Category: Hard Courses

How Not to Be a Jerk to Your Students - Using Kind Canned Responses

4/13/2014

I've always found that anything worth achieving will always have obstacles in the way and you've got to have that drive and determination to overcome those obstacles on route to whatever it is that you want to accomplish.

Chuck Norris

One of the biggest obstacles students face in being successful in college is learning that there is a whole new set of rules, which are much different than in high schools. These rules often trips up students who did not attend a rigorous high school, still think they are in high school, or are just (sadly) clueless.

Instructors are challenged daily by these students, and their misperceptions of “how school works.” There is a certain intersection where each instructor must say, "I deal with my students in context, and I expect my students to understand the reasons for my course being organized as it is, as well."

An excellent instructor explains WHY things are the way they are. I have a giant Google Doc I keep of "canned responses" that are both informative, and kind. When a student asks me about extra credit or makeup exams, I can tell them what the answer is, and why. Sometimes, the answer is that I can't do whatever they ask me, because I can't do it for the 640 students in my class also. Here are some of the canned responses I use:

1. When asked if I can override the school's class limit (usually so they can get into a lab that meets at a different time) - I respond:

"Hello student,

I wish I could help you. The labs for this course are capped at 40 students per section, because each student needs to be seated at a lab station. If this were a lecture, I could help. But I can't for the lab.

My best suggestion is to check back for the course registration daily, so that if someone drops the lab, you can grab it. Otherwise, there are other labs that are still open.

Thanks, and good luck!

Amy"

2. Then, I am often asked if the student can bring a friend /their child/some random stranger to lab with them. I respond:

"Dear Student,

Unfortunately, only the students registered for the lab can come into the lab. Part of this is due to our university liability insurance. The other part is that the TA for the course needs to know exactly is in the room, so they can make sure people don't get hurt. If everyone brought a person to lab with them, that would be 80 people in the lab, which is dangerous.

I appreciate you asking me first. I'm sorry I can't let any additional people into the lab.

Thanks,

Amy"

3. Another is on missed quizzes. Usually, students miss a quiz or two over the course of the semester (they have a weekly quiz). Many ask to make them up. We don't allow makeups (partly because the quizzes are given via computer), and they have the whole week to take them.

"Dear Student,

If you check the syllabus, you will see that there are no makeup for the quizzes. You are lucky that you are allowed two dropped quizzes for the semester, so missing this one won't affect your grade at all. Just make sure you keep coming to class, taking the quizzes when they are open, and studying for them.

If you end up missing more than the two that I drop, please send me the doctor's excuse, and you can take the quiz on paper during my office hours.

Thanks,

Amy"

If we explain to the students WHY we flip the class, why our syllabus is set up as it is, and why we have the procedures and rules - we have the chance to be fair, be kind, and be firm. We all know that students are students, and they are learning to navigate this game called college as well.

I dislike courses where the professor is a jerk, and is mean because they don't like students asking those silly *questions*. Like, how dare these students not *get it.* What if they've never encountered the change to "get it?" You can be kind in explaining your pedagogy, and every educator should improve their FAQs regularly. I post a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for my courses, and I find it is really helpful. Having a detailed syllabus is also helpful.

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Follow the Money: For-Profit Schools are Doing What High School Vocational Programs Used to Do – Keep Students Poor

3/21/2014

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In a long discussion about “Fluff Majors,” the conversation points back to “Why go to college?” or “Should everyone go to college?” Another question, “Whose job is it to push students to take difficult or challenging courses?” The Chronicle of Higher Education touched on a sector of higher education that keeps students poor – for-profit institutions. What would happen if we shut down all the for-profit institutions tomorrow? Vocational education has been taken out of the high school curriculum, and snatched up by for-profit institutions. And it’s a HUGE money maker.

“Mr. Longanecker’s takeaway from the study, which he reviewed in advance of its release: "Don’t wish for these to go away," he said of for-profit colleges, where a high proportion of the students are women, minorities, and low-income. "A lot fewer students would have access to higher education, and we know which students would be shut out."

I remember back to my days at Norton as a high schooler in the 1990's. There were four real “routes” you could take in high school. You could be in advanced placement, taking really challenging classes, which prepared you for college. You could take “college prep” classes that were not as hard, but still prepared you for college. You could take “the normal classes” which were core, basic classes that everyone took. Or you could take “vocational classes,” which prepared you for a trade – being a secretary, a beautician, a carpenter, a welder, a med tech, and others (that’s all the ones I remember). I took mainly advanced and college prep courses.

I don’t know at what point vocational classes were phased out, and everyone took either basic, college prep, or advanced courses. I’d imagine it has to do with No Child Left Behind. Every student was prepared to go to college, and when you graduated from high school, you either went to college, took that vocational training we used to be offered in high school, or you just quit your schooling there. Not pointing fingers at any political persuasions, but you can see how this added to the high school, college, and vocational teacher workforce. Kept students in school longer. Kept them out of the workforce. Kept more teachers employed, but in new institutions.

So, from what I’d imagine, vocational programs are never going to return to high schools. For-profit schools would close down, and high schools don’t have the money to re-create those programs. Letting poor students use federal money at for-profit institutions lets that group of students get the vocational education they used to get in high school (for “free”). Where the taxpayer used to pay for K-12 education for all children, they now pay for at least K-14, and many times K-16 (a four year education at any college or university). In thinking about the political aspects of this fight – how much education should Americans pay for? K-12, K-14, K-16, or K-16 for each and every person who wants it? There are a lot of ramifications that reach every part of America – the workforce, the educational system, taxes, and probably every sector I haven’t mentioned here.

Now, I admit to being a fiscal conservative. I’d like to see each student, once graduating from high school, be able to make their own choices about where to go to school, if they go to school, and what kind of investment they’d like to make in that education. Choose wisely, choose only what you can afford on your own, and take fiscal stake in that choice. But, there is a whole other segment out there of fiscal liberals, who’d like to see education completely free to all, at every level (up to grad school, including grad school, and any refresher courses). Let students try things, fail, try another course or major, and have the opportunity to take anything for “free.” (taxpayer subsidized) The answer is somewhere in the middle. Somewhere between “Pay for it all yourself,” and “We’ll invest in you, no matter what.” Such a complicated web of motivations, finances, politics, and choices.

What is a degree worth? What are degreed people worth? What degrees are worthy? Who chooses what degree a student should pursue? Who decides where a student gets their degree from? Who decides what degrees are offered, and where? Everyone has an opinion on these questions – who eventually gets to decide who is right? The voters? The teachers? The students? The – ***GASP*** – politicians??? Those weasely jerks who are influenced by money from for-profit institutions, unions, companies, foreign countries, and rich people… Scary, right?

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"Fluff Majors" Keep Low-Income, First-Generation Students Poor. How Do We Fix This?

3/18/2014

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Let me preface this article by saying I am not knocking anyone's choice of major. I know there are majors that are seriously fulfilling, but not well paying. There are a lot of choices that go into choosing a major. You may have chosen one of the majors listed in my article. Heck, I did. I'm a teacher. What I want to discuss are the implications of choosing a low paying job (or not knowing that the job was low-paying before you started college).

The phrase "Underwater basket weaving" is an idiom referring (in a negative way) to supposedly easy and/or worthless college or university courses, and used generally to refer to a perceived decline in educational standards. This term emerged in the 1950's in a letter to the LA Times about the lack of expectations for football players to take difficult courses. It is now used for not just individual courses, but entire "fluff majors." A "Fluff Major" is when a student picks a course of study that is easy, so that they do not have to take a job or be challenged by the "hardness" of the courses. I actually wrote about this phenomenon a few years ago in "Are they up for the challenge? Community College Students' Perceptions of Challenging Classes." What we found (essentially) is that students wanted easy classes if the class was not part of their major (gen ed), and "hard but not too hard" if the class was for their major. What kind of courses would be included in the "hard, but not too hard" category? For many students, this means (unfortunately) the humanities - subjects that study human culture using methods that are primarily critical, speculative, or historical.

The humanities include ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, religion, and visual and performing arts such as music and theater. The humanities, which are also sometimes regarded as social sciences, include history, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, cultural studies, law and linguistics. What common factors underlie the humanities? Subjectivity, and lack of math. Note how the social sciences are different than the natural sciences. The natural sciences are empirical - (the record of one's direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. They involve scientific experimentation, and testing.

The first people who took “fluff majors” may have been men in the 1950's looking to avoid the draft. Colleges and universities very quickly set up “easy majors” to accommodate the influx of men looking to avoid going to war. These men might not have entered college otherwise. Setting up a dance program, an acting program, or a writing program is inexpensive for the school. Think about what it takes to offer a writing program, versus what it takes to set up an engineering program (hint – it probably differs by $500,000 or more).

“Fluff majors” have persisted up to today, as there is federal money available (sometimes called “free money for college”) for low-income students to go to college after high school, rather than entering the workforce. “Free money” or easy students loans are attractive options for potential students – if your choice is to take a Walmart or fast food job to support your family, or take $30,000 a year to go to school, which would you choose? Believing that going to college is a way to get an advantage in life – and that is how college is sold to students, as an investment in their future – in that after graduation, they will be able to get a much better job than a low-skilled Walmart job. But if you know that you had trouble with math or science in high school, or believe that these are “the hard majors,” (or any of the other myths, like “women can’t be scientists,” or “women are bad at math” or “African Americans don’t do science”) what do you take? A major that does not involve math - hence, the fluff major, which is "hard, but not too hard."

These so called “laid back degrees” are often appealing. Many times, the jobs that accompany these “easy majors” are desirable – becoming a teacher or a social worker is a noble and a “help people” profession. (Note to all – I am a teacher) Also, these potential college students have experience with these professions – everyone knows a teacher. Students know counselors, social workers, nurses, psychologists, home health aides, EMTs, police officers, or computer support technicians. Students understand these jobs, know people who do these jobs, and want to help others. Unfortunately, these are often the lowest paid career options, and options that lead to a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Becoming a dancer, a writer, a musician, or an actor may entice the students’ dreams of becoming famous, or making it big. What they don’t realize is the likelihood of "making it big" is small, and that if they don’t make it big, they may end up working at Starbucks, with student loans to pay back, anyways.

Part of the problem is that the highest paid career options are not the ones that low-income, first generation students are familiar with. A petroleum engineer can make $160,000 a year – and how many of those people do you know? I do not personally know one petroleum engineer. The next highest paid is an actuarial mathematician. I’ve never even heard of that job (and I work at a university!!!)! Here are the top 15 highest-paid majors, from Business Insider –

1. Petroleum Engineering

Staring median salary: $103,000
Mid-career median salary: $160,000

2. Actuarial Mathematics:

Starting median salary: $58,700
Mid-career median salary: $120,0000

3. Nuclear Engineering

Starting median salary: $67,600
Mid-career median salary: $117,000

4. Chemical Engineering

Starting median salary: $68,200
Mid-career median salary: $115,000

5. Aerospace Engineering

Starting median salary: $62,800
Mid-career median salary: $109,000

6. Electrical Engineering

Starting median salary: $64,300
Mid-career median salary: $106,000

7. Computer Engineering

Starting median salary: $65,300
Mid-career median salary: $106,000

8. Computer Science

Starting median salary: $59,800
Mid-career median salary: $102,000

9. Physics

Starting median salary: $53,100
Mid-career median salary: $101,000

10. Mechanical Engineering

Starting median salary: $60,900
Mid-career median salary: $99,700

11. Materials Science and Engineering

Starting median salary: $62,700
Mid-career median salary: $99,500

12. Software Engineering

Starting median salary: $60,500
Mid-career median salary: $99,300

13. Statistics

Starting median salary: $52,500
Mid-career median salary: $98,900

14. Government

Starting median salary: $43,200
Mid-career median salary: $97,100

15. Economics

Starting median salary: $50,100
Mid-career median salary: $96,700

Note that 9 of the 15 positions are engineers. If you are living in a low-income neighborhood, how many of your friends or neighbors will be engineers? Also note that most of these involve math-heavy courses. Math is something that terrifies or befuddles many students. That one barrier – believing math is too hard, or that you can’t do math, or that math isn't fun or rewarding – will keep these students near the bottom of the payscale.

What is the answer to this problem? It seems like a self-perpetuating cycle – students who are low income hate math, and may not have the resources to spend on education, pick “fluff majors,” “easy majors,” or “laid back majors.” After they get the degree, they either cannot find a job, or are forced to take a low-paying job that keeps them living paycheck to paycheck. Students who have college educated parents, who are already wealthy, or already in good schools, and who have the resources to spend on education pick “hard majors,” know people who are employed in the hard majors, and go on to get a hard degree, and remain at the top of the payscale. Again, I don’t have the answer to this problem. How do you convince a person not to take a fluff major? Do we just let the students decide?

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How Not to Be a Jerk to Your Students - Using Kind Canned Responses

Follow the Money: For-Profit Schools are Doing What High School Vocational Programs Used to Do – Keep Students Poor

"Fluff Majors" Keep Low-Income, First-Generation Students Poor. How Do We Fix This?

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