For Faculty, Learning Centres, and Student Support
Help students keep the thinking.
Four free teaching resources help you make learning purpose, AI decisions, assignment planning, exam preparation, and feedback visible to students. Each one is a short classroom routine with a facilitation script and a student-facing page or companion printable. No background in learning science is required.
Use one in class tomorrow. Give students the printable that goes with it. Nothing here is behind a sign-up, and no written permission is needed.
Free Teaching Resources
Choose the Moment You Want to Improve
Start with the teaching moment in front of you: an AI conversation next class, a major assignment, or a midterm two weeks away. Each resource below is built for one of those moments.
Each resource is designed to be usable while you teach. Every one opens with a page telling you why, when, and what to prepare, followed by a timed facilitation script. Later pages carry facilitation support and an explanation of the Learning Ownership moves the routine practices, so you can run the activity without reading them and understand the reasoning afterward if you want to.
Starting the AI conversation
The First AI Conversation
15 minutes, one class · 7-page guide
Your AI policy tells students what is allowed. This activity helps them decide what the learning still requires from them. Run it two ways: at course start, or with a specific assignment. You name one capability, students check the AI expectations in your course materials, compare interpretations in pairs, and leave with a Practice First decision about what thinking they will do themselves before using AI.
Two student pages, included. AI Learning Boundaries for course start, and the AI Expectations Check for a specific task. Print whichever one you need.
Launching a major assignment
The Assignment Learning Cycle
About 25 minutes, across three short conversations · 11-page guide
A major assignment has two outcomes: the work students submit, and the learning it was meant to develop. Twelve minutes at launch, five at the midpoint while there is still time to change course, and eight to ten after feedback. A fourth moment, Verify, is a checkpoint students run themselves before submitting. This is the one routine that uses all seven Learning Ownership moves.
Companion printable: Assignment Learning Plan and Review, 9 pages.
If you can only run one touch, run the launch. The guide explains why.
Preparing for an exam
The Pre-Exam Learning Conversation
15 minutes, plus a 3 to 5 minute follow-up · 7-page guide
Students may plan preparation around hours rather than evidence. Run it 7 to 10 days before the exam. You name what the exam will actually require, students attempt one short readiness prompt under conditions that fit the exam and check their response, then choose a study strategy that fits the evidence. A short follow-up a few days later is where they check whether their studying is working.
Companion printable: Pre-Exam Learning Plan, 6 pages.
Works for open-resource exams. Match the readiness check to the conditions the exam will use.
Learning from an exam
The Post-Exam Learning Conversation
2 to 3 minutes after the exam, then 15 minutes when graded work returns · 7-page guide
A grade tells students how they performed, but not necessarily why. Students record a private prediction immediately after the exam, then compare it with the result and reconstruct how they actually prepared. When the graded work allows it, they identify the patterns that matter most, including what worked, and carry one change into the first study session of the next exam. You do not need to diagnose why any student lost marks.
Companion printable: Post-Exam Learning Review, 4 pages.
Includes a reduced version for courses where students cannot inspect their graded work.
The two exam conversations are one cycle. The change a student writes after one exam is the input to the first study session before the next. Used across two exams, they show Learning Ownership as a loop rather than as two worksheets.
Each resource stands alone and none requires another. They share a vocabulary, so a student who has used one recognizes the questions in the next. If a class has already done The First AI Conversation, the assignment and exam routines point back to it rather than repeating it.
Free Student Resources
Free Resources to Give Students
Alongside the teaching routines are nine free resources you can give directly to students. Print them, post them to your course site, put one in an orientation package, or hand one to a student in your office. Previews of all nine are on the student page.
Six one-page companion tools
For immediate moments, when a student needs one decision rather than a plan.
- The Seven Moves, the whole system on one page. Works as a poster or a workshop opener.
- Quick Assignment Triage, five minutes of sorting before a student starts. Release it with an assignment.
- Pause Before You Prompt, for the moment a student reaches for AI. It names the barrier first.
- Turning Feedback into a Next Step, when comments are difficult to translate into action.
- Stop Rereading Everything, retrieval and spacing for exam preparation.
- Reset and Recovery, for the student who has fallen behind or lost momentum.
Three reusable Core printables
For repeated use with important assignments and exams. These are the companions to the teaching resources above, and they are listed at the back of Think First.
- Assignment Learning Plan and Review, from understanding the task through feedback.
- Pre-Exam Learning Plan, a study plan built from the actual exam demands and the student’s starting point.
- Post-Exam Learning Review, connecting preparation, errors, and results to specific changes.
A fourth pairing needs no separate printable. The two student pages of The First AI Conversation are the last two pages of that resource.
What the Book Adds
From One Resource to the Complete System
The free resources are designed for specific moments. Think First is for students who need the same Learning Ownership System across assignments, exams, AI use, feedback, weekly planning, and recovery.
Students do not have to read it cover to cover. The 30-situation Find Your Problem index lets them enter where they need help, then use Quick, Core, or Deep support depending on the task and the capacity they have that week.
Course Adoption
A Simple Way to Use Think First in a Course
You do not need to assign Think First cover to cover. It is designed to be opened at the point of need. One straightforward way to use it is at four moments in a term, each tied to work students are already doing.
| When | You run | Book connection | Class time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Course start, or your first AI discussion | The First AI Conversation Student Page A at course start, Page B with a task |
My AI Learning Boundaries, AI Expectations Check, High- and Low-Ownership AI Use (Part 2) | 15 minutes |
| Across the first major assignment | The Assignment Learning Cycle | Quick Assignment Triage, Assignment Learning Plan and Review (Part 3) | About 25 minutes, across three short conversations |
| About 7 to 10 days before the first exam | The Pre-Exam Learning Conversation | Pre-Exam Learning Plan; Better Studying, as needed (Part 4) | 15 minutes, plus a 3 to 5 minute follow-up |
| Immediately after the exam, then when graded work returns | The Post-Exam Learning Conversation | Post-Exam Learning Review (Part 4); Evidence and Transfer Log (Part 1) | 2 to 3 minutes, then about 15 minutes |
Together, these routines use about 80 minutes of class time across a whole term. Each is attached to work already happening in the course, and each leaves students with a concrete learning decision or next step. You do not need to assign the rest of the book. The 30-situation Find Your Problem index helps students return to it when another need arises.
Three questions faculty ask
Do students hand these in? Generally, no. The plans and reviews are learning tools, not compliance forms. The Post-Exam Learning Review in particular includes private information such as grade ranges and self-identified weaknesses, and students are likely to use it more honestly when they retain it. If you want a participation check, ask for one transfer sentence or next-step statement rather than the completed worksheet.
Do I grade it? I would not grade the quality of the reflection. Grading can shift the task from honest self-assessment toward producing the response students think the instructor wants. If participation needs to be recognized, use a low-stakes completion check on a brief transfer statement rather than the private reflection itself.
What if I am not adopting the book? All four teaching resources and all nine student resources work on their own. Think First adds full guidance across all 30 situations, the comprehensive assignment and exam tools, weekly planning and recovery, worked examples, and write-in support for repeated use of the system.
Context
Who This Is For, and the Research Behind It
Learning centres and academic-skills staff use these resources for workshops and appointments. Instructors use them for first-week orientation, assignment launches, and exam preparation. Advisors use them as a structure for conversations with students who are stuck or falling behind. First-year experience and transition programs use them with students moving into more independent academic work. Peer mentors and graduate teaching assistants use them as a shared vocabulary for talking with students about how they learn.
The Learning Ownership System is a practical translation of research on self-regulated learning, metacognition, retrieval and spacing, implementation intentions, feedback, and motivation. The research foundation is not a set of new theories. What Think First adds is a system students can use at the point of need. Explore the research behind the system.
Peter Arthur, PhD
Professor of Teaching, University of British Columbia
2023 Killam Teaching Prize · Founding Director, Centre for Teaching and Learning, UBC Okanagan
peter.arthur@ubc.ca
Permission
Permission, in Plain Terms
The teaching resources and student resources on this page may be downloaded, printed, and shared, without charge and with attribution, for classroom, advising, learning-centre, workshop, and student-support use. You do not need to write and ask. Print them. Post them to your course site. Build a workshop around one. That is what they are for.
Please use these versions for group distribution rather than copying pages from the book, which is written to be completed by one reader. Copying the book in whole or in substantial part, including compiling multiple tools into a class set or course pack, is not permitted.
Working Together
Take It Further
Three ways to go beyond a download. Each opens an email with a few prompts already written, so you can answer what is relevant and delete the rest.
Request a free workshop
Students or staff learn the seven moves, try one resource on a real task, and leave with a way to decide what to do next. It scales from a 20-minute class visit to a full session. There is no cost and no obligation.
Request a review copy
Faculty, learning specialists, and student-success staff considering Think First for a course, program, or initiative may request a review copy. Tell me the context you are considering, and I will follow up about availability and delivery.
Ask about a cohort pilot
I am working with a small number of faculty and student-support programs interested in trying Think First with a class or cohort and seeing how it fits their teaching or student-support context. Limited pilot support, including student copies in some cases, may be available.
Prefer to write your own email? Contact Peter Arthur at peter.arthur@ubc.ca.
Purchasing
Course, Cohort, and Institutional Orders
Because Think First is not tied to a term date, it can be adopted in September, January, a summer bridge program, a midterm recovery campaign, AI-literacy programming, or exam-preparation support. Students do not need to read it cover to cover. They enter through the 30-situation Find Your Problem index at the point they need it.
Through a bookstore
Campus and independent bookstores, libraries, and wholesalers can order Think First through Ingram.
ISBN 978-1-0678630-0-5
Direct to a department or program
Departments, learning centres, advising units, and first-year programs can arrange quantity orders and invoicing through Scholarly Learning.
Course adoption
Faculty considering Think First for a course can request a review copy above, or ask how the free teaching resources would fit alongside existing coursework.
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, with the assignment and exam resources used alongside coursework; as a learning-centre resource, with copies on hand for students who come in for support; or within AI-literacy programming, where the question is whether students are still learning and can stand behind their work.
Considering The Scholar or The Graduate for a course, cohort, or program? Those are term journals rather than a guide, and journal and institutional options are at ScholarlyLearning.org.
Think First: The Learning Ownership System for Studying, Assignments, and Learning with AI.
Peter Arthur, PhD · Scholarly Learning · 142 pages · 7 × 10 paperback · $19.95 CAD / $16.95 USD · ISBN 978-1-0678630-0-5
Choose one upcoming moment. Use one short routine.
Help students leave with a concrete next step.