Last one...

Wrap-Up

I left my last blog with the thought about whether students did the bare minimum out of necessity or laziness.  Well, I guess that would depend upon the student as the author found out.  She, herself, found that she slacked in some areas and would cram at the last minute for an exam or quiz—others did the same, and yet others felt the need to apply themselves a little more.  Isn’t this typical of any university or school or any group of students?  The author goes on to speak about the two-thirds of successful, savvy college seniors who have pretty much learned to balance what is required of them as well as the joys of college life.  He/she has learned to cultivate faculty, choose courses and schedules wisely, negotiate the bureaucracy of college life, and cheat less—at least that is the hope. 

Lessons Learned

So, now the author attempts to reflect on lessons from her ethnographic experience accompanied by commentary from teachers and other students.  When first embarking on this experience, the author speaks of other teachers being astonished by her revelation of returning to college—as a freshman.  What???  Either they were amused or horrified.  Some compared her study to a book written by John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me, a book about a white man who injects himself with pigment-altering dyes and changes his appearance and lived as a black person in the deep south (wasn’t there a movie about this)?  Students reacted in surprise because of a number of reasons—she was older, there was mistrust because she was a teacher (was she spying?) or an appreciation of her willingness to cross over and “see how it really is as a student.”  What did she learn?  She learned that there is an incomplete picture that each set of individuals (teachers and students) have of each other.  Professors have no idea what a dorm room looks like, the routes of the campus bus system, the cost of books, tuition, and housing.  I wonder if the instructors would listen if she were to get them all together to give them an inside look at a student’s life?  Or, vice versa—would the students want to hear about faculty rank, how the university functions, or the after-hours teachers work planning courses?  Would either side care?  I think some would and some would not.  The author said that she was a decent student and had “A” work in a couple of courses and in another one, she was easily the worst student in the class.  She did take advantage of the tutoring center, but as she dropped further and further behind, it was a struggle for her to attend that class.  Does any of this sound familiar?  What an “ah-ha” moment.  She came to understand what it meant to be on the fence between giving up and making more of an effort.  She realizes that if students felt like she did, all it could take to get the student moving again was for the teacher to reach out to the student.  She can see how this kind of ignorance can lead, as the international students argued, to misconceptions and intolerance on both ends.  How does it get fixed?  Can it?  Is there anything to fix? 

Back to Reality  (Instructor once again)

• Looked at old syllabus, notes, old assignments and thought about ways to update her course.  Before, she taught her class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, followed up or preceded class with office hours to encourage visits.  Why aren’t students showing up?  Why aren’t they prepared for class?  Wake up and smell the coffee—in between her Tuesday and Thursday classes, students have had at least four other classes—maybe more, completed more reading and writing assignments, and could be working a job or involved in club programs.  In contrast she had taught only one other class and spent time on Wednesday arranging for her Thursday meeting class.  So, while concentrating on only one course—students had to concentrate on more than one course.  Reality—her course is only one of many to be juggled in the time management challenge.

• To read or not to read—that is the question.  Mental questions such as, “Will there be a quiz or test on the material”?  is the reading something that will be needed in order to do the homework?;  Will it be discussed in class in a way that personal and public participation is required?”  If the answer is no, then most likely, the reading will not be completed.  So, what does the author take away from all of this?  If there is not a strong signal from the instructor that the readings will be used in some way that requires participation or knowledge of, then the students see the assigned readings as optional.   What did she do from this revelation?  She honed the assignments to those that she actually employed in the classes while also creating classroom forums for immediate discussion.  My question—isn’t this what all instructors should do—and if the reading won’t be used in class on a test or quiz or for discussion, then shouldn’t the students be told that the readings are optional? 

• Some students actually have to work instead of “just attending” school.  They are dealing with “other stuff” along with their studies.  I never knew this next one—schools try to schedule courses on Fridays to discourage heavy drinking on Thursdays.  I heard that one at a recent conference I attended as well. 

Final Thoughts

The author related her journey of returning back to student life as a way of combating her own alienation as a professor.  Her wish is for more teachers to see students and student culture from “the other side”—it is really not personal.  She would like to see students realize that their silence can make an enthusiastic professor lose his/her energy and a new teacher doubt his/her abilities, or that finding a student cheating is not a triumphant moment—it is a very upsetting one.  Teachers are human too, but it may take a student-turned-teacher to tell those tales.                                                                                                                                             

The thoughts that I am left with after reading this book, is I guess things have really changed since this author attended college as a freshman.  Did she ever live in a dorm as a freshman—I may have missed that part, because some of the things she mentioned about dorm life seemed to be a bit foreign to her.  If she did live in a dorm when she was a freshman, are things that much different now than then? 

As a student, the author was reminded of some things that students are dealing with on a regular basis.  Do teachers get in a mindset that their class is the only one that matters?  Going through the adult education master’s course, I am still full of fresh ideas and am very cognizant of how challenging it is as a student, but as I become a seasoned educator, will I get complacent in my own teaching and guidance that I will forget what it was like to be a student.  I am going to try very hard not to become this way and to always interact with the students and get out there among them to see what they doing and why.  I think it is very important that educators get to know their students on a personal basis so they can understand their issues and concerns and to know what’s going on in their lives and what is important to them.

I hope that you all have learned something from this book blog and can reflect upon your own situations and be able to use some of the situations mentioned to hone your educator and leadership skills in a way that is beneficial to both yourself and those that you will eventually lead.

Time and Self Management

I am teaching a first-year experience course to incoming freshmen, so the topic of this next blog is something that I can totally relate to.  The author speaks about presentations during orientation week about good planning.  She said that the key to succeeding at college is effort and good planning.  I agree that good planning is one of the tools that can make one successful in school as well as in life.  Every workshop she attended, the presenter recommended a planner to record appointments, classes, study time, test days and times, and due dates.  I just finished up my first lesson with my first year students and I touched on this subject briefly (I wanted to talk more about it) because we have a lesson that’s coming up on this subject.  In my opinion, it’s never too early to start stressing good time management.  As a student, the author realizes that in a large state university, none of the instructors coordinated assignments or schedules with one another—not even a master university schedule.  At the school where I work, we coordinate and deconflict exam schedules so the students have an optimal exam schedule in order for them to be successful.  I would imagine that this would be a crazy thing to do at a large school.  The author found out that she needed a large, erasable calendar and after speaking to upper classmen—shaping schedules, taming professors and limiting workload were key to being prepared.  Let’s examine this.

Shaping Schedules – The Perfect Schedule

·         Scheduling is an art form—perhaps even a science

·         However convenient the schedule—it must still have the required courses or courses that are applicable

·         Schedule courses within the same geographic location (schedule courses where the buildings are close if time is of a concern).

·         Choosing the “right” professor

·         Be the first to register for classes to get the best schedule and offering times (this may require an otherwise late riser to rise early to be an early bird that gets the worm).

·         Be prepared—know what courses are desired and their offering times

·         Is there a class that fills a Tuesday/Thursday 11:15 timeframe?  Now the author knows why there are students in her class that don’t have a clue or care what anthropology is.  It was likely the last piece in the scheduling puzzle.

·         On-line classes fit into just about any schedule—turn in assignments online at 3 a.m., etc.

Care and Handling of Professors

·         Get to know the professors (Talk to the professors—professors give hints in conversations).

·         Sit in front so the professors can see you and get to know you.

·         Instructors think the world arrives around their subject, so they want you to get it.  Give them what they want and you may get what you want.

Doing what’s Necessary

·         Go to class—equals success.

·         Don’t cut class if attendance is taken.

The author found out that on the average, 56 percent of students came to class over the course of the semester.  She notes that according to the 2003 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), a survey of 437 colleges and universities in the United States, “only about 13 percent of full-time students spend more than 25 hours a week preparing for class, the approximate number that faculty members say is needed to do well in college--more than two fifths (41%) spend 10 or fewer hours per week preparing for class.  She also found out over the course of the semester that while in the beginning, she did all of her readings when they were assigned and found out by the end of the semester, she picked and chose which readings to complete.  This is what she called good students learning a kind of Spartan efficiency.  She found this to be a common practice among the students. 

I’m going to wrap up this session.  Next time, we’ll see if the students did this out of necessity or laziness.

What do you really learn in college?

What do you really learn in college?

So, the author seeks out students through interviews and through surveys and asks them “what percentage of their college learning comes from classes, from readings, films, group work, and papers related to classes, versus what percentage is from outside of classes?”  What she found out through her polling was the median response of students that 65 percent of their learning occurred outside of the class and class-related activities while only 35 percent occurs from within.  For some students, they reported up to 90 percent of their learning came from non-class-related learning.  Most students reported that their elective social activities and interpersonal relationships was the main context for learning.  The author thinks, “If college is not primarily about intellectual ideas and issues or classes, then what is it for?” Isn’t that what students come to school for—to learn?  So, she asks the question, “If given the chance, would you take the degree and run?”  She was asking if the university would GIVE them a bachelor’s degree (without them working for it), would they take the degree and move on?  Of the students who responded, thirty-eight women responded anonymously—eight of them said they would take the degree and run.   The reasons they gave ranged from “I want to start my life”, I miss my boyfriend, and “I’m ready to start teaching now”.  Imagine that—ready to start teaching now—be for real!  Two-thirds said they would choose to stay in college and finish their degrees.  These individuals had reasons such as, “they wanted to make sure they learned enough to get a good job; only if the degree came with all of the knowledge they’d need for their career, and discomfort in the fact that if it was handed to them, it would not be the same as if they knew they had worked hard to get what they deserved.  Five percent of the students said a flat out NO—they would not take the degree because it would devalue the degree.  Is this what you would have though the responses would be?

Participation or Lack of...

Class Participation

Hey everyone—it has been a very busy summer-whew!  In this blog, I want to talk about academic and class participation.  In the book I’m blogging, My Freshman Year, as a student, the author realizes much that she had not thought about as an instructor.  For instance, she remembered one of her (seemingly sensitive) professors saying that he/she would never use professional jargon in his/her classes because if the students didn’t understand, then they would not ever admit that they didn’t understand.  Once she became a student, she completely understood what that professor meant.  As a younger student, I know that there was no way I felt comfortable asking an instructor what they meant, especially in a room full of other students.  Who wants to be the one to look stupid?  I still have times when I feel that way—right now!

The author decides to interview the students to reflect on their lack of class participation, and of course, the answers varied.  Some students spoke about being alienated by peers if they participated, the power of the instructor, and lack of interest in the subject being presented.  Think back to your freshman year—did you have the confidence to be THE one to speak up when you didn’t understand something?  Do you think now at this time in your academic career—yes, I said career (in my opinion, learning is limitless), do you speak up enough when you don’t quite understand something?

Outsiders

Outsiders

The author likens herself as that of an outsider, partially because of being in college at her age, so she finds herself drawn to other partial outsiders and them to her.  As mentioned in my previous blog post, students were drawn to others like them.  Students the author found herself drawn to included the transfer student on her hall, the lone African American student in her freshman seminar, and international students in her dorm and classes.  Thus, according to the world of anthropology, as stated by the author, they have come to know that culture is often invisible to its natives, so much so, that it is often not worthy of comment.  Statements taken from interviews with students from other countries included, “nobody even responded or asked us to be in their groups, so the international students had to make their own group.”  Again, where is the sense of community?  The author states that the international students learned quickly that being a student, being a dorm mate, being a classmate—none of it automatically qualified one as a “member of the community (Nathan, 2005, pg. 69).  From her interviews and observations, some of the international students felt like the American students didn’t care about them—they didn’t ask them about their lives in their countries.  The American students who did ask them usually were well traveled or had been exchange students.  One international student explained that her boyfriend (another international student) had no trouble making friends with the American students.  He liked playing the drums and other students would come into his room (the students usually kept their dorm room doors open when they were awake).  The student said that it was her boyfriend’s interests that allowed him to make friends easier than some of the other international students. Isn’t this true to most anyone?  Aren’t people drawn to each other with similar interests?

Back to Diversity

Let's get started on how the author viewed diversity once she returned to college as a freshman.  As the author continues to interview students about their social networks, she is now interested in the diversity among those students.  Many of the students she interviewed could name someone from a different ethnic group among their close circle of friends.  However, this information did not match her observations, so she probe a little deeper and upon further questioning, she found out that these people were not in fact close friends, but someone they knew from a class or extracurricular activity.  Here are some of her other findings on diversity:

1.  Five of six white students had no members of another racial or ethnic group in their close social circles.
2.  Five of the six minority networks contained one or more minorities in the group.
3.  Some relationships were developed by built-in biases through special interest clubs (international student outings, sports teams, sororities, fraternities.
4. Minorities (people of color) ate alone a little more often than non-minorities. 
5. People of color were ten times more likely than whites to eat in a group in which they were the only person of a different race/ethnicity at the table.
6.  The networks of Caucasian students included more whites, and those that included people of color were primarily "mixed", comprised of people of various ethnicities. 
7.  Of the white students, white males often did not eat with those students of different ethnicities. 

I wonder if she had seen these trends in the classroom as an instructor, or did she not think about such things.  Were her classes ethnically mixed?   If not, then perhaps she would not have seen these trends until she was forced to see them because she was looking for them.  What do you think?

Community and Diversity

What does community mean?  Merriam-Webster defines community as a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.  When the author of My Freshman Year interviewed students about their feelings on being a community, most said they felt like they had a community within the university.  The author defined their communities as a network of personal friends.  To me, that is one kind of community.  Communities can be defined differently by different people.  The author was then intrigued and wanted to know who these networks of friends were formed and how activities within these groups were coordinated.  According to the author, the student networks, like family relations, are ego based (Nathan, 2005, pg. 56).  What do you think she means by that--ego based?  She goes on to mention that no two people share the exact same group of friends and that is what she means by ego based.  I don't get it.  I understand that communities are built by people and who they interact with.  She mentions that two people are part of the same network, but they separately have their own friends and usually the names are not identical.  Isn't that usually the way it works.  My son has a particular group of friends that have been together since they were about 10 and 11 years old--they are now 24 and 25 years old.  They are a very tight knit group, but they each have other friends that they may hang out with individually or separate from this group.  That's just how it is.  The author stated that she was very surprised that eight of the fourteen students she interviewed had one or more people within their personal networks that they had known previously from their high school or their hometown.  I don't find this surprising.  I went to college with several people from my high school--we decided on the school together and paired up as roommates.  My son and his friends did the same thing.  Isn't this normal?  Most likely, students from the same geographic location will attend some of the same colleges in that area or region.  Another surprise element for her was that classroom contacts did not figure much into the social networks of students. Of the students interviewed, less than one fourth of them had met a member of their social network in an academic class or other activity.  The author states that once the networks were formed, usually by the end of their freshman year, the students tended to stay with their groups and sparse contact with others.  She further states that the way the social life is formed affects issues of diversity.  No kidding...are you surprised by these results?