what am I paying for if my daughter isn't learning at college?
This morning I had to sit down and pay my daughter's college tuition. Her Pell grant is running out and I have to pick up the slack. As I'm entering all my info, she is complaining about her statistics class. The combination of these two events -- me looking at the high cost of education and grudgingly paying it and my daughter complaining about her class -- led me down another train of thought.
Evidently, as most statistics classes are, this class is a difficult one. The instructor is older and has taught the class for many years. He has noticed certain trends over the years, such as the fact that most students don't do well on his tests and that they even do worse on the second test than the first. On the second test, which the class recently completed, only two people made an A without the benefit of grading on a curve.
As I'm just about to click the Submit Payment button, my daughter complains that she isn't learning anything in the class. She rightfully questions her instructor's lack of motivation to change what he is doing. After all, if most of his students have always done poorly on his tests, maybe it isn't the students who are failing. Maybe it is the instructor failing them -- failing to facilitate their learning.
I have been concerned about the quality of instruction at the college level since I left high school. At UNM, I majored in English and minored in anthropology. Back in the early 1980s, the anthropology department had some well-known anthropologists/instructors and I couldn't wait to start learning. Somehow, though, most of my instructors managed to make the information boring and the tests rarely reflected what I thought we were learning. As a future teacher, I came to believe that, just as K-12 teachers have to student teach, so should college instructors.
You can be the expert of everything in the world but that doesn't make you a teacher.
That opinion has only been strengthened over the years. When I got my MA in education, I discovered that there are incredible teachers at the college level but almost all of them seem to be in the College of Education.
I hit the Submit Payment button but I wasn't happy about it. For the first time, I wasn't sure my daughter's college education is worth the cost.
Evidently, as most statistics classes are, this class is a difficult one. The instructor is older and has taught the class for many years. He has noticed certain trends over the years, such as the fact that most students don't do well on his tests and that they even do worse on the second test than the first. On the second test, which the class recently completed, only two people made an A without the benefit of grading on a curve.
As I'm just about to click the Submit Payment button, my daughter complains that she isn't learning anything in the class. She rightfully questions her instructor's lack of motivation to change what he is doing. After all, if most of his students have always done poorly on his tests, maybe it isn't the students who are failing. Maybe it is the instructor failing them -- failing to facilitate their learning.
I have been concerned about the quality of instruction at the college level since I left high school. At UNM, I majored in English and minored in anthropology. Back in the early 1980s, the anthropology department had some well-known anthropologists/instructors and I couldn't wait to start learning. Somehow, though, most of my instructors managed to make the information boring and the tests rarely reflected what I thought we were learning. As a future teacher, I came to believe that, just as K-12 teachers have to student teach, so should college instructors.
You can be the expert of everything in the world but that doesn't make you a teacher.
That opinion has only been strengthened over the years. When I got my MA in education, I discovered that there are incredible teachers at the college level but almost all of them seem to be in the College of Education.
I hit the Submit Payment button but I wasn't happy about it. For the first time, I wasn't sure my daughter's college education is worth the cost.
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