For Faculty, Learning Centres & Student Support
Teaching Students How to Learn
You already know the students this is for: capable, working hard, and stuck. They are not failing for lack of ability. They are struggling because no one has directly taught them how to plan a task, check whether they actually understand it, change strategy when something is not working, use AI without handing over the thinking, or recover when they fall behind.
Think First is a book and a learning system that teaches students to do exactly those things. It gives them the complete Learning Ownership System for assignments, exams, AI use, feedback, weekly planning, and recovery. Six free companion tools from the book are ready to use today in classes, learning-centre workshops, advising appointments, orientation programs, and peer support — no permission request, no sign-up.
Who This Is For
- Learning centres and academic skills staff — workshop content and one-page handouts on assignments, exams, AI, feedback, and recovery.
- Instructors — first-week orientation material, and a handout to release alongside each assignment.
- Academic advisors — a structure for the conversation with a student who has fallen behind.
- First-year experience and transition programs — a system for students moving into independent academic work.
- Student associations and peer mentors — printable tools your members can use immediately.
- TA and graduate-student development — a shared vocabulary for talking with students about how they learn.
What Student Problems Does Think First Address?
These are the sentences students actually say. Each one has a page in the book.
| When students say… | Think First gives them… |
|---|---|
| “I don’t know how to start this assignment.” | Quick Assignment Triage, Make the Assignment Startable, and the Full Assignment Ownership Tool |
| “I study for hours but blank on the exam.” | Retrieval and spacing plans, and error-pattern analysis afterwards |
| “AI gives me answers, but I’m not sure I’m learning.” | High- and low-ownership AI use, verification before submitting, and an AI Use Log |
| “My course bans AI and I don’t know what’s allowed.” | An AI Expectations Check, and a section on working when no AI is permitted |
| “I’m worried about being wrongly flagged for AI use.” | Your Process Is Your Evidence — how a documented process protects a student |
| “I got feedback but don’t know what to do with it.” | Feedback-to-next-step tools and the Evidence and Transfer Log |
| “I’m behind and avoiding everything.” | The Reset and Recovery Tool, a communication script for professors, and a 48-hour plan |
| “My week is scattered.” | Weekly Learning Ownership Checks, including a two-minute minimum version |
The book is organised this way on purpose. An index at the front maps these problems directly to the page that addresses them, so a student in difficulty finds the right tool in under a minute.
Six Free Tools, Six Moments
Each tool is one page and takes a student a few minutes. Each one teaches one move of the Learning Ownership System — so a student who uses three of them has practised the same underlying cycle three times, in three different situations.
- The Seven Moves — the whole system on one page. Works as a poster, an LMS page, or a workshop opener.
- Quick Assignment Triage — release it with the assignment. Five minutes of sorting, before the student starts on the wrong thing.
- Pause Before You Prompt — for the moment a student reaches for AI. Names the real barrier, and puts AI on a list of options rather than at the top of it.
- Turning Feedback into a Next Step — hand it back with the marked work, so the comments become a question the student can act on.
- Stop Rereading Everything — retrieval and spacing, for the weeks before an exam.
- Reset and Recovery — for the student who has fallen behind, gone quiet, or stopped coming. Includes crisis-support information.
Permission, in Plain Terms
You may copy and distribute the six free tools, and selected tools from the book, for classroom, advising, and student-support use — provided you share them without charge and with attribution. You do not need to write and ask.
Print them. Post them to your LMS. Put them in an orientation package. Build a workshop around one. Hand one to a student in your office. That is what they are for.
Adopting the Book in a Course or Program
Because Think First is not tied to a term date, it can be adopted in September, in January, in a summer bridge program, in a midterm recovery campaign, in AI-literacy programming, or in exam-preparation support. Students do not need to read it cover to cover — they enter through the Find Your Problem index, at the point they need it. That makes it considerably easier to use than a traditional study-skills text, which usually assumes a linear read and a term start.
Possible adoption models:
- As a course text in first-year seminars, university-success courses, and academic-skills courses.
- As a supplementary text in a discipline course, where the assignment and exam tools are used alongside the coursework.
- As a learning-centre resource, with copies on hand for students who come in for support.
- In AI-literacy programming, where the question is not whether students use AI but whether they are still learning while they do.
For a one-page summary you can forward to a colleague, a department, or your campus bookstore, download the information sheet.
A Free Workshop for Your Students or Staff
In a short virtual workshop, students or staff learn the seven moves, try one tool on a real task, and leave with a simple way to decide what to do next — on an assignment, an exam, an AI-use decision, or a recovery moment.
It can be scaled from a 20-minute class visit to a full session. There is no cost and no obligation. To arrange one, or to ask about course adoption, bulk copies, or examination copies, email me directly.
Peter Arthur, PhD
Professor of Teaching, University of British Columbia
2023 Killam Teaching Prize · Founding Director, Centre for Teaching & Learning
peter.arthur@ubc.ca
The Evidence Base
The Learning Ownership System is a practical translation of self-regulated learning research. The seven moves draw on:
- Self-regulated learning — planning, monitoring, adjusting, and reflecting, across a repeating cycle. (Zimmerman)
- Metacognition — checking what students actually understand, rather than what feels familiar. (Schraw and Dennison)
- Retrieval and spacing — studying that builds recall, not just recognition. (Roediger and Karpicke; Dunlosky et al.)
- Implementation intentions — planning for the obstacle before it arrives. (Gollwitzer)
- Mindset — treating struggle as information about strategy, not proof of inability. (Dweck)
What the book adds is not new theory. It is a form students will actually pick up: one page, one moment, one next move.
Also for Your Students
Scholarly Learning also publishes two term-long journals built on the same research: The Scholar: Fall 2026 for undergraduates and The Graduate: Fall 2026 for graduate students. See the full catalogue and institutional information at ScholarlyLearning.org →