Susan Schapiro, founder and director of UB's Methods of Inquiry (MOI) program, is proving that they can, and the more than 500 students each year who take her course are finding out for themselves.

The popular MOI course, although primarily made up of freshmen and sophomores, has taught doctoral candidates, as well as law students and postbaccalaureate medical-school candidates, how to enhance their learning experience by thinking critically and-at the same time-raising their grades.

Schapiro, clinical associate professor in the Graduate School of Education, says the course helps students become actively involved in their own learning processes by developing an appropriate mind-set for learning, practicing critical thinking, recognizing and using effective learning strategies and engaging in an ongoing self-assessment.

"We are not teaching study-skills," says Schapiro. "We are teaching learning strategies that lead to student-effectiveness. Students need to know that learning is making meaning. Since all learning takes place in the head of the learner, learners must take responsibility for their studies. They cannot depend on whether they have a good or bad teacher."

Students in the course, as well as Schapiro, agree that it is by no means an "easy A."

The course demands an extensive amount of work that requires students to focus on metacognitive aspects of knowledge through analysis (learning to use note-taking procedures to check understanding on a daily basis), synthesis (learning to prepare summary questions, flow charts, information maps and other graphic representations to help clarify and solve problems) and evaluation (learning to understand evaluative materials by analyzing past exams and preparing mock exams to use as study aids).

MOI allows students to learn, practice and develop these skills in careful self-regulation and continuous self-assessment with the help of an individually assigned personal peer monitor who works with each student on a one-on-one basis, explains Schapiro.

"It enhances the educational experience of UB students by providing an environment in which they are taught and encouraged to take personal responsibility for what they learn," she adds.

"Students coming out of high school often are learning for extrinsic rewards," explains Schapiro, who taught philosophy at The Buffalo Seminary and Nichols High School for several years before coming to UB. "Even once they are in college, they often only want to learn what is going to be on a test. Learning is much more complex than they think. Most students don't have an understanding of how data turns into concepts. They are not interested in long-term strategies."

Several colleges and universities across the country have adapted aspects of the UB MOI program into their curriculums. "However, says Schapiro, "no other campuses, to our knowledge, have as intense and academic a program as we do."

The MOI program, which was developed by Schapiro with a $235,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, is an elaboration of a program developed in 1983 by Marcia Heiman and Joshua Slomianko known as the "Learning to Learn" program.

"Many were surprised that I received the grant," recalls Schapiro. "While completing my doctoral degree here at UB, I came across an article on the 'Learning to Learn' program which turned out to be quite interesting. I was encouraged to write a grant, so I did. It just happened to be perfect timing because it was at the beginning of a developing interest in critical thinking."

She notes that former Vice Provost John Thorpe was a great supporter of her efforts and was instrumental in helping to bring the program into the mainstream at UB.

Most recently, Schapiro has tested the theory that "dynamic" students, or those students who are risk-takers, curious, enthusiastic, persistent, well-paced and happy to learn, are more successful academically than students who participate in mechanical "active" learning strategies.

Active, or classic, learning strategies practiced by students, such as knowing and actively engaging themselves in the material, knowing how to get into the instructor's mind and obtaining feedback on what they have learned, are helpful but do not stand alone in the determination of academic success.

"This new finding comes as quite a surprise, since it was traditionally thought that academic success was based on a combination of a high IQ and doing the right things, such as taking the right notes, knowing what the instructor wants and so on," says Schapiro. She decided to test the theory herself on students in MOI and found that while active strategies are important, the dynamics of learning are the real drivers of academic success. She found in recent studies that MOI seems to be successful in positively affecting the dynamics of learning in its students. She is interested in whether or not these dynamic strategies can be taught and if they are part of the genetic makeup.

After teaching high school for many years, Schapiro says the challenge of teaching critical thinking gave a "new life" to her career, especially since there was not yet a lot of material on the subject at that time. Study in the areas of cognitive psychology and philosophy also played a big part in Schapiro's conceptualization of MOI.

Since she began the MOI program, Schapiro has been most rewarded by the many students who have enjoyed the course and taken something away from it. "I get love letters from students expressing their appreciation, sometimes two or three years after they have taken the course, saying they didn't realize at the time how valuable it was," Schapiro laughs. "What more can a teacher ask for?"