My Students Won't - Read Part 1: The Reason Why

“Do you think this class will be a lot of work?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve heard that the prof is really nice.”

“How much did you pay for the textbook?”

“Almost $100! I wonder if I’ll really need it.”

“I doubt it. My friend took this class last semester and got a C+ just from going to lecture.”

“So are you planning to buy the textbook?”

“No way! This teacher covers all the important stuff in lecture anyway.”

It’s hard to argue with such student logic. After all, many of our students have made it into college with only the most rudimentary of language skills. Every semester, they aim for that “barely passing” grade, and most of the time they achieve it. Certainly there are exceptions. For example, my office neighbor teaches a course that is prerequisite for entry to the nursing program. When he arrives for work in the morning, he has students lined up outside his office waiting to ask questions about the homework assignment. However, this is not the norm at Delta—or at most community colleges.

If we faculty are going to challenge the status quo, we have our work cut out for us. It is with embarrassment that I relate the following story.

Some years ago, while teaching college-level English, I concluded that weak reading skills were largely responsible for the educational lethargy of my students. So I went back to graduate school, received training in reading education, and returned, eager to tackle prevailing attitudes. I signed up to teach my first reading course and found a text, The Fight in the Fields, that was both interesting and culturally relevant to my students. This book chronicled the rise of Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement right here in the San Joaquin Valley.

In Part Two, we'll examine the three levels of reading comprehension, appreciate why reading is such hard work for students, and make clear what we faculty must do to change this paradigm.

For the full - Part 1, Click HERE

Source--Patrick Wall, English/Reading Instructor, San Joaquin Delta Community College

Learning with Letters

Some 12-14 years ago I became disgusted with myself for falling asleep (or at least into a dull hypnotic trance) while reading yet another batch of essays from my upper-division Shakespeare students. It finally occurred to me, as a late-life epiphany, that my malaise was not the fault of the students, but rather my own. After all, they had simply delivered what I asked for: safe, careful, traditional essays on topics that the students knew that I understood better than they. And so I got the typical protective prose (passive voice everywhere and cautious thoughts at every turn: "as one can see," “it may be conjectured here that," "possibly Shakespeare meant," and so on, ad nauseam.) I therefore determined to strip the students of the double vulnerabilities OF HAVING TO PRETEND TO BE SHAKESPEARE SCHOLARS WRITING FOR AN AUDIENCE EVEN MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE THAN THEY THEMSELVES WERE. If pretense was the rhetorical game, why not put them into positions, postures, angles closer to their "real" personae and language styles--or even into different characters (Shakespearean or not) that would free them to use a less artificial rhetoric to raise revealing--and readable!--arguments about the nature of the players and the plays. In other words (since life is short and I remembered virtually nothing of thousands of previous essays written in the "traditional" style that I had so dutifully called for), why not ask for responses that I actually would look forward to reading? Radical, right? And so I came up with the "letters" approach.

The students love these assignments because they can be so creative, and they can even be wrong-without-being-wrong. There is form, there is structure, and there is the logic of argument implicit in the "stance" described in each "letter" assignment. (And no one could ever hope to evade these by going to the Internet for responses, I assure you.) I know this approach has been used before, but the secret is to make the "letters" assignments genuinely your own by asking for responses that YOU want to hear. My students just love this somewhat whacky way of penetrating Shakespeare's complex world without their having to pretend to be "experts." It doesn't even seem like work to them, yet they pour twice as much effort into these assignments, with real enjoyment. We read some aloud in class, usually with a little dramatic flair and always with some appreciative applause. I call this win-win-win. And I believe this approach is as applicable to a History or Biology class as to an English class.

EXAMPLE ASSIGNMENT 1: As a character in Othello, you realize at some point in the play that, to avoid a tragic ending, what Othello needs most is an informative letter from you. Write that letter—and indicate when in the course of the play Othello needs to receive this letter in order to avoid a tragic end. (Try to write the letter “in character.”)

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Source: --John McDaniel, On Course Website

The Year Ahead in Higher Ed Technology

What happens when tough economic times combine with fatigue across the campus community hyping the latest “killer app,” and the growing intolerance of disruptions to services occasioned by security-related activities? I think the intersection of these three realities represent the most important challenges for campus information technology leaders in 2009.

We have not seen three years of negative economic growth since the birth of the Internet. We are one year into the global recession and the crystal-ball gazing under way on most campuses is not producing rosy scenarios. Chief information officers at most universities are closing in on “core” operations as they respond to cost cutting requirements after more than five years of marginal growth.

CIOs are portfolio managers. Like their counterparts, CIO portfolio management is really about meeting three goals: operating effectively, satisfying customers, and selectively engaging in innovation (R&D). In the sort of three-year downturn that most experts envision, tough decisions will be required to perform strongly in all three of those areas.

To read the full article click here:
Source: --Lev Gonick, Higher Ed Website

Lessons of a Summer Teaching Online

It was September of my first year as assistant professor at a liberal arts university when I read the announcement about teaching a summer online class. Summer seemed a long way off and the idea of the extra money I could earn was enticing. (My new baby, new mortgage, and the ever-lamented low pay of assistant professors weighed heavily on my mind.) As an avid user of Blackboard, I felt more than well-prepared for the task of teaching online and I thought it would be fun to challenge my teaching skills by depending entirely on the Internet to communicate class material to my students. Additionally, I was delighted to be able to teach students a seminar in my specialty area, cognitive neuroscience of memory. My university offered extensive course development and online training, including an assigned instructional designer for the entire process, so I fearlessly signed on for the adventure.

As I faithfully attended the monthly training meetings for Just in Time Technology (ex: how to use Skype) and for Course Design (ex: what is the conversion of 14 weeks pacing into a 30 day class), it began to dawn on me that I had underestimated the time and preparation required for my online course. I was one of a handful of new faculty who had added summer teaching to their first year obligations. As we sat in our classes and were shown the innovations of the online veterans, I doubt I was the only one who was feeling overwhelmed with bells and whistles. The online teaching veterans had planned every detail from music clips to the customized picture that would be shown behind the course title when students logged in. I learned that there are more than three ways to present a syllabus electronically, that I should probably post a video introduction of myself, and that the bar for creativity is set very high when an origami project can be successfully taught online. I had confidently thought I knew a lot about technology but I admit I had never considered such intricacies as whether presenting exam questions one-at-a-time or all on one page resulted in better student performance and ensured protection against cheating. As a cognitive neuroscientist, I know quite a bit about learning and memory but my mind was boggled by pedagogical concepts like “visual arguments” and “muddiest points,” and by the practice of making “concept maps” out of course material. As the summer crept closer and closer, I started to think that I had made a tremendous mistake.

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Source: --Amy Overman, Higher EdWebsite

Fixing Higher Ed

The press and the blogosphere have devoted significant coverage recently to a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce that predicted that the United States is on "collision course with the future." The report estimated that within a mere eight years, the nation will suffer a shortfall of at least 3 million workers with college degrees and 4.7 million workers with postsecondary certificates. The authors of the report concluded that to meet the challenges of a global economy in which 59 to 63 percent of domestic jobs require education beyond the high-school level, America’s colleges and universities "need to increase the number of degrees they confer by 10 percent annually, a tall order."

Although numerous commentators have responded to the report by echoing its call for increased access to higher education, it seems to me that few have focused on a key term in the report’s call to "develop reforms that result in both cost-efficient and high quality postsecondary education." Producing millions more baccalaureate-educated workers will do nothing to address the competitiveness of the U.S. workforce if those degrees are not high quality ones. Sadly, it is pretty clear that far too many college degrees aren’t worth the paper on which they are printed.

In 2006, the Spellings Commission reported disturbing data that more than 60 percent of college graduates were not proficient in prose, document, and quantitative literacy. In other words, significantly more than half of college degree holders in the United States lack the “critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills needed in today’s workplaces.”

To read the full article click here:
Source: -- Henry F. Fradella, Higher Ed Website

10 Social Media Tools For Learning

Do you have a training or information need that could benefit from a social media strategy? Understanding the universe of options can help you match your need to the best approach. So here are descriptions of ten applications representing different social media technologies that promote learning. Many of these tools and services are free or have a free trial period, which can encourage experimentation.

Each tool fulfills at least one of these criteria: encourages collaboration; enables user-generated content or input; provides a way to share; and facilitates informal or formal learning. Be sure to do additional research and comparison with similar products prior to making a selection as this is just a small sampling. (Listing is alphabetical.)

Audacity

Category: Podcasts

Although podcasts are a one-way form of communication, they enable the creation of user-generated content. Podcasts are fairly easy for anyone to make and with the free downloadable software, Audacity, it becomes an inexpensive option. Podcasts are a great medium for distributing an organization’s content and expertise because they can be played on hand held devices and computers.

Users can record and edit audio with Audacity and it runs on most operating systems, including Mac OS X and Windows. Key features include recording through a microphone or mixer, digitizing recordings from tapes, audio editing, importing and exporting audio files, effects and quality adjustments. For details on how to create a podcast, see How to Create Your Own Podcast on About.com.

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Source: --The eLearning Coach Website

Re-Energizing Students' Motivation

INTRODUCTION: I teach transfer as well as developmental level English courses. I’ve been most disturbed by the attrition rate of both my under-prepared and bright students. Half way through one recent semester of my Developmental English class (pre-Comp I), I noticed the original energy of the students was slipping, absences were increasing, and more homework was coming in late. So I needed an activity that would give these students a chance to re-energize themselves for the “last lap.” I developed an assignment that would give my students an opportunity to delve deep into what could motivate them to continue working hard and achieve success. Although I used this activity in a composition course, variations of it (such as a letter or journal entry) could be used in any course where the instructor is seeing students’ motivation and efforts flagging. I suggest using it between the sixth week and mid-semester.

PURPOSE:

• To re-energize student motivation to achieve an academic goal
• To help students discover their own personal steps to achieve an academic goal
• To inspire more responsible student behavior and class participation

SUPPLIES/SET UP:

• Handout A: “Steps to Achieve a Goal” (appended below)
• Chalk and chalkboard to note rough outline or essay “plan” suggestions
• Pen and paper to begin the essay (or appropriate supplies if teaching in a computer lab)
• Colored paper half sheets for a “New Changes” Reminder/Bookmark (optional)
• Handout B: “Initial Feedback” (appended below)
• Handout C: “End-of-Semester Feedback” (appended below)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Explain that midterm is the time of the semester when many students lose sight of their academic goals, lose motivation, and stop taking actions necessary for college success. Offer specific examples from behaviors of past students. Suggest to students that now would be a good time for them to take a look at a key goal they have for college this semester, reminding themselves of their personal motivation for succeeding.

2. Distribute Handout A: “Steps to Achieve a Goal.” Have students fill in the blanks.

3. Distribute the colored half sheets and then, based on question # 7 of Handout A (Steps), have students complete a “New Changes Reminder/Bookmark” that they can keep in their textbook or post at home for frequent review.

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Source: --Regina Popper, On Course Website