Promoting Effective Task Interpretation as an Important Work Habit: A Key to Successful Teaching and Learning

In this article we argue that to be successful in an academic arena, students must adopt a consistent approach to completing academic work (i.e., a work habit) that includes very carefully interpreting the demands of tasks that are presented to them in schools. To clarify why task interpretation is so critical to student success, and is thus an important instructional objective for teachers, we begin by presenting two vignettes illustrating links between task interpretation and students’ successful engagement in academic work. Then, we take a step back to describe what we mean by academic work and engagement and to explain how and why students’ knowledge about, conceptions of, and interpretations of tasks are so foundational to performance. We also describe how students’ task interpretation breaks down and why such breakdowns often occur. Finally, we close by advancing practical suggestions for teachers regarding how to structure activities, instruction, and evaluation to promote students’ adoption of task interpretation as an important work habit in the pursuit of effective learning.

Sally is teaching a ninth grade English class. Her goal is for students to learn how to write various kinds of paragraphs. After showing some examples and talking with the class about the structure of a narrative paragraph, Sally asks the students to write one themselves. She writes the assignment on the chalkboard as she explains it to the class but notices that quite a number of students start talking to each other while her back is turned. As students work on the assignment, Sally circulates around the room. She reexplains the task to some students and reminds others to focus on their work. She notices that many students seem lost and that only a few students are doing a good job of following her very detailed instructions.

Amy is an eighth grade student taking science. One day, Amy arrives home with her science textbook and instructions to answer the questions at the end of Chapter 6. Amy sits down, turns her book to the end of the chapter, finds the first question and looks for key words. She then searches for those key words in the chapter to find information relevant to the question. She copies the information word for word onto a piece of paper, then moves onto the remaining questions. When she is challenged by her teacher the next day, who asks if she has answered the questions in her own words, Amy replies that she does not need to understand the information. She shows her teacher how she has received 100% on each of her previous homework assignments, which she completed in the same way.