Growth and Goals Module: A Course-Integrated Open Education Resource to Help Students Increase their Learning Skills

Abstract

We developed and launched an online, course-integrated module called Growth & Goals aimed to help students better develop evidence-based learning skills. The module focuses on five main concepts: self-regulated learning, goal-setting, metacognition, mindfulness, and mindsets (growth and fixed continuum). Growth & Goals is an open education resource available for download at no cost to any educator through FlynnResearchGroup.com/GrowthGoals. The module is available in both French and English and can be customized to any university course. The module addresses the aforementioned concepts through a combination of text and videos, with interspersed interactive activities that students use to develop their learning skills. Growth & Goals is intended to help students effectively manage the challenges they may encounter as they progress through their postsecondary academic career and beyond and become more proficient learners. Since 2017, the module has been implemented in more than 15 university courses and has been used by over 8000 students. The preliminary evaluation of Growth & Goals has been largely positive, indicating that the module has been well received by both students and educators and that it successfully guides students in learning the module’s concepts.

Keywords

• self-regulated learning
• metacognition
• growth mindset
• open education resource
• goal-setting
• postsecondary