Student Guide Corner

(If you would like for me to send you an email whenever I post a new blog entry, just drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu and I'll add you to my list.) On October 1, 2017, I posted the first of a two-part blog entry on the importance of the 2-4 days after the first test of the semester.  This initial essay included an email that I sent to my current students immediately after their first test.   My assumption has long been that students are most interested in how to do well in a course as they leave the first test.   The email encouraged them to consider two specific aspects of their post-test assessment.  First, if they felt they had not done well, I made three suggestions about what might have gone wrong.   It is hard to improve without some identification of the problem.  Students who do not do as well as they had hoped should come up with an honest ending to this sentence prompt, �I did not do well on the first test because . . .� ...

I suspect none of us who teach probably appreciates fully how much guidance students need.   Every class is unique and has its own keys to success.  To us, who have been doing this forever, the way forward looks as clear as the yellow brick road that Dorothy was told to follow by the munchkins.  To the students, the path looks like an overgrown mile of swampland with no visible markers.   I realize that they look like adults but most students probably need guidance almost every step of the way. I think one of the biggest challenges in college education (and I have said this often on this blog) is that students are under-prepared when they walk into class.   They are just are not ready for the depth of conversation that I want.  So, we teachers wind up guiding them using a long, boring lecture.   If they are not prepared, what else are we going to do? I often accuse them of being prepared for a high school class.  The response i...