Graduate School Acceptance Standards

Graduate School Acceptance Standards

I have been struggling to help a particular student understand the nature of my course and its requirements all semester.  I have helped her numerous times and probably spent as much time with her over-all as I have with all the other students combined.  Today, we have been back and forth about her current assignment and how to proceed. I feel as if I am doing all the thinking for her and wish I could just show her the door and suggest she does not belong in the course at all. In my anger and frustration, I have been reminded today of the discussions I have had with colleagues about acceptance standards and requirements for both Teacher Education and Graduate Studies programs. It seems to me that, at some point, the degrees become meaningless if we have to practically feed the students in order to get them to survive the programs.  To be a graduate student, one ought to possess a certain minimum level of understanding of what a graduate program is all about.  Now, when we argue that an M. A. or an M. Ed. or an M. Sc. is required for entry into other programs, we ought to be able to filter out those students who cannot meet the standards. But then, as I reflected further, it occurred to me that this is only the continuation of a pattern of the lowering of standards across the educational system. We don't fail students any more and that make sense to me. But if we are to keep them in school, we ought to make changes to programs so that the students continue to learn rather than just passing them forward, from year to year. We also have to make it much harder to earn a high mark in any course. I think too many students now believe it is EASY to get an advanced degree because we have made it easy for them, rather than challenging them to measure up.  I don't know how my struggle with this particular student will end but it won't be the last time I believe that a student does not deserve to even be given a credit for a course.

Who Should Be A Student Online?

Who Should Be A Student Online?

Way back, when online learning was just gaining in prominence, there was a very important conversation among educators about who should or should not be learning online and who could or could not learn online.  There was a lot put into articles that were published about the kinds of students that were suitable candidates - the dispositions to learning that they had, their ability to stay on task, to self-monitor their progress and so on.  At the time, a lot of the discussions were based upon experiences with undergraduates or high schoolers, who, it was assumed, did  not possess necessarily the right work ethic to stay on task. It was not wrong at the time to assume that some students just would not get things done on time and / or keep up with deadlines and / or stay in synch with the rest of the class.  I do not recall much being written about graduate students, but now that I am actually teaching graduate students, I think there ought to have been some work done on  the more mature student. I write this because my students online are not at all on the same wavelength about timelines and about the responsibility to keep up or communicate when they are falling behind.  I had a student post something to me the other day about her still having trouble with access to technology and doing FOUR courses and managing to keep up. She decided she would take an Incomplete in my course and finish up the others.  It bothers me that students who are busy constructing their careers, perhaps starting families, working full time and otherwise time challenged are signed up for online courses.  It puts the instructor in a terribly bad position because I am trying to help them and yet a part of me wants to suggest that they ought to have known about time commitments and that they couldn't possibly have completed so much in such a short time. Obviously, there needs to be some kind of filter, even at the graduate level, by which students are carefully screened for their access to the technology and their ability to cope properly with the time demands online learning creates.

What About Me? Reciprocating Online!

What About Me?  Reciprocating Online!

It is a truism now that effective teaching has to involve taking into account the individuality and the personality as well as the needs of the students in any class.  Those of us who aspire to be good at what we do, to be professional and responsible to our students, go out of our way to keep them in our thoughts, try to help them out when they are struggling and I know I am always on the lookout for materials that will make their learning journeys easier and more productive.  When my students used to thank me for being so good, I would always tell them that it took a good student to make a good teacher. I truly believe that it is my responsibility to bring out the best in each and every one of them.  I would argue that we have to do the same when we never see our students face-to-face.  It makes obvious sense. So what bothers me is that, especially online, the students don't understand that kindness and generosity and thankfulness go both ways.  This week, I found some articles that I thought would help my students understand certain things and so I send myself links to them and then posted the links in the materials I distributed to the students.  I found an article of especial interest, I thought, to one of my students and sent it to him. I have not even heard a word of thanks from him yet. This is the same student that I praised effusively because of the work he was doing and told him I thought he could take his ideas to a doctorate.  He didn't have to say he would actually do that, but it seems to me that he could very easily has acknowledged my generosity in his learning journey and thanked me for the kind words. I think students ought to learn that good teaching is not something that they are entitled to take for granted, not until all teachers are equal in the efforts they make for their students.

Remembering CompuServe

Remembering CompuServe

My memories of online adventures goes back to the beginning almost.  It is hard to believe that the Internet is not that old really and it had its beginnings in Arpanet which was part of the American military operations. The idea was, of course, to link research facilities on various campuses and allow the sharing of ideas for defence but also for research. I am an inveterate reader so I learned about what was called the World Wide Web far sooner than a lot of others. I remember learning about America Online and CompuServe and making the case for the school to buy a membership in CompuServe.  I was at a K to 8 school and I was working in the library. I had paid for the link to CompuServe at home as a way to experiment and explore and so I wanted the same thing at the school. I successfully negotiated for the expense because the students were already going early research into a variety of different topics.  It was fun to find things and to share them with the students and the staff but it was soooo expensive. I  had to be very careful because although the principal was generous with me and gave me the freedom to explore because it meant new horizons were opening up for the students and  the administrators I was working with could see the writing on the wall, but still and all, it was a huge expense.  It was not too long after that the board I worked for started to move from Windows for Work Groups 3.11 to Local Area Networks that were using Netscape as a browser and starting to take advantage of lines for Internet access.  Those were the dark days when we moved from W. W. W.. to Internet, from text only to Java-enabled web pages that were interactive and then we were into things like students agreements on acceptable use of the Internet and safe sites for students.  It has to be pointed out that there have always been reasons why it would have been easier not to even bother with any of these things but those same things are the reasons why, now, technology is ever-present and students need to know how to capitalize on its advantages.