Take a moment right now to think about the technologies you had with you when you moved in to your freshman dorm (or wherever you lived for your first semester of college). I had an account on 
the South Dakota State Telephone Network (SDSTN) in my dorm room with long distance costing ten cents a minute and a Snoopy phone I'd won selling magazines. I brought a Brother daisy wheel typewriter (I was a terrible typist and hated every key stroke on that thing!) and my newly purchased Jansport backpack. By second semester, I'd learned about the computer lab in Briggs Library and spent most of my writing time there. And, luckily my second year roommate (also Lisa) showed up with an awesome new word processing device: I could actually read about two paragraphs of text on the screen before committing to print!Now let's think about what those new students are moving in with next week. If recent history repeats, we know almost every one of them will have computer - most will have laptops. Less than 1% will not have a smartphone. Many will have multiple devices; an iPad, a laptop, a smartphone, gaming devices and more. They'll use them in ways we might not get (I know a student who composed a five page paper on his phone).
I think it's helpful to put our students life experiences, age and a few thoughts about how they have interacted in our world into perspective before they arrive. I have two articles to share this week that will make us think about our incoming Kohawks. The first is a blog post by the Tenured Radical (written by Claire Potter) on the Chronicle of Higher Education. Two weeks ago, Potter posted Bye-Bye Birdie: Sending the Kids Away to College. It's a casual post giving advice to parents on how to prepare their kids for college. She writes about some touchy topics (creating separation by NOT calling your child multiple times a day and talking about drugs and alcohol) and some topics we probably wish were mandatory reading for ALL parents and incoming students (college is different than high school!). If you could add to the the list for parents, what topics would you include?
The second article is the Beliot Mindset List. I've been reading this list since starting at Coe. It's a list of popular cultural, political and historical references to help "place" the incoming (traditional) first year students. The list is published by Beliot College and started in 2002. Here's what Beliot says about their list:
"What started as a witty way of saying to faculty colleagues "beware of hardening of the references," has turned into a globally reported and utilized guide to the intelligent if unprepared adolescent consciousness. It is requested by thousands of readers, reprinted in hundreds of print and electronic publications, and used for a wide variety of purposes. It has caught the imagination of the public and has drawn responses from around the world, including more than a million visitors to the website annually."The Class of 2018 List will be published in three weeks (according to the Mindset Facebook page), which is just a little late for us. Fortunately, much of the 2017 Mindset List can also ring true. A few key elements of the list that struck me:
- Eminem and LL Cool J could show up at parents’ weekend.
- As kids they may well have seen Chicken Run but probably never got chicken pox.
- Their TV screens keep getting smaller as their parents’ screens grow ever larger.
- Rites of passage have more to do with having their own cell phone and Skype accounts than with getting a driver’s license and car.
- With GPS, they have never needed directions to get someplace, just an address.
- They have always been able to plug into USB ports
How do you get yourself into the mindset of a 21st Century, born-in-1996 student?
I like the advice column, especially the point about "homework." My students have heard my "there's no homework in college" speech--they need to start thinking of it as "studying" or "work," not some little hoop to jump through and then be done. It's more rewarding to think of it as part of your immersion in the life of ideas here at college!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I get myself into the mindset of my students, but I try to be aware of the ways in which their world is different. There's probably some coming to a compromise on both sides--both their side and mine. I've learned some new ways to provoke ideas and share information using digital media. And I hope they've gotten better at reading (and understanding) long and difficult texts.
Thanks for the 13 things this summer, Lisa!
I really enjoyed reading the blog post. She has some very good advice. I'm always amazed at how "connected" students stay with their parents. It's nice on one level that they are close, but it really is part of the growing up process. I think there would be fewer of those 20 year olds returning home (we've heard so much about in the past few years) if they had a little more separation while they were off to college. I was interested to hear about the "no homework". Hadn't really thought about that difference in mind set. I still hear so many of my student workers referring to the fact that they have "homework" to do. I will see what I can do about changing their mind set on that.
ReplyDeletedon't know that I could ever get my mind into the set of the incoming students. Not sure I want to. But we do need to be aware of where they are at. The Beloit list always does that for me. It is AMAZING the things I see on that list that still seem so new to me, like they just happened. Time flies when you are having fun. Lookiing forward to what the new class brings with them.
With one college "student" still at home and a daughter entering her senior year of high school before leaving for college in Los Angeles (fingers crossed), this hits really close to home for me.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who often works with both students and parents on these issues/advice, I appreciate having much of it all in one article. I hope to use this for the parent orientation session on "Letting Go" next week along with a similar essay from about ten years ago. One common theme I noticed was about setting accurate and attainable expectations. That cannot be done without good communication. I believe that since communication is so relatively easy to do these days, our culture has become complacent and dependent on how we communicate which degrades the quality of that communication. Using Lisa's example of giving directions, so much context is lost/no longer needed, when we rely just on an address instead of paying attention to the route/house color/location.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I think I have learned is that even if college students say they don't need or want expectations, they really do. I think most people do. However, some need a compass to get to where they are going and some need turn-by-turn directions. I have learned to default to turn-by-turn in order to prevent communication or expectation errors.
Alas, as a first-year student, all of my work was handwritten. And, because long-distance phone calls (a phrase which probably isn't even a part of our incoming students' lexicon) were relatively expensive, I sent twice-weekly letters -- also handwritten -- to my hometown girlfriend. (However, at the time, a postage stamp only set me back 13¢.)
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally, the most recent issue of Scientific American Mind was waiting in my box yesterday. The cover article is titled, “The Psychology of Success: It’s Not What You Learn But How You Learn It”. I had Beth scan the cover, so that I can project it up on the screen during the first day of Intro Psych.
To me, a word that captures much of Potter’s essay is “accountability”. While there’s always been a tendency for students (and humans in general) to find ways to rationalize failures, it seems that difficulty in accepting accountability has been somewhat on the rise with students in recent years. I’m not saying drawing a ‘hard line’ is the optimal approach. Trying to balance teaching ‘accountability’ with ‘compassion’ with forever be a challenge to me as an educator. Unfortunately, some ‘helicopter’ parents are being formidable obstacles to their emerging adult children learning that accountability lesson.
While I was shopping today, I heard some kids - maybe 3rd grade - talking excitedly about something I regarded as rather trivial and dull. It prompted me to think about the first year students at Coe and a recognition that we all operate at our "developmental" level. The cognitive structure (and emotional intelligence ...) we have largely determines how we respond. Sometimes we can't hear things because it doesn't fit into our way of thinking and our readiness for that. "Telling" students or parents the ideas of this article will often not connect to their personal reality and hence will not stick. Prompting students to formulate their own perspectives and insights - in response to suggestions like these or dilemmas and questions posed - seems to me more likely to help students move toward responsible, adult, college-appropriate behavior.
ReplyDelete(I'm also thinking of the cool technology I brought to college with me - a high end slide rule, and a low-end stereo record player.)
I know for me one change I've made when working with students is to keep it short.... Shorter training sessions, shorter texts, and shorter emails. So many seem to lose interest because they are used to many distractions happening at the same time. The message seems to sink in when I say it quickly but often.
ReplyDeleteRealizing they know how to use their phones and ipads but maybe not a copy machine also is a consideration. Also, in the library, you know they have access to all kinds of information but being able to analyze or critique is for many a new skill.