STUDENT ATTITUDE

One of the pleasures (or pains) of attending a "teaching" conference is that every session forces you to reflect on your own philosophy and practice. Some sessions can make you feel hopeless and guilty; others make you want to say amen to every point the presenter makes; and there are some that cause you to immediately start rethinking/rewriting your syllabi.

The session entitled "Learning from the Learners" featured a panel of undergraduate students that shared their views on the classroom experience. Keep in mind that these students would have been more motivated than their peers to attend the conference. ["Dude, you attended a teaching conference with professors?!"] OK, throw in a mouse and some rides and they'll gladly take the trip...

Anyway, here are some points and tips they shared:

(1) Students don't come to class to LEARN; they understand that they need the degree to get a decent job so they "play the academic game." They know that most of the stuff they're learning they won't need in the real world.

(2) Professors should show a positive attitude ("even fake it") when they come to class; students can tell if professors don't want to be there.

(3) About 99% of students won't turn off their cell phones when asked to. It's their security and lifeline.

(4) It's more important to learn communication and teambuilding skills than all the information that's packed into the course. Much of the material will be forgotten after the exam, anyway.

(5) Writing is key to thinking and learning the material. Give students opportunities to write.

(6) Challenging courses, especially math and science courses, should be taught more creatively -- applied to real life situations as much as possible.

-----

The students' views fit the conventional profile of Generation Y or Millennials (born after 1982): impatient, coddled, multitaskers, IMers, me-oriented, etc. So I wondered about how I could redefine "learning" to attract student interest: Maybe integrate their favorite technolgies into my classes to provide the comfort and security they need and crave. Maybe allow them to wear earpieces and use cell phones ("You may text or make your calls discreetly."). I could give them more opportunities to have "fun" and write about it. The ideas kept coming...

Yet I am torn between teaching for the moment (the next laugh, the end of term student evaluations) and teaching for life (which was the philosophy I had adopted as a teaching-in-training 25 years ago). I know that those students on the stage will come back to the teaching conference in 5 years and say how they wished they had "learned" more, just as students who left my class hating all the useless writing they had to do ("busy work") and then came back after an internship or year of work to say that it was the best preparation for their jobs!

I keep looking for a middle ground.