Required vs. Optional

In one of my previous jobs, I coordinated a family counseling center and learned a lot about motivation.  Some clients came to us begging for help to ‘make things better’ in their family (“the motivated”) and others were court-ordered (“the angry.”)  Guess which ones benefited more from our free services?  Yes, though all received the services for free (which sometimes makes people undervalue them), the motivated families gained something from the services, put work into them, and made progress in improving their family communication or other issues: They met program goals.  The angry, although they sometimes had turnarounds and ah-ha moments, rarely did.  They often saw themselves as victims.

The same sometimes goes for a minority of our students.  Since college is not court-ordered, perhaps it is their busy lives or a failure to see a clear benefit to anything assigned?  The push-back for anything required is audible.  You can hear it in their language: “Do I have to?  Is it on the test?  Do we get credit for doing the math homework problems?  Why do I have to take math?”  When they must do tutoring they may feel it is punishment, and so they play the victim.  An unintended potential side-effect of requiring tutoring is that it may set a negative perception of tutoring or the Learning Center – this can haunt a student’s whole academic career, causing them to miss out on valuable assistance.  

I had a good conversation the other day with an instructor about whether assigning ‘meeting with a tutor to discuss your rough draft’ was helpful to students or just caused aggravation.  We determined that the answer is ‘it depends.’  If they already write well, then the assignment is not necessarily going to improve their work, but will take their time.  If they are not confident in their writing, it may make them even more self-conscious to have someone other than their instructor look at it and give suggestions.  If they are a stressed parent or employee, it may be ‘busy work that they don’t have time for…’  What I suggest instead of requiring that a tutor look at their work, is that instructors offer a couple of alternative assignments, of which tutoring is one.  Then students get to pick their best option, and the writing tutors aren’t swamped with hundreds of last-minute requests for paper reviews all in the same week.  It’s a win-win situation and may reduce the number of complaints instructors receive also.  

In my other hat as an advisor, ‘required advising’ is sometimes met with the same victim-attitude.  Some schools block registration for students until they have met with an advisor each semester, while others don’t require advising at all (they offer or suggest it.)  Having worked at institutions who have tried multiple variations on required advising, here’s my opinion on that topic.  Required advising works for specific majors that have very prescriptive/linear programs, because students NEED the advising to avoid making mistakes that cost them time and money, but only if you have well-informed advisors.  Advising is usually helpful to most students, and once they come, they often return because they see the benefit.  Some schools conquer the ‘required vs. optional’ issue by requiring advising only at pivotal points in a student’s program: I.E. Beginning, mid-point, and 1-2 semesters before graduation.  Of course, the best benefit of advising is not having someone tell you what classes to take, it is having someone to talk to about the bigger questions: “Am I in the right program for my career goal?” or “How can I best prepare for my next steps now?”   

At YC, there is required advising for remediation due to academic probation (GPA less than 2.0) – which has an unintended consequence of setting a perception of advisors as meting out punishment to bad students.  Who wants to get a whipping for bad grades?  But those sessions aren’t about punishing, they are about showcasing supportive services and generating a plan for successful improvement.  I'd guess that some of the same students whose perceptions prevent them from getting help at the Learning Center are the ones who might end up with academic probation issues.  Sooner or later, the victim attitude tends to be one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. Though it isn’t always possible, having some choices in how to meet a requirement or fulfill a learning objective, helps empower students and move them away from the victim mode.  That’s win-win too.

Constructing Engaging Learning Activities

Universal Design vs. Academic Freedom?  Are they incompatible, battling for supremacy?  And now, in the left corner is the welterweight champion of learning styles, disability accommodation, and student-centered instruction – coming to us from brain research, teaching strategies, and student engagement theories.  And in the right corner is the heavyweight champion of academic freedom, coming from a long history of post-secondary education experience, master teachers, stressed part- and full-time faculty, and subject-matter-experts.  On the sidelines are the bean counters, pundits, critics-at-large, education reformists with varied credentials, the whims of the economy and student preferences, and budgetary concerns in a world that increasing questions the use of a college degree.  There are rubrics, assessments, course learning objectives, best practices, and don't forget technology and diversity of your students' abilities. Seriously, there are a lot of things to consider when designing a class/workshop/syllabus/activity.

Obviously some subjects lend themselves better to one style of instruction/learning activities than others.  It would be impossible for me to learn a new computer program without someone showing me and then allowing me to do activities that cement the learning ON the program.  But maybe most subjects lend themselves to more flexibility in learning experiences for students.  I like to offer options whenever I can and let students choose which is best for them, so they ‘own’ their learning process.  Some prefer hunting down answers to share in an oral report to others or in a written assignment, some love team work/others prefer to work alone.  It is easier and faster to just tell them answers and give self-grading multiple choice exams that clearly align with learning objectives – K-12 struggles with that ‘teaching to the test’ concept on a daily basis.  There are conflicting opinions about whether that destroys creativity, increases anxiety (for both teacher and student), and makes students hate school or if it structures student learning activities for increasing focus and success.  There are even some conflicting thoughts on whether it is possible to teach critical thinking, much less assess it.

What do you do when stumped on how to accomplish a learning objective?  Talk to a colleague?  Google it?  Check out a favorite blog on your subject matter or post-secondary best practices?  Do you start with the end in mind, identifying specific applications/knowledge necessary for ‘success’ in your course/assignment/workshop?  Do you pull out feedback from previous classes, to see what worked before?  Do you use pre-fab syllabi/assignments/courses or course software to accomplish your goals?  Probably for many instructors, the answers to the above are “Yes, a combination of these, if there is time…”  I’ll share a few resources for when I’m stuck or want to stretch, and hope you may share some of yours too:

• http://blog.cengage.com/  The Engaging Minds blog has articles (and an e-newsletter) with ideas for both teachers and students.
• http://www.nea.org/home/33508.htm This has ‘top tips’ for teaching strategies.
• http://elearningindustry.com/11-tips-engage-inspire-adult-learners Online learning tips for student engagement.

Campus Safety and the Benefits of Constructive Conversations

My phone starts buzzing, or I overhear that ‘OMG tone’ in the rumblings in the Learning Center near my office.  There’s been another school shooting.  At a community college.  People are dead.  Families are grieving.  News alerts go out, with varying accuracy and tone, and unwavering repetitiveness.  Pundits grab for a microphone.  And for at least a week afterwards, there will be varying responses featured on the media, concerns from my family about whether my job is more dangerous, and furtive comments on campus from colleagues or students.  

In some schools, there may be an email sent reminding employees to seek help from our EAP, or to contact campus police if you are concerned for your safety.  Perhaps even a comment from counselors about vicarious trauma, and the triggering impact that these national traumas have on those who struggle with PTSD.  Or collective pondering about what makes one student resilient and another go, literally, ballistic.  And a very real concern from a faculty member that a bad grade she assigns could cause a student to lose their grip on reality and do something deadly.  Questions go unasked, unanswered.  And then we go back to business-as-usual; until the next time.  I wonder what this says to our students.  Does anyone dare ask “Do you feel safe at school?” or “How should we address this issue?”

I felt that similarly frustrated this semester after viewing “The Hunting Ground” (http://www.thehuntinggroundfilm.com/) film about sexual assaults on college campuses.  I wondered how violent acts like this could possibly happen and be ‘under the radar?’  Current figures estimate that 20% of college freshman will be assaulted.  Did you know that the reported percent of Military Sexual Trauma is also 20%?  The Do-Not-Talk rule doesn’t seem to be helping reduce these incidents, in fact, it may contribute to it.  How can we foster a safe learning environment for our students, and a safe working environment for our employees, without an open discourse on these difficult topics?

Should we address these horrible current events head-on in the classroom, or in private sessions with those who bring it up, or do we just wait?  Does everyone know we have a defined response to safety concerns (with a handy chart)?  We also have a Title IX Coordinator for addressing sexual assault issues.  Whenever I have questions on safety/conduct or a concern, we have a very accessible Campus Police presence (thank you!) and we have our CARE Team (928-776-2273: Program into your cell phone) and perhaps most importantly, we do have each other.  

There are a lot of different opinions regarding campus safety, some are informed, some are emotional, all need to be heard.  I don’t know the answer.  I’m not even sure that I know the right questions.  It’s probably good that we don’t know how many incidents are averted just by someone caring to ask, “Is everything ok?” or “What can I do to help you right now?”  And though I would prefer to ignore the horrible news like these crimes on campus for my own peace of mind, I think the higher path is to discuss them openly and remind everyone of our resources.  No one can learn, when they are concerned for their safety.

Limited Marginal Utility and Other Handy Phrases

 

Ahhh, an extra hour...

It is a handy phrase to know if you are asked about why you didn’t complete everything on your to-do list: Limited Marginal Utility. 

• It means: “It wasn’t high enough on my priority list to override other more urgent matters.”
• Or in other words: Any benefit I would receive out of completing it was not worth the time it would cost me.
• It sounds a bit more professional than, “I won’t do endless paperwork/filing/data entry/meetings, when I could be spending critical time with my students, solving problems/answering questions/giving feedback/providing resources.”
• It is definitely more professional than “Bite me.”

I’m sure instructors deal with daily struggle of where to put your valuable time, just as advisors do.  It can be a constant battle between what is easier to grade/complete and what conforms to content/learning objectives/requirements on the one hand – which may be at odds with what will give the most meaningful experience to students in both f2f and online courses/appointments, and address all students’ learning styles, time constraints, digital literacy, motivation level...the list goes on.  Universal Instructional Design and Best Practices address some of this competition between our multiple goals in any course, assignment, assessment…but sometimes those best practice standards seem unattainable, especially given the time constraints we all face.

As if that weren’t a high enough mountain to climb, in this era of data-driven decisions, governmental mandates, the changing view of the purpose of higher education (and lack of funding), and shrinking enrollments – the general pressure on community colleges will assuredly trickle down to both the instructional and support services level in many ways.  Ideally, already embedded in our good teaching/advising, we are also helping students to be successful to boost our numbers of completers.  It’s easy to get lost in the swirling acronyms and trendy re-packaged best practices that really get down to doing a good job, for the benefit of all.

It helps me sometimes to get back to basics – how do I best reach the students that DO have the motivation to succeed?  That’s a question that has to be revisited periodically, because the students and the technology change, as do our goals.  Yes, it would be nice if we could reach even those that are not participating in course materials/assignments, not answering our e-mails or coming to class/appointments/signing on – but I guess that is a numbers game.  Where should you put your effort?  In the 80% who show up, do the work and are engaged, or in the 20% that aren’t?  Granted, numbers vary (widely) – but hidden in there is a fundamental question that community colleges have grappled with for years: Is it our job to make sure that everyone can get a college certificate or degree?  Is that even the student’s goal?  Those answers also vary widely.  

Some starry-eyed folks (like myself) have a fundamental belief that community colleges were created to level the playing field, to transform the social fabric of our country by providing quality education at affordable costs, and to uplift whole families out of poverty by giving students the skills and credentials to obtain highly paid jobs.  Many now believe that (1) higher education is outdated and over-rated, (2) not everyone deserves a chance at/or can benefit from higher education, or (3) it’s not worth the cost.  Does higher education have Limited Marginal Utility for today’s population?