Hi James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected]
>>> Paul C Bernhardt <[email protected]> 26-Mar-11 5:07:28 PM >>> I agree with you completely. While I'm sure that many of us on TIPS were first generation college students, I'm confident that most of us had family members who went to college before we did, often parents. Therefore, we had some awareness of what is needed for college success, trusted persons to ask, and support for our goals. I see many students who show up at college and they think (and their parents think) they are making a transition similar to that from primary school to secondary school, as if freshman year of college is just the 13th grade. They need to be taught how to go to college. They need to be taught that courses will not meet 5 days a week (typically) and that what you will be tested on will be not necessarily be talked about in class. They need to learn that they are expected to do much work on their own. They need to learn how to prioritize their time, including their family. I have been astonished at times the degree of demands that some families put on their children who are away at college. I regularly see students whose parents are actively undermining their success, in some cases with not-so-secret communication that 'becoming educated is not what the family values, so just give up this college fantasy.' They are begged to come home every weekend, skip classes on Friday and Monday, etc. I've seen students whose parents have them come home every weekend to work in the family business all day Friday through Sunday. These parents (and the students) see only 12 credit hours scheduled as a full load and imagine that they have all the free time in the world, not knowing that 12 credits is expected to take up about 36 hours of their life when outside study is taken into account. I can go on and on... but it is clear to me that with the ongoing democratization of college access that a large proportion of our students at all but the elite colleges will be first generation and therefore likely to be poorly prepared to manage the total experience of college. Therefore, it is clear to me that courses which teach basic skills, management of their path through the curriculum, long term planning of their education for later life success, etc. are vital to the ultimate success of the college. If the college admits, but does not graduate, then they don't go on to get jobs that implicitly promote the school and in the most practical sense, that earn money to donate back to the school. It is vital to the ongoing success of the college that the college admit the best qualified it can, and support those it admits as well as it can and create systems that create higher likelihood of success both in college and after college. Successful graduates may enrich the college. Non-graduates will not. Courses that increase the yield of successful graduates from those who admitted should be welcomed by administrators and by faculty who value their careers and the future of the academy. JC: As someone whose single mother quit school to work after grade 8 in England (not that unusual at the time) and who himself was married and with a child by 2nd year, I can fully appreciate the challenges that many of today's students face (without any implication that if I can do it, others should be able to do it). What I wonder about is how "success at college" is defined ... see response below to Claudia. On Mar 26, 2011, at 4:25 PM, Claudia Stanny wrote: > I also disagree with the idea that letting students fend for themselves on > these matters allows the "real cream" to rise to the top. This smacks of the > "talent mindset" that Dweck talks about and identifies as an obstacle to > persistence when students hit difficult spots in their academic work. These > metacognitive skills are learnable (and teachable) skills of academic life. > Many smart, capable kids hit walls they don't even know exist because someone > thinks that if they don't already know the secret handshake, they aren't cut > out for academia. What a waste. JC: I would not advocate letting students fend for themselves. But if students were in a situation where they had to fend for themselves (as was generally the case in the past), then students are going to differentiate for some reason that may not be irrelevant to university success. University is not just a teaching institution; it is also a selection institution. Not all students are going to have what it takes to go on to graduate school, for example, no matter how well they might do as undergraduate students with highly structured teaching. For example, I teach an intermediate data analysis course covering multiple regression and analysis of variance. Over many years I have developed ways to get more students to learn the material than would be the case without these supports. But even so and given roughly equivalent levels of performance, some of the students are clearly more likely to succeed at graduate school than others by virtue of the ease or depth of their understanding. In questioning the desirability of the proposed course, I simply wonder whether there is not some way to design programs so that students acquire the metacognitive skills as well as the specified competencies? To use a simple example, consider ways to teach APA style. One could have a highly-structured class that presents all the relevant material in an organized way with opportunities to practice and with specific feedback. This would undoubtedly be more efficient, easier to implement, and more universally effective than alternatives. One alternative would be that students are required in diverse courses to use APA style in their writing and get lower marks, feedback on errors, and pointers to learning materials. But it is up to the students to actually find information about and learn APA style. Will the students in the latter case learn something more than the students in the former case, even though they may not learn APA style as efficiently or even as well? For example, which students will fare better when APA style changes yet again? Or when they are asked in another class to use MLA style? Or when they have to use modified APA style for their thesis (assuming this was not covered in either approach)? I just feel that as we become more effective at teaching various competencies, we need to be careful about the possibility of eliminating opportunities to develop other equally or perhaps even more important competencies. Take care Jim --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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