm not saying they can't, but that sounds like a lot for like a young person, right? This could happen in grade nine, right? You're 13 years old. Like, is it realistic to expect a 13-year-old to do that for themselves or to be able to, to even know how?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 16:57

Not at all. And so that's why I go out and teach teachers all the time. I be-- It's not in teacher education, and it's way too onerous. How would a student even know? So that's why I think about learning strategies as an equity issue. It is around justice. If a student happens to have a parent who's an educator who knows about learning strategies, if a student happens to have had a teacher or mentor who, who knows this work, I hate luck. Uh, luck is so unreliable. So I want all students to get learning strategies and, and my mission is to get it at scale. I want families, I want students to, but I also want teachers to have what is not yet, um, in teacher education. So in the meantime, that's why I run a learning strategies agency. It's like I was impatient. So I'm a, I'm a prof also at, Toronto Metropolitan University. I teach 250 students every semester learning how to learn, I don't want it to be institution specific. I wanna reach every student and students much sooner than they get to my class or when they get to being on probation or when they have to withdraw because they have failed a course. I wanna get in there way sooner. So yes, I think it is too much for a student to do on their own.

How to use AI to support learning, not replace it

Vanessa Vakharia 18:14

But like, let's say right now, I mean, we have exams are coming up for us in Ontario. If a student was like, "Okay, yeah, I wanna, I wanna do some stuff. Like, I wanna start this, I wanna start three weeks in advance," 'cause actually truly most of our students don't, don't start that early, right? They have, four to eight exams, and they are just like triaging basically. But imagine they're like, "You know what? It's May. This is a great opportunity to just get started. What's the first thing I can do?" Like, I've got-- most of them actually don't even have textbooks anymore, but they've got a bunch of worksheets. They've got old tests. Like what is the first thing they can do? How can they make themselves a three-week program? Like what, what would you suggest?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 18:49

are two wonderful starting places. of who I support, there are many students with ADHD, there are many students with autism, there are many students who have, um, anxiety, uh, OCD, uh, eating disorder. Like, we, we work with any student, particularly students who are having a tougher time. So here's what I imagine. That student might also have missed a class. That student might have been sick, they might have been in an athletic, uh, commitment. So I want them to use NotebookLM and put in from Google Classroom or whatever the LMS, the Learning Management System that their teacher uses, any missed classes or classes that they're like, "I was there, but I wasn't really there."

Vanessa Vakharia 19:31

Hmm.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 19:32

And if you put in those lectures, those slide decks, those lesson notes, even if you were like, "I loved how Crash Course taught that. I loved how at the, at, at your tutoring studio, somebody gave me a, a worksheet and supported me." Put all of that in NotebookLM, which protects your IP. Like, it's a very, very beautiful self-contained...

Vanessa Vakharia 19:50

What is NotebookLM? Like let's, yeah

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 19:53

is a free Google product And you don't have to sign up. If you are under 13, get your parents to sign you onto it. And instead of scraping from garbage Google, it just is the container that you put in the material, and then you can do a bunch of stuff with. You can ask for practice questions. Give me five multiple-choice questions. Make me flashcards. Make me an infographic. But there is, there are two, from a neuroinclusive standpoint, there are two unbelievable features. One is called an audio overview. So you put the material in, and you click on audio overview, and in about five minutes, it will make you an under 20-minute podcast of two pe- two people with very real-sounding voices, like you

Vanessa Vakharia 20:44

Oh my God, David,

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 20:45

with--

Vanessa Vakharia 20:46

you hate this?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 20:47

It is exceptional, but I'll explain why. So even if Dave isn't on board, I will get David on board, okay? Here's why imagine you have a student who for, whether disability reasons or not, loves reassurance. They wanna ask 15 questions. They wanna ask 50 questions. Can I check this? Can I check this? We don't want any student to feel shame. You and I are in the work of dissolving shame for learners.

Vanessa Vakharia 21:11

Hmm.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 21:11

But what that single student needs might be in tension with class community and what the teacher is able to really provide if there are 30 students in that class who have much different needs. You make that audio overview podcast of whatever, this particular calculus unit, not only will it create this broad strokes, kind of filling in the gaps, beautiful content based on what you've given it, you can interrupt the podcast in real time and say, "I don't understand that metaphor. Can you give me a different example?" You can ask the podcast your 15 or 50 questions, and it will recalibrate, recalibrate, recalibrate. So now there's no shame or self-consciousness for the student who needs what they need. So here's why it's so beautiful. In learning strategies land, which I really understand is so boring, but it's not boring There's something called an advance organizer. Advance organizer, again, boring words, but what we need is a filing cabinet new information to come. need to have prior knowledge for new knowledge, right? You can't just go to grade 12 calc because you've done all of the stuff up, that leads up to it. But what if I had mono? What if there was a loss in my family? What if, what if, what if, what if, and I

Vanessa Vakharia 22:25

What if whatever? Yeah

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 22:27

How am I, what am I, how am I, how do I study if I missed classes? Use NotebookLM for the classes you missed to fill in the information so it begins to make sense. We can combine

Vanessa Vakharia 22:40

How?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 22:41

you get the slide deck of whatever you missed. Teachers

Vanessa Vakharia 22:43

Oh,

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 22:44

Classroom, like,

Vanessa Vakharia 22:45

okay.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 22:46

Okay, I'll get the notes from a peer. If you're like, "This doesn't make sense to me," look up a crash course. What's the corresponding, or Khan Academy, what's the corresponding lesson that I kind of get? that all in there. You can put websites, documents, PDFs, pictures. Take a picture of a pal's note if they let you. Put that all into NotebookLM. for an audio overview, and now you have less than 20 minutes. Take that podcast for a walk. Now we're incorporating movement and wellbeing.

Vanessa Vakharia 23:16

I am losing my-- I'm-- Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, I'm freak- out because already I'm like, how am I doing? What am I doing? So I have a question. Okay. So first of all, I love this so much. I love this because I love the accessibility standpoint, number one. I, I'm totally... Like, if I'm listening to a nonfiction anything, it has to be in my ears. I am not reading it. It will not go into my eyeballs, into my brain. So, like, I love that. For NotebookLM, personal, personal question, do you have to input stuff, like, so it won't scrub the internet? It's, it's making it... Oh, so it's making it...

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 23:49

your, what you give it

Vanessa Vakharia 23:51

But how is it filling in gaps? Like, what if you have notes? Like, imagine I had notes from a class and I was, like, I took some notes, but I, like, kinda, like, got it, like, mid. Like, it was like the notes were really a six out of ten on what the whole lesson was. How can it fill stuff in?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 24:05

It's just-- So,

Vanessa Vakharia 24:06

Oh

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 24:08

and the great thing is it's not gonna be inaccurate. So if you're like, "I'm doing six out of ten notes," great. What's the textbook it's based on? What's the material it's based on?

Vanessa Vakharia 24:18

Okay

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 24:19

external sites would you include? then you know that it's not gonna be hallucinatory. It's not gonna take you off track. That's the beauty. For me, that's not the risk. It's like the opportunity of it. But it gets even better. It

Vanessa Vakharia 24:35

Why are you not sponsored by them?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 24:37

I know. But imagine that you listen to that podcast, and you're like, "Ugh, I still need a little bit of support." You can ask for it to create a video overview, and that takes about 15 minutes for it to create, it will create for you a Canva-style voiceover presentation the material with diagrams, with beautiful background. So if that wasn't provided, if you happened to have a supply teacher that day, and it was like mer, mer, you can have an uplifting, visually appealing and accessible walkthrough of material you missed or didn't quite grasp.

Vanessa Vakharia 25:21

The reason we are talking about AI, though, is because of what you said when you were like, studying, really studying comprises of two things. One of them is practice, and one of them is practice over time, basically. The g-- Like, you know what

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 25:33

Yeah

Vanessa Vakharia 25:34

so we're, AI can give us more ways to practice because often I will hear from students, "Well, I did all my homework, so I have nothing left to practice. Like, I redid the test questions. I have nothing left to practice." And like, you know what I mean? This is the best way for them to be able to feed something in and be like, "Give me more questions like this. I actually struggled with this question. Make me more like this." Right? So that's actually great. Here's what I wanted to, to, to just focus on for a second.

How this connects to healing math trauma

Vanessa Vakharia 26:02

This is a podcast about a lot of things, but it's supposed to be a podcast about math trauma and math anxiety. So I wanna know, in your experience, how many students, I mean, or learners of any age do you see come to you with this idea that they are not smart, then realize that it is simply a learning strategy issue that can be rectified, and then all of a sudden they're like, "Holy shit, I am capable of learning this thing I never thought"?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 26:28

Many slash most. Many of the students who we work with have absolutely been traumatized school. Some in school, but by school. School has absolutely beaten me down. All of my gifts that I thought I had, I don't even know if I have gifts. Uh, I'm not good at this, I'm not good at that, I'm not good at this, I'm not good at that. Like, the list goes on. And so we're in the work, yes, of like, here's the toolbox, here's the toolbox, here's the toolbox, here are new systems, here are new approaches. But really it's like, how can we heal some of that? How can we mend that so that you can get on your way to doing whatever you wanna do? We want students to be fully alive in their creativity and ambition, and we just wanna be a stepping stone on their way. And, and what we also know is that all of these are professional skills. We hear from, um, employers all the time about new grads who are struggling with overwhelm. Struggling, right? And, and are showing up and being like, "What do you mean I gotta be in a workplace five days a week? What, what do you mean that the deadlines are firm?" We like front-loading and directly instructing learning skills it changes the self-conception of a student. This is what's possible for me. These actually are gifts. I can do this. We love that

Vanessa Vakharia 27:43

how can a teacher know if they're working with a student who's struggling in math? How do they know if it is a math issue or a learning issue? Like, how do they know if it's they're not understanding the material or they don't have the learning strategies to understand the material?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 27:58

That's such an interesting question. On the one hand, I'm tempted to say, like, I, I don't even-- does it, does it matter at some point?

Vanessa Vakharia 28:05

Hmm.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 28:05

Everyone in every subject to be integrating learning strategies. We want, whether you're an English teacher, a journalism teacher, or a science teacher, math teacher, to be sharing how to study, to take a te- how do you, how do you write, like, multiple choice. Multiple choice is taught in such terrible ways. In a way, functional impact doesn't matter. The student is, like, showing you. They're evidencing, "I'm really struggling." On the other hand, how do you solve for that is that's really helpful where, uh, teacher collaboration comes in. They have-- If, if a student is really struggling, and they have, and the teacher has capacity, it's a conversation with the history teacher, with the social studies teacher, with the geography teacher: "How's this student showing up in your class? Is the, is the student just saying, like, 'I'm bored,' or, 'I'm unmotivated in this class,' but they're not here? Great. What helps them feel alive?" It's about watching how that other teacher teaches. But I don't say that with any expectation. Teachers are stretched beyond thin. They're holding so much in teaching spaces. So, um, what I share all the time in keynotes and trainings is that learning strategies multi-solving. They have the co-benefit of supporting students, but they also alleviate teacher burnout, alleviate student retention challenges. I'm a big fan of when we can co-benefit. What would help that student across their subject areas? What would help the teacher feel less burdened? What would help institutions actually keep more students?

Vanessa Vakharia 29:30

I do really believe that the way AI is being used is teaching students how not to learn, right? Like, it's like unethical AI is like actually do the opposite of learning.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 29:42

For any students who are listening, we just interviewed to take on a summer student, and we, because of our commitment to neuroinclusion, we provide the questions, no matter who we're hiring, professional or student, hours in advance. Why? 'Cause we know that not all people are like, "Okay, I'm-- this is-- I'm gonna respond at this

Vanessa Vakharia 30:00

Okay

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 30:02

We explicitly say, "We just want you and your messiness and your heart, but we also wanna honor that there are all ways and modes and paces of thinking." Student comes and is reading like this the most robotic answers. They absolutely did not get the job, okay? They absolutely did not get the job. And I just want all students to really understand. That they want the skill of being able to think and articulate in situations that matter to them, and an interview is one of those places. They are gonna interview at some point for a job or for a position that they really want, and they wanna be able to have their words with them, their insights with them. And there's interesting learning studies that are coming out right now that are saying you're just shifting the cognitive load. You think that it's making it easier for you, boop, boop, boop, do my homework. But then the work becomes, I have to fact-check, I have to triple, uh, proofread. You're just shifting where the hard thinking work is. It doesn't make it easier. And if it does the outlining for you, if it does the organizing work, then we don't have that skill in us, so we do wanna practice. Of course, there's a time and place. It's almost ubiquitous now. We have to be careful. And I'll just say this. We know pre-pandemic, pre-AI learning skills were, not my language, deficient. It's a study that came out in 2019 that looked at undergraduate students at four universities in Ontario spread out over five campuses, and what they found, learning skills, fundamental numeracy, literacy, how-- time management, how do you write a thesis, how do you find good sources, how do you write summaries? Over 50% of students were either at risk or outright dysfunctional in terms of their ability to learn.

Vanessa Vakharia 32:02

Oh my God, that is so concerning.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 32:04

and pre-AI

Vanessa Vakharia 32:06

because we, again, we've used the word a lot, but I want to make sure we're defining it. You were saying they're basically deficient, not your words, in the skills they need to learn. And learning is what? Like, if you were gonna define learning, learning is what?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 32:19

I don't love, I don't love it. Learning is experience.

Vanessa Vakharia 32:24

What?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 32:27

is, is

Vanessa Vakharia 32:29

like when we

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 32:30

new information with what was there before. Learning

Vanessa Vakharia 32:34

So it's a whole bunch of things.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 32:35

it's a

Vanessa Vakharia 32:36

It's a whole bunch. But I, but I do think it's important 'cause if we're gonna be like, if we're gonna be like, these studies are coming out saying that students don't have the skills they need to learn, I think we have to be able to argue to students what that even means and why it matters to learn. What does that even mean, right? To be like

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 32:53

though is, is that they're deficient in learning skills, in the tools and in the practices of doing the work of school. So I

Vanessa Vakharia 33:04

Yeah, but that sounds like who cares then?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 33:06

Well, if they're in

Vanessa Vakharia 33:07

That sounds

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 33:08

school and they're paying tuition, and if they want to move in the direction of a goal, then it really matters. So it's not school as school, but if they wanna do the thing that is in their heart, if they're like, "Oh my goodness, I have such big dreams about this," fill in the blank, XYZ, I wanna become this, and the school series of courses, this program is the pathway to that or is a pathway to that. And because I didn't ever encounter how to study or how to prioritize, I f- I'm like failing this course.

AI won't nail a job interview for you

Vanessa Vakharia 33:43

If our argument to students is, "You need these skills. You need to not use AI because it's not teaching you the skills you need to get through school to reach your goal," I feel like a student could be like, "Yeah, but I know how to u-" I, I honestly think really right now especially, you could get through school using non-ethical AI, and you could probably get away with it. You could pass your courses, you could whatever. But that's not the thing. The thing is kinda what you said before of being like, "No, we want you to be able to, like, in an interview, be able to think for yourself. Like, we want..." And so I do think learning has to be positioned, and I really do think this is what you mean. That's why I'm like, I really wanna define our terms. Like, this is the mathematician in me, 'cause I'm like, I do really think it's like we don't want students to just have these learning strategies that you teach because they need to get through school. Like you said earlier, these are life skills, right? Like, these, these skills are going to help students ultimately not be overwhelmed by the very real things they wanna do that require multiple steps, that require organization, that like all of this stuff

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 34:45

I'll, I'll just step sideways for a moment. And, and part of-- I was doing my PhD in holistic learning strategies, I remember the moment that I was in a research class, and I mean, I can't even believe that I made it this far and this, I'd never had this sensation before, but the professor made me feel like I could generate knowledge, that I was no longer just a recipient of other people's knowledge making, a consumer, that I could make new knowledge. I want other students to be able to do that.

Vanessa Vakharia 35:25

That's so cool.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 35:26

so

Vanessa Vakharia 35:27

a cool feeling.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 35:28

to be, to

Vanessa Vakharia 35:29

Yeah

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 35:29

uh, something that doesn't exist I could put out into the world or

Vanessa Vakharia 35:33

Yeah.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 35:34

is, that is, that is me. And so it is absolutely, like that ship has sailed using AI or not AI. I'm just interested in helping students use it ultimately to their benefit, like with integrity to their benefit. And when you say I'm sure students could do-- Th- there are public stories of people who have bragged about going through really elite school systems, like, "I didn't do a single word of my own work." It's

Vanessa Vakharia 36:00

Yeah.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 36:01

that, that's terrifying. And, and big profiles, and then successful businesses. Like, o- okay,

Vanessa Vakharia 36:08

But like that's also what happens when we look at, like, this is a whole other convo, but not really. That's what happens when we look at education as a means to an end and when, when the entire purpose of education is to get through it for a grade to, like, when that's not the destination, like when the process is not the destination and it's just like fucking get through it however you can to get to some end goal, we actually miss the point of the process, which p- probably is like a full circle moment of like we all kind of-- University isn't just about like learning your content area, it is about learn... You know what? I actually remember I had this job second year university in the summer and my, my, um, boss, she was amazing. Her na- name was Debbie, and she was like, she was like, "I only hire university students." Like, and I was like, "Why?" 'Cause like the job didn't require anything I was learning in business school. Do you know what I mean? And she goes, "I wanna know that the people that are working for me l- know how to learn, like can learn something, are dedicated to learning." I mean, again, this was a long time ago, so I don't think university students are the only students who know how to learn. But her point was, oh, my assumption is if you're in university, forget what the content is that you're learning, but you're at least interested in learning things and in doing the work to learn something. And I was like, I think, I think that's kind of the bigger picture here

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 37:27

I love what you are articulating. When I think about note-taking, note-taking on the surface, boring, boring, boring. note-taking isn't just about, uh, like increasing functionality at school. You are gonna be in a meeting where you are gonna be listening to lots of people talking, and you're gonna be like, "I have to pull meaning out of this conversation." So what I'm actually learning when I learn note-taking techniques is how do I discern what's important, the many things that are what's important, when there is a ton of input headed my way? When I talk about studying, it's just around how do I remember and apply for a situation that has a little bit of a pressure squeeze, right? The, the squeeze of time and the squeeze of maybe a metric value that's, okay, this is worth 35% of your mark. do I articulate what I think, know, feel in a, a circumstance that's been made harder? Like, there's always an underneath worthwhileness. I am not a big proponent, like carte blanche with university is essential for every human. It's just

Vanessa Vakharia 38:42

Yeah

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 38:44

uh, like experiences to learn life skills. These never go away. Being able to manage your time, it's such bullshit language, but being able to be in relationship with time, how do I sequence work when it all feels like it's pressing? These are with all of us all the time. How do I harness my focus when everything around me is pulling against it? So this is my life. This is my love is learning strategies.

Practical tips to harness your time

Vanessa Vakharia 39:09

Okay, but hold on. How do we do that? How do I harness my focus? How do I prioritize? Like, can we make this more about me? Like, we haven't talked about my issues in the half an hour. I need help. I don't know how to do it.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 39:22

I can help

Vanessa Vakharia 39:23

what would you tell me? But what do you mean? Can you help me right now? Like, what would you tell-- I know there's a million overwhelmed teachers that are listening right now. Well, not a million, although let's manifest that. Being like, "Okay, so like, yes, I feel like I have a million things to do. I don't know how to prioritize. Like, I've learned a million things." Like, what would you say?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 39:38

The first thing is we let go of the to-do list being the end, and we let go of the search for the perfect tool. So really beautiful work if people ever wanted to read Oliver Burkeman, a kind of existential appros- approach to time management is it's all kind of an illusion to control. Stop thinking that your to-do list equals that it's gonna get done. There's enough research about this, like enough. Yeah.

Vanessa Vakharia 39:59

W- what, what am I reading? I'm putting it in my Audible right now

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 40:02

um, is it Meditations for Mortals? Time Management for Mortals? Something like that. It's so good. I think it's Meditations for Mortals.

Vanessa Vakharia 40:09

confirmation. Confirmation meditation for mortals. Four weeks to embrace your limitations and make time for what counts.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 40:16

Okay,

Vanessa Vakharia 40:16

Buy with one credit. Next

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 40:19

that's, that's not strategy, that's just framing. The second thing is, just go with me for a second. There is a very common time management tool called the Eisenhower Matrix or the Dump and Sift or the Urgent and Important, I don't want to throw it out for people. It's where there's a matrix of what is highest importance and highest urgency, and that we align our work that way. challenge is, if I were to ask you or any other professional or any parent, "Hey, how's it going?" What would their answer be? Just like any student, "I'm stressed, I'm busy, I'm

Vanessa Vakharia 40:54

Busy, yeah

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 40:55

maybe even, "I'm burnt out." If we look at that matrix, and if we look at iterations, that high importance, high urgency is almost always equated with crisis. I have to do what is crisis mode. What is due the soonest? Da-da-da-da, like it's that frenetic energy. We want to work from a place of high importance and low urgency. Bring it back to students for one second, 'cause it's a really good example. You have a student with, uh, who has eight courses, who has a ton of assignments due, and they listen to me on your podcast and be like, "She's full of shit that she wants me to study for an exam three weeks before." I'd be like, "Great, I really wanna get into a loving fight with you." Here's what happens for most students. Because it's not urgent, it's three weeks away, but they have a lab due, they have a paper due, they have a presentation due much sooner, studying gets left till the end of each night, and because it is boring and undefined, it gets pushed to the next day, it gets pushed to the next day, it gets pushed to the next day. What students need to be doing is front loading what is three weeks away in a much smaller, smaller window that is defined and starting with that before what is due tomorrow or the next day. I'm gonna do twenty-five minutes of studying before any of my other work. So if you said to me, Deena, I'm coming out with my fifteenth book, uh, and I'm trying to record another album. It's all feeling do-do-do-do-do, 'cause I've got the-- I'm running the agency day to day, and I'm putting out the podcast." Great. goal, how do we break it up into smaller increments? And it's the first thing so that it can never get triaged to the next day. you could be the twenty-first person to watch my TEDx where I actually go all through this, but this is the whole point. Like what would happen if we worked from a non-adrenaline fueled, like if that wasn't our strategy?

Vanessa Vakharia 42:51

I'm getting simultaneously relieved and anxious. Like, I'm like, oh, like I could start these things that I have due in June. I could just do 25 minutes a day now, and then when I get to June, I'd be like, holy shit

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 43:04

I'm done ahead of time

Vanessa Vakharia 43:08

Okay, number three. What's number three?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 43:10

I want for teachers who are feeling overwhelmed and students who are feeling overwhelmed, if there's perfectionism, if there is procrastination and avoidance, which are enormous conversations, I want them to use a tool that makes the smallest, most imperfect, most incremental initial step. Because we don't wanna wait, wait, wait to get the perfect line and the perfect answer to the formula. Like, we, we wanna begin small and messy. When we talk about getting stuff done, one is we're trying to get out of urgency, the, like, toxic, relentless urgency. Number two is sometimes we don't start things because we don't have the first step. So my big argument about

Vanessa Vakharia 43:57

Yes!

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 43:58

is learning strategies makes all work startable, that's that task initiation piece, more doable, so I have some kind of stamina, momentum, motivation, more finishable, so I'm not stuck in procrastination a- and, and perfectionism land, and then more sustainable, so that I didn't just do it all the night before and then I collapse the day after I hand it in. That's the big pitch. So that's how I'm trying to orient getting work done.

Vanessa Vakharia 44:23

Okay. I think we, this was amazing. We're gonna stop at three steps. That sounds like a lot of stuff in the steps. Okay?

How Deena's course helps anyone study better

Vanessa Vakharia 44:30

Before we wrap up with the two final questions, please can we answer the question that I still have in my brain? Because look at me carrying the load. what happens in your course? What happens in your course?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 44:39

I teach in my course what I teach in my book, Feel Good Learning, what I teach everywhere, everywhere, which is like, how do you manage your time? How do you prioritize? How do you study? How do you read? How do you write? How do you take tests without panic? How do you work with other people? How do you manage your stress? And I do that in a way that is six two-week experiential layers. So I teach all of the strategies, and I have students read all of the interesting things on procrastination, on sort of screen addiction, I-- all of the components that are true to their life. But underneath these experiential layers, for two weeks, they focus on their sleep. Then they add in, they, for two weeks, they integrate physical activity in whatever way they want. Then for two weeks, they focus on community, so they have a sense of belonging. We know that that's the number one variable that accounts for students staying in a program and at an institution. They feel a sense of connection. Then we add in social media boundaries. We don't need any more information. We need them to figure out what are their strategies, so it doesn't eclipse their whole life and eat their attention. Then we have them do mindfulness in whatever form they want, so they have some kind of stress reduction tools. And then we have them practice rest that is not the same thing as Netflix or sleep.

Vanessa Vakharia 45:59

How do we sign up?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 46:01

Well,

Vanessa Vakharia 46:01

Like, can I

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 46:02

you're

Vanessa Vakharia 46:02

honestly come?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 46:03

but

Vanessa Vakharia 46:04

No, I'm serious

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 46:05

So you don't have to be a TMU student. That's why I started a company called Awaken Learning, 'cause that's literally what I teach. So student, you can pay much less. So for $39 a month, you can come and just join what I call the Learning Strategy Studio, and we offer workshops to this exact point. How do-- like, create your study sanctuary is our, is the topic. I'm teaching tonight a studying masterclass. Like we-- this is just what we're offering. Always with wellbeing integrated. I worked in TMU for six years as their learning specialist for students with disabilities. Then for the next six years at TMU, I co-created an intervention called Thriving in Action that spread across Canadian, post-secondary, and international, all integrating what if you taught students how to learn and how to cope so that they don't have to fail a class, so that they don't have to be on probation, or if they are, so they know what to do to move in the direction of what they are hungriest and what they're there to do.

What is meant by "ethical AI"?

Vanessa Vakharia 47:06

The only thing I wanted to say, just so we're very clear, I actually wanna, wanna know if I'm right. When you say non-ethical, uh, AI, it sounds to me like you mean AI that is not like you said, scraping bullshit from Google, but non-ethical AI-- or sorry, ethical AI sounds like AI you use with your own inputs. Is that what it means?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 47:28

inputs, and it's not doing the thinking or organizing or first round of copy editing for you. That it's not taking over skill development. it enhance it? Yes. Can it coach you? Yes. Can it encourage you to, like, if, if you need somebody to challenge your ideas, have-- Best, best way of using AI, put in your instructor's instructions, their rubric, and be like, "What's the checklist?" 'Cause you know what's so great? Now I can recreate that for all of my assignments, not just through AI, through my own capacity. Sometimes the questions that teachers, educators, professors ask are convoluted and confusing. That's another reason why sometimes students procrastinate. "I have no idea what this teacher is asking me to do. Think about data management grade 12. I'm d-doing a research project. I don't know what it's asking me to do." The way the teacher phrases something is hard for my brain to wrap my head around. Great. Have AI decipher it for you. That's a really helpful tool to help you get started on the next step

Vanessa Vakharia 48:33

But if ethical AI is it's not doing thinking or organizing for you, how is putting a rubric into AI and saying, "Put this into steps that I can understand," not it thinking and organizing?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 48:46

I'm talking about where students are stuck and not starting. And what I'm also asking is, can you then recreate that if no one has ever shown you how to do that,

Vanessa Vakharia 48:55

Oh, I see. So, okay. Okay

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 48:58

done that, if you don't have a learning strategist to coach you through making your own, and you are not starting the work because you don't know where to start, then what a beautiful first step that you can then take and be like, "That's the process?" I know it's really easy to just have AI do it forever, but if we're going to do that skill development, wow, I was just shown how to learning strategy the shit out of this assignment. Now I can do that for future assignments for myself.

Vanessa Vakharia 49:27

Hmm.

Q1

Vanessa Vakharia 49:29

Okay, we have to wrap up with the two questions I ask everyone, which kind of seem weird, to be honest. Like, the first one will make sense, the second one won't. The first question is... Actually, no, it totally makes sense. So imagine someone's listening to this. They're like, "Loved it. Oh my God, Deena, she's an idol, she's an icon, but I love what she said, but it, this doesn't apply to me. That's not the reason I suck at math. Like, uh, some people just can't do math. I'm just not a math person." What would you say?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 49:53

You can be.

Vanessa Vakharia 49:56

Great. I love, I love a si- I love a short answer like that. Number two, s-

Q2

Vanessa Vakharia 50:01

I mean, I think we know the answer to this, but let's just ask you, if there was one thing you could change about the way math specifically is taught in schools, what would it be?

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 50:08

to pair with learning strategies. Don't just give the question or the deadline. Explain to a student how to get from the day that something is assigned, whether it is a homework or quiz or a lab or presentation, how to do the work and get from the day it's assigned to the day that it is due.

Outro

Vanessa Vakharia 50:24

Ooh, what a good answer. Okay, this was... Honestly, I came on here for myself. I'm leaving with so many strategies for myself, but holy shit, I just feel like you have given us so much. Thank you so, so much for the work you're doing out there. Like, this, this really is life-changing work.

Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer 50:41

Blessings. It's the thing that I absolutely love, so thank you.

Vanessa Vakharia 50:48

Okay, I am still not over that point Deena made about the fact that doing problems is, like, the only actual effective way to study because it's the only thing that authentically replicates what you'll be doing on actual exam day. It seems obvious, but she really nailed it. Students waste so much time doing things that feel like studying but actually aren't going to move the dial significantly when the exam paper, like, gets plopped in front of them. I'm sending this episode to every student and parent I know right now because you guys know how it is. Everyone is frantically trying to figure out how to cram as much info into their heads right now as possible, and I wanna make sure that they're all studying smarter, not harder, and more importantly, that parents know that their kids do not need to be studying for eight hours straight in order to be effective. If something in this episode made you think, text the podcast. The link to text us is in the show notes of whatever app you're listening to. We love hearing from you. And it is June, which means that one episode this month will contain a giveaway for the brand-new Texas Instruments Evo, so tune in weekly because who knows when it's gonna happen. And if you're in exam season right now, I am sending you all the good vibes. I always tell my students that exams are, like, just a fun opportunity to show off everything you've learned over the year. That's it. It's a chance to try the new strategies and mindset hacks you've learned, to bust out the formula you finally mastered, to think your way through a problem in crunch time, and just try something you normally would've been too scared to try before. That's it. That's all it is. Happy almost summer, everyone. You rock. You're amazing. Stay real, and I'll see you next Thursday, same time, same place, same channel. Peace, love, and pi, bbs.