Many of the recent national news stories about college students seem to focus on their readiness, their escalating numbers in remedial classes.In a completely anecdotal sort of way, let me ask this:
Q: How many of your freshmen students are "ready" for your class? What kind of school do you teach at? Has this changed over the years? What sort of help do the worst students have access to?
My freshman science class has no freshmen. For some reason, they wait until their junior or senior years to take Introduction To Artesian Wells. This makes them worse at the class than freshmen, because they have forgotten the equation for a screw and think they are "A" students who can easily handle a freshman class.
ReplyDeleteI've only been teaching here a few years, but recently they've gotten much worse - none of my students took Drinking Fountains 101 in high school, and so they're all coming in without math skills, vocabulary in the subject, problem-solving skills, or even fear of failure.
I regularly teach a general scientific approaches to basketweaving. Close to 70% of the enrollment consists of freshmen and sophomores, the rest being juniors or seniors who are required to take it, but for whom it isn't a prerequisite.
ReplyDeleteThe freshmen are usually pretty well prepared in terms of the maths and science they need. I'd say less than 2% of them aren't ready due to lack of appropriate background.
By far, most of the students who struggle, struggle because they are not ready to actually do any work outside of class. They clearly expect that just coming to class is enough. Big shock, right? It doesn't help that some of the largest majors at our fine SLAC help perpetuate this sort of culture.
Okay, prepared to MY mind, or prepared according to the ridiculous grade inflation that happens at my school?
ReplyDeletePrepared, as far as I'm concerned: approximately 10% of my freshman comp students.
Prepared, as far as my inflated grade institution is concerned: 80% of my freshman comp students.
FML.
I teach at a SLAC. We have had to add double the number of sections of remedial comp to accommodate the students who aren't ready. This, however, could be because we switched to a near-open-enrollment model in the last five years to make up for the loss in revenue over the last few years.
ReplyDeleteIn the Fall, about 70% seem to be ready. In subsequent terms, not so much... I think those who are not ready deliberately postpone taking comp.
I teach as adjunct at two unis, one online and one R1. My online students are given 9th-grade level reading and really struggle with the concepts.
ReplyDeleteMy R1 students (all of them from Freshmen to Seniors) struggle with their high school textbook. They can read and report, but they cannot make connections.
It is making me seriously consider a career in high school, preparing them properly for college. But that is also its own mess of thorns.
(Why am I using a high school textbook for an R1 institution? Because my faculty with voting rights decided the college-level textbook was not understood enough by their students and voted to start using a text for lower level education.)
ReplyDeleteThere are two types of preparation in my mind: preparation for the material and preparation for the work. I've often mused that I could make any hardworking student a math or physics major.
ReplyDeleteI'd say 5% are prepared to work. These students always pass even if they aren't prepared for the material.
I'd say 10-20% are truly prepared for the material. These students usually end up with an A or B. Then perhaps 40% are marginally prepared. Meaning that they passed the pre-req with a C or D and have some ability to do previous coursework. These students struggle to pass.
I never taught Freshman Comp, but I have taught LOTS of writing classes. Here's an overview of my time at one school:
ReplyDeleteAs a grad student in Fall 2000, I taught my first class, a remedial writing class in the major I called Weaving Basics for Wannabe Basket-weavers (because the faculty in charge didn't really trust the prep of Freshman comp for the requirements of the major). They were given a standardized test and, if they scored high enough, they would be excused from the class. No more than 2-5 students were allowed to skip the class, and 1 or 2 of those chose to remain anyway. In general, most of the students were able to get a C or higher, with the failures usually resulting from lack of work.
Fast forward to 2006, in an affiliated department, and a similar but more complicated class I called Weaving Techniques for Professional Weavers of Baskets. It was a skills-based class that I could have (should have?) failed 40-50% of each of 3 sections because they didn't know how to write a sentence or a paragraph, couldn't follow simple directions, and never learned how to either cite sources or use quotation marks. And, yes, I actually taught them that really basic crap in class. I assigned a reflection paper at the end of the term for which they needed to look back on their work and note patterns and problems. Few were capable of doing that; in fact, many papers simply became a venue for the flakes to vent how much my criticism hurt their feelings, with absolutely no mention of their citation errors, problems with commas, etc.
Essentially, the skills of these mostly new freshmen had cascaded into the toilet. Since I had been a TA in classes (and taught others) over the course of those 7 years, I knew this was happening, but had NO CLUE how bad it was getting. And things were getting worse at that school when I finally stopped teaching there.
I've stopped assuming that they know anything. For the most part, they don't, and what they think they know -- History channel and Tom Cruise costume dramas -- is wrong.
ReplyDeleteMy grades this semester seem more polarized than in the past: B's are disappearing. I think
Hey Academic Monkey, wanna teach a cross discipline writing/biology connection making class?
ReplyDeleteWe could call it "Have you heard this before?" or "What does this remind you of?" or "Chapter numbers are not magical barriers which ideas may not cross" or "Things which are true on the first exam, remain true on the final." or "Nothing on this planet happens in a fucking vacuum, so get your head out of your ass!"