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Random Thoughts at the End of the Semester
Posted by Bowden McElroy in News & Culture
Everybody needs a hobby; mine is to be an adjunct instructor teaching undergraduate psychology classes. I’ve been teaching at our local community college for the past few years. I’ve also taught at one of the universities in the area for the past two semesters; they were already short of psychology professors when one quit the day classes started. A friend of mine is responsible for recruiting adjuncts and, well, now I’m teaching four courses in addition to my regular job. I’ll never do this again.
All of which means I have spent the past two weeks writing final exams, giving tests, grading tests and (most difficult and painful of all) reading papers. My brain is fried and there has been no room for whatever is going on in Southern Baptist life.
Time now for a brain-dump on all things related to college students and collegiate ministries.
There is no such thing as a typical college student. My students this semester have ranged in age from 17 to 60. The brightest students are usually the concurrently enrolled high school seniors. The hardest working students are often the non-traditional students (age 25 and up). One student has earned a Ph.D. in some obscure branch of legal history; having figured out the Ph.D.’s don’t get paid as well as actual lawyers he’s back in school picking up prerequisites for med school.
The traditional students (ages 18 to 22) are all over the map in terms of academic ability and motivation.
I’ve learned the slacker who looks like he’s sleeping through class might have an IQ over 140 and be quite capable of teaching the course. The sweet young thing that looks like the girl every dad hopes his son will bring home may have been in and out of rehab and have a child or two: all by the age of 19.
Implications for ministry: mentor individuals, don’t implement programs for a group of young adults who are anything but homogeneous.
I get FaceBook friend requests from students who are then shocked and, to their credit, embarrassed that I have actually looked at their FaceBook page. That has led to at least one interesting discussion with a small group of graduating seniors. “You’re good students”, I told them, “but I wouldn’t hire you after seeing your party pics on FaceBook”.
Implications for ministry: I don’t ask students to be my friend, but I do respond to their requests. They read my status changes. That leads to opportunities before and after class to discuss spiritual issues. This is a generation searching for spirituality. They haven’t a clue what that is, but they are hungry for it.
Spirituality is becoming a hot topic for scholarly papers. Here’s a list of several academic papers. The web site is part of Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Interesting reading.
Lifeway research has some surveys on church dropouts. So does Barna.
Implications for ministry: know who it is you are trying to reach.
My parents were mistaken; there is such a thing as a stupid question. ‘Nuff said.
Implications for ministry: if you hang out with college students, be prepared for stupid questions. And unfounded opinions. And poorly thought out conclusions. It goes with the territory.
Nobody reads the class syllabus. Not the department chair, not the Dean, and certainly not the students. Writing syllabi is a lesson in integrity: a well written syllabus is its own reward. I have learned to write my syllabi as unto the Lord (’cause He’s the only other one who will see it).
I run into students everywhere. Current students as well as former students. I go to the gym and I’m greeted with “Have you graded my paper yet?” by the guy at the front desk. I go to a restaurant and the waitress, whom I don’t remember ever having met, greets me with “Professor McElroy!”.
Implications for ministry: college students, particularly unchurched students, are looking for reasons to discount our faith. All they know are the caricatures pictured on TV; they’re watching closely for any signs of hypocrisy. I have to think twice before I’m rude assertive with the clerk who ignored me or treated me poorly.
On the other hand, even the most vocal student who speaks out against the existence of God is fascinated by an articulate believer who treats them with respect. It’s as if they have been taught that faith and intelligence are polar opposites and cannot coexist. I don’t mind be viewed as an oddity if it opens a few doors.
That’s it for now. Time to get back to reading papers by freshmen psychology students. Next semester… only multiple choice tests and scantrons. Whoever invented the scantron was a genious.
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The reason folks don’t read syllabi is due to the lack of helpful information. Online courses using Blackboard or other learning content management systems live by the syllabus, thus making them more useful to those students.
A few principles to keep in mind if you want students (or anyone for that matter) to use your syllabus (or anything you produce).
1. Make sure it contains helpful information that is action-focused. If all you have is a list of topics that forms a “table of contents” for your course, this is not helpful information. There is nothing for them to DO with this information. However, if you list rubrics for assignments, deadlines, resources, pre-work, etc. then you make this a worthwhile document. And if you want to really do something worthwhile, think long-term and ask yourself what kind of document you would produce if you wanted students to find it useful 5 or 10 years from now.
2. Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. If you think your syllabus is important (and few profs do, so is it any wonder no one reads the things?) and that your students should read it, then reward them for doing so. Provide information in the syllabus that will help them succeed on tests or assignments. Ask test questions taken directly from the syllabus. Refer to the syllabus at least weekly in class in a meaningful and tangible way.
3. Experience is the best teacher and fools learn by no other. If there are no consequences for not reading the syllabus, then no one will read it. Do not use class time for reminders. Simply collect assignments on the date announced in the syllabus, give tests on the dates in the syllabus, etc. When students cry that you never said anything, point out that it was in the syllabus. If they say they never read those things, simply inform them that they will fail your class then, since the syllabus clearly articulates your expectations of student performance and they are obviously not meeting your expectations.
And no, I am not just talking about a syllabus. These principles work for a wide range of endeavors.
You mentioned Facebook. I started lurking in the social networking groups because of the problems it caused in my youth group at my previous church.
People do not realize that everything they say, every picture they put up there, constitutes a permanent record.
This was a very enjoyable read, Bowden.
Nicely done and agreements (mostly) all around. But this being an SBC blog, I do want to indicate two areas of disagreement. (Neither of them about elders, alas).
First, I’ve been ruminating on the Facebook challenge for a few weeks now and have decided not to accept any of my current students as friends. I’ve had enough professional/personal boundary issues with students over the years to make me hesitant to use FB as a tool for interacting with students. So I ignore their (virtual) friendship requests and then have a conversation with them about why I chose to do so. But I‘m still thinking it through. (And frankly, the older I get the fewer boundary issues I have with students anyway).
Second, on the syllabus. I’ll tell you when a Department Chair reads the syllabus: she will read it as soon as a professor in her department makes some capricious, random decision to change the (pick one) grading scale, number of assignments, class meeting times, attendance requirements, day and time of the final, etc. The syllabus represents a contract. If the professor changes it arbitrarily, then the students, Chair, Dean, and Grade appeal committee will all be reading it quite carefully.
Thank you for working as an adjunct. I know you are doing it out of love and calling, because you certainly aren’t doing it for the money.
Rick,
Thanks for the advice. I think I already follow #’s 1 & 2. My problem, or at least my excuse, is the kind of strict adherence to the syllabi you suggested in your third point goes against the prevailing culture of the college. In other words, the students are accustomed to the full-time prof’s cutting them a lot of slack. I think being an adjunct and breaking with tradition would create more problems for me than it would solve.
Dave,
Thanks for the kind words.
Taran,
I’m comfortable with FaceBook for the following reasons:
1. The students are the ones initiating the friendship requests.
2. I have pretty good accountability built in: my two grown daughters follow me on FaceBook and would be quick to confront me for anything inappropriate or “creepy”. And two of my partners at CFI follow my Facebook account.
3. I’m an adjunct. I have no office hours (because I have no office) so FaceBook is about the only opportunity for interaction I have (other than while I’m lecturing). I might feel differently if I were full-time: plenty of other opportunities for more traditional interaction.
Nice article.
I’ve notice that older students are quite a rarity in the Philippines (where I do my ministry). Seems like you have one shot to study when you are young, and if you miss it, you never make it back. Quite different from the States, where I remember going to class with older students.