What do students think about the learning process? This article describes the patterns of what students think about their learning, gathered from 45 classes using mid-semester Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID). We learned that SDIGs provided insights into students' perceptions of how learning works that are not identified in the end-of-course student evaluations of instruction. While some of these perceptions are consistent with the scholarly literature (e.g., use of examples, active participation, and feedback), others suggest possible clashes between student and faculty expectations.