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A LEARNING PRACTICE COMPANY
Strengthening how students learn—across the student experience.
At B Optimal, we work with colleges to strengthen learning at every level: students develop practices they can use across contexts, practitioners expand how they support that development, and institutions build greater continuity across the learning experience.
More capable learners. More connected support.
Who We Work With
We work with the people and teams who support student learning every day:
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Faculty & teaching centers
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Academic advising & success coaching
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Tutoring & learning centers
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Career Services & Experiential Learning
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First-year experience & student success programs
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Academic affairs & learning innovation
THE CHALLENGE
Important learning practices are expected—but often not made sufficiently visible or usable.
Students are taught content, given assignments and experiences, and surrounded by people and resources intended to support their success.
But students still have to do the work that produces their learning.
They must determine what a situation requires, decide how to approach it, allocate time and resources, monitor what is happening, interpret information and feedback, make adjustments, evaluate what happened, and determine what should carry forward.
These are not secondary skills. They are part of the everyday work of learning.
Yet students may not always have clear ways to recognize what those practices involve, understand how they connect, or strengthen them over time.
The effects can be felt across the institution:
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Students may not recognize what is helping them learn, know what to adjust when they encounter difficulty, or carry learning into new situations.
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Faculty, advisors, tutors, coaches, and career professionals may lack shared language and practical approaches for helping students develop learning practices.
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Institutions may offer valuable courses, services, and experiences without a consistent way to connect them or help students carry learning from one context into another.
OUR APPROACH
Three ways we strengthen learning.
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Make learning practices visible
Give students, educators, and practitioners shared language and frameworks to recognize and discuss how students approach learning before, during, and after an experience.
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Strengthen learning through real work
Embed learning practices in the work students are already doing: planning a semester, approaching an assignment, preparing for an assessment, responding to feedback, managing a project, or learning from an academic, career, or experiential opportunity.
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Connect support across contexts
Help colleges reinforce learning practices across roles and environments, so support builds from one interaction and experience to the next rather than repeatedly starting over.
WHERE OUR PROGRAMS SHOW UP
The same practices, applied across the student experience.
B Optimal Learning Practice Programs pair practical student resources with facilitation guidance and implementation support. They can be used in the settings where students are already learning, reflecting, making decisions, and preparing for what comes next.
FEATURED PROGRAM
Turn experience into visible learning.
Tell My Story with STARR+™
Tell My Story with STARR+™ helps learners examine and make meaning from authentic experiences, recognize what they learned and what their actions demonstrate, and turn that learning into something they can communicate, use, and carry forward.
LEARNING PRACTICE TOOLS
Support self-directed learning.
Students are expected to direct their own learning, yet structured, repeated opportunities to develop that capacity are often missing.
Build students’ capacity to interpret learning demands, plan and organize their approach, choose strategies intentionally, monitor and evaluate what is working, and adjust what they do next.
STUDY STRATEGY SWAP BINGO™
Turn study strategies into a game students learn from together!
Students already use study strategies. But they may not recognize their own patterns, know how others approach similar work, or have a structured way to evaluate what is helping and decide what to try next.
Study Strategy Swap Bingo™ is a facilitated peer-learning experience that helps students recognize the strategies they use, exchange practical approaches with peers, consider what works in light of experience and research, and choose one realistic strategy to try next.
Designed for orientation, first-year courses, tutoring, academic coaching, gateway courses, and student-success programming.
TOOLS FOR STUDENT-DRIVEN LEARNING
Planners, notes, and study tips can help.
But too often, planners get set aside, notes go unread, and tips are forgotten or don't translate to action.
B Optimal’s Notion-based tools help learners manage the day-to-day work of being a student while building habits and capabilities they need for self-directed learning, academic success, and future professional growth.
LEARNING PRACTICE INFRASTRUCTURE
Shared practices. More connected support for learning.
Learning Practice Programs help colleges develop a shared, coordinated approach to strengthening learning across the institution.
At B Optimal, we call this Learning Practice Infrastructure: shared practices, language, and tools that connect how students are supported across classrooms, advising, tutoring, coaching, career development, and other learning environments.
The result is greater continuity across roles, more productive learning conversations, and more consistent support for student learning.
METACOGNITION IN ACTION
One system. A growing capacity for learning.
Every B Optimal Learning Practice Program is powered by the Metacognitive Moves System™, a shared foundation for helping students become more aware of how they learn, make purposeful choices, evaluate what is working, and carry their learning forward.
Its design principles, learning frameworks, and practical tools connect programs without making them identical. Each program addresses a distinct learning challenge while reinforcing practices students can recognize and use across contexts by making Metacognitive Moves™.
As institutions add programs, students encounter greater continuity in how learning is supported. Practitioners gain shared language and adaptable practices they can use across classrooms, advising, tutoring, coaching, career development, and beyond.
FROM OUR WORK
A Closer Look
Explore recent articles, case studies, professional learning experiences, and tools that illustrate how learning practices become visible, discussable, and actionable.
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