As to the question of what a FYC teacher to come to class knowing...I believe it is two fold. One, the teacher should come to class knowing the entirety of the semester and what the overall purpose is in the class. This will help when they are planning lessons for each day because then they can try and connect each lesson to lead up to the students having an overall and completely knowledge of the course materials. Two, I believe the FYC teacher should come to class knowing the exact specifics of the lesson plan for that day. The paper lesson plan should be a back-up plan incase the students get the teacher off track with questions and they need to remember where they were at.
The student should come to class prepared for that class. PERIOD. That is the biggest issue that I see with students today. They come to class without reading, or fully doing an assignment. They expect the teacher to hold their hand through the process of experiencing a college course. Um...I'm sorry, no. Not gonna happen. You are adults and you will be treated as such.
To be prepared for plan b, essentially means to me to be prepared for working at the bottom level of the middle range. You are not adapting to the "laziest" student in the class, but you are not zooming ahead without regards for your student. Plan B is the ability to relay the material in multiple ways and at multiple depths.
2 comments:
I definitely agree with your blog. As nice as it is that we want people to succeed in college, if we make their success our only goal that we accommodate everything else around, we will lose the goal of actually educating them. I cannot help but think that students are coming to college unprepared because teachers simply want them to pass out of their class. If we lower the standards more, just because we're afraid of hurting feelings, what will this due to our standards of motivation, efficacy, and output?
I agree that students should do their work before class. Still, we have to be prepared for times when students aren't ready. We owe them a learning experience even if they have not done their part.
I have been in some classes where the professor has simply cancelled class if students aren't prepared. That might be OK is some situations, to drive home the need to prepare. But it probably should not be the default position.
To some degree the student-teacher relationship is a contract and the student has fufilled at least part of her half in advance by paying for the course. So we owe something as long as the class is attentive and willing to learn at that moment, even if the night before they weren't.
Having a plan B for each class doesn't require lowering standards for the class overall. The exam or final projects should incorporate material the students were expected to learn even if they did not do, unless the teacher realizes that the goal was too ambitious to begin with--a not unfrequent realization.
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