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[sikora]

According to Fox News, all this is the fault of lazy teachers.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255438,00.html

Now don't shoot me, I find Fox's take on this offensive.  I've tried interactive exercises in class, but I find that 1) students would often rather stay passive, and getting them started can be a real task.  2) the exercises don't go well if students haven't done the assigned reading.  Sometimes it works and we have some fun.

Obscure, but still the first dog in space

[jonesey]

they have 35 students in a writing

I have 35 students in my writing class...who should I see about this?  Should I be outraged?  : )

Ahh, yes, the assigned reading.  I've learned that, at least at the Comp I/Comp II level, students simply won't do the reading unless I threaten them with a quiz on the material.  If they know they're not going to be tested, they won't read it.

[tolerantly]

Ah, scaffolding.  Yes, they're very big on scaffolding at my K-12 publishing employer.  I always figured that if you removed the scaffolding the teachers would fall down.  (They have it much worse, btw.  You should see the teaching guides they get, they all but move the teachers' arms and legs for them.)

And actually they can offload the older kids.  Onto cc teachers.  My ex-bf's mother spent the last few years of her cc career teaching high school kids.  She hated it. 

[skeletonsincloset]

What I find amazing is that over the past week, we have heard that student grades are stellar, but their standardized test scores are not.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/22/math.reading.scores.ap/index.html

We have heard that students are vain and narcissitic.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/27/self.centered.students.ap/index.html

And now, we hear about students not finding class exciting (see OP).

So, taken together, we get the idea that high schools have rampant grade inflation to stroke the dear little ones' egos, leading those egos to grow to epic proportions. Those egos, which could never do anything wrong of course, then say that it's not their fault they don't do well...it's that the material is so boring and irrelevant. 

So, in our consumer driven world, we, as college professors, should cater to our audiences. We need to offer "relevant" courses. Who's up for teaching a course in text messaging? Who's going to take up "Complaining to Get Your Way 101"?  How about "Succeeding in Reality TV"?

:::Slinking back to my stack of grading::::

[bio_prof_]

GGGRRRRRUUUMBBLLLLE...

Yes, skeletons; and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how a person can predict what is relevant to their future.

Anyone?

Anyone?

[smart_e_pantz]

So, in our consumer driven world, we, as college professors, should cater to our audiences. We need to offer "relevant" courses. Who's up for teaching a course in text messaging? Who's going to take up "Complaining to Get Your Way 101"?  How about "Succeeding in Reality TV"?

I believe both of those courses will be available this coming fall semester at Kissyface College!

[gennimom]

I tried to explain to my students how they needed to know as much as they could about as wide a variety of subjects as possible because they didn't know what may happen in the future. They didn't buy it. They were all going to be boilermakers or housewives for the rest of their lives.

Okay, and what if you get a career ending injury? What if you get a divorce and have to support the kids yourself? (housewives? Today?)

It drove me nuts how willfully blind they were.

[postmodern]

GGGRRRRRUUUMBBLLLLE...

Yes, skeletons; and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how a person can predict what is relevant to their future.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Well since these students are perfect, never wrong, and entitled to everything without needing to put in the effort, they don't even need to care about what is relevant to their future.

Seriously, though: What about the joy of just learning about something new? Does it really matter if that knowledge is ever put to practical use? I loved my geology and oceanography classes in college, but was an art major. I'll probably never need to know about ocean currents and fault lines, but they are still interesting to learn about. Aren't there some students who appreciate knowledge for the sake of knowledge? I sure hope so...

[bio_prof_]

Bless your heart for that post, postmodern. I loved my college classes too. I can't even think of a course that I didn't love.

I am soooo fortunate this semester; most of my students are very engaged and love learning.  We need more of these!

[jonesey]

Seriously, though: What about the joy of just learning about something new? Does it really matter if that knowledge is ever put to practical use? I loved my geology and oceanography classes in college, but was an art major. I'll probably never need to know about ocean currents and fault lines, but they are still interesting to learn about. Aren't there some students who appreciate knowledge for the sake of knowledge? I sure hope so...

Alas, it seems most students only want classes that have value in "real life."  I try to remind them, gently, that ITT Tech is right down the road...

You should see the looks I get when I explain that the purpose of college is NOT to get someone a job, but to educate the "whole person."

[au_fait]

Scaffolding is a term from Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development (sometimes called his Sociocultural Theory).   He believed that learning occurs most rapidly and successfully when the learner and the teacher are engaged in a process he called guided participation.  The teacher creates such a learning environment by asking questions, pointing out a detail, etc., to get the student thinking.  The idea is that the student learns more from this interaction than he could just sitting there alone with the material.  He didn't mean that the teacher should make things easy.

The idea is that we all have a range of skills that are just beyond our current reach.  He called that the zone of proximal development (zpd).  When the teacher structures the learning (scaffolds), she takes the learner into hu's zone of proximal development.  Therefore, the student is able to accomplish more with the teacher's guidance than hu could have accomplished on hu's own.

I'm sure you scaffold quite a bit in you classes already, ms_c.  When we come up with probing questions to get the ball rolling, when we notice a misconception but choose to ask another question instead of just immediately disclosing the correct answer, we are guiding students into the zpd.  We're in the zone!

Another example -- Scaffolding occurs all the time in childhood.  Think of the ways you guide a child to learn how to tie hu's shoes or put a puzzle together.  You don't just do it for hu.  You also don't just expect hu to figure it out on hu's own.  You provide some guidance along the way.

It's not bull**it!  The teacher took Vygotsky out of context and applied his concept incorrectly!  People do this with Piaget, too.  Sigh.

Well said halfpint! Furthermore, it's not exactly a "new" term. It is, however, often not mentioned in departments outside of the department of education, so English majors often aren't going to hear/discuss it.

It's also something we have our students do in peer workshop; we don't call it scaffolding though.

[cc_alan]

Seriously, though: What about the joy of just learning about something new? Does it really matter if that knowledge is ever put to practical use? I loved my geology and oceanography classes in college, but was an art major. I'll probably never need to know about ocean currents and fault lines, but they are still interesting to learn about. Aren't there some students who appreciate knowledge for the sake of knowledge? I sure hope so...

Alas, it seems most students only want classes that have value in "real life."  I try to remind them, gently, that ITT Tech is right down the road...

You should see the looks I get when I explain that the purpose of college is NOT to get someone a job, but to educate the "whole person."

I get this in advising. A student grumbles because they don't see the need for many of the classes since they don't see the "real world" relevance.

I'll start pointing out things like the newspaper (interpreting local, state, national, and world events), voting (use of their tax dollars), and other things.

Alan

[tolerantly]

The problem is this leftover early-20th-c lift-the-masses idea.  They don't like it because it's being shoved down their throats and they have to pay. I don't like edification I'm not interested in at the time, either, especially when it's massively expensive.

I think gen-ed reqs are an anachronism, and that the odds they do much good are slim. I think they should be got rid of.  If the upper classes insist on broaden ing and uplifting the unwashed post-adolescent so that they're fit societal company later, they can at the very least pay for it themselves. 

[bio_prof_]

tolerantly, your post is very interesting, particularly juxtaposed with Alan's.

May I ask what you think an undergraduate curriculum would look like?

[latis]

What the hell is scaffolding?

We used to call it pre-reading, reading, and post-reading.
Most of us do this.  Few of us give reading assignments unrelated to the rest of the course or without some introductory words about what to look for.