Instructors teaching at LCOOCC are usually cognizant of the cultural differentials that contribute to the strength and quality of our student body. It is understood that the ideal manner of dealing with individual differences is a one on one relationship. Time to work with individuals is scarce, but it is necessary to recognize and direct teaching to most effectively acknowledge and utilize the difference that may exist.
The
first suggestion is to inform the students completely and specifically about the
objectives and expectations of the course.
Students are to be encouraged to enter into dialogue with the instructor
to ascertain whether these objectives and expectations are clear.
For courses in which the objectives are not quantitative or are less
easily observed, this step is analogous to the modeling provided to students
learning a skill. The statement of
objectives is not intended to duplicate the readings but to guide students by
clearly defining and indicating priorities and emphases.
When objectives are presented properly, many more students should be able
to match the other students in the ability to see what is needed to reach the
instructor’s expectations.
The
fact that a discipline deals with “shades of gray” as opposed to specific
solutions as answers does not decrease the need for guidance.
Students should be prepared to note “the principle disadvantages” of
a particular course of action or to rank alternatives in the same way they might
be asked to chose the “best” alternative in a multiple-choice test.
In
addition to the statement of objectives and samples of problems, guidance to
students should include the instructor’s checklists or observation scales.
They will be particularly helpful for feedback if the observation scales
contain descriptions of the levels or stages in development of the expected
learning of the subject matter of the course.
In many courses, the ultimate level of achievement sought is to produce
perceptive critics of performance or products in the subject area.
Each
academic discipline has its own particular requirements, such as library
research, computational skills, variable reading rates, laboratory technique,
and note taking. Even among the
most successful students, there are differences in approach to a discipline, and
instructors are often unaware that students may not know how to study
efficiently. One of the most common
weaknesses is poor or inflexible reading habits.
Often students who are oriented to science or mathematics will apply
their slow methodical reading habits to a survey course and not know that a
faster rate is not only possible, but also more appropriate.
Success
in college courses often requires memorizing a considerable amount of
information such as classification categories in sciences, chronologies of
events in social sciences or formulas. If
such is the case, tell students and give them some examples of mnemonic devices
and proven way to aid recall. There
are certain skills that are useful to the instructor, skills that are easily
developed once the purpose is specified and recognized.
One of the most important is to reduce—or remove, if possible—the
inherent threat and negative student reaction to evaluation and feedback.
Tailoring
feedback to individual students is a specialized skill.
Although some instructors have specialized training and experience, most
instructors are better advised to minimize their analysis of students and try to
be as consistent and impartial as possible in responding to all students.
Instructors can do this best by striving to relate their feedback and
comments as impersonally as possible to the model, to the objectives, and the
expectations that were set out for that particular aspect of the course.
Conventional
textbooks, most of us realize, were not designed for self-instruction, but
should rather serve as information-storing devices to be used by students under
an instructor’s guidance and direction. Whatever
the instructor does in the normal classroom to facilitate use of a textbook,
such as suggesting points to emphasize, or asking questions in recitation
sessions to check student comprehension, or elaborating in lectures on known
points of difficulty, must, in a individualized system, be put into writing or
some permanent form for use by students.
As
course designers, instructors are faced with delayed feedback, since a great
deal of preparation has to be completed before any student appears. At the same time the instructor must ever be sensitive to the
fact that what or whether the student learns, and how to determine those facts,
rests entirely with the assessment technique utilized for that analysis.
Not all of the feedback will be positive as the students struggle to
understand and to attain the objectives. A
favorite way of handling a particular topic, that appeared to work on the
lecture platform with its lack of feedback about student comprehension, will
turn out to be inadequate. For
concerned instructors, student failure should constitute a punishing
contingency; their hard work did not get the desired results.
The frequent testing and the mastering requirement force instructors to
face theses unpleasant facts.
It
is certainly desirable to have a system that gives the instructor detailed
feedback about the effectiveness of the course materials at frequent intervals
and that gives the student equally detained feedback about progress toward
mastery. It is frequently the case
that instructors, even those with skill in developing course outlines of
coverage, have trouble developing objectives that correspond closely to the
types of activities that they expect students to demonstrate on sophisticated
evaluation exercises.
Many
instructors find that the use of a study guide complements the use of objectives
and communicates to the students somewhat richer information about exactly what
they are expected to know or to do, than is possible with only the objectives.
These guides frequently include such information as pages to be read in a
particular sequence, important items to be remembered or related to each other,
directions on topics to which students should pay special attention, and sample
questions that are used to make the student think about some point and to serve
a facilitative purpose in supporting the type of learning the instructor wishes
the student to acquire.
As
an instructor, you should constantly be asking your self, “What is it that
students should be learning in this course, and why?
Am I teaching them that which they should be learning?
How do I determine whether or not they have learned the material that is
being presented?” If you are
unable to give a satisfactory answer to any one of these queries, you need to
carefully rethink your process of presentation of the subject. How much you know of the subject is of little importance if
the content is not being relayed to the student, or if you have no valid
capacity to assess whether or not the student ahs learned the material essential
for mastery of the course.