Student skill levels necessary for college success
Question? What is the skill level necessary for college success?
I teach 5.5 week accelerated leadership courses, project management courses and computer courses.
Most of the students understand the course platform, they understand how to navigate it, and most of them understand the instructions for how to complete the assignment and do a great job with the assignments. But every now and then there is a student was obviously adding more basic level than the other students.
In most cases the students are at a very elementary level with English grammar, computer skills, and research skills (Library and Internet).
Question? How do we help the students before they get to a point where they are for totally frustrated and want to drop out of school?
What can we do as a university, as a faculty to help these students succeed in college?
Granville Jones
From my experience as an instructor at a physical college, students who struggle with basic skills such as grammar are referred to the tutoring center. These tutors are trained to work one on one with such students. It would be helpful to refer students in an online environment to such a center provided by the university. Despite their elementary level of preparedness, these students should still have the chance to succeed in college.
Steve Mardock
Sure the tutoring centers, such as a Writing Center, are excellent resources for students to build valuable skills. However, some students are not going to achieve more than a basic level of competency or see much improvement using such methods via the online platform. I don't think some students can effectively ameliorate in a virtual environment of this kind. It's too disconnected from the physical world for some of them, who learn more with hands-on experiences than with visual or auditory methodology.
For these students, there needs to be some kind of tutoring in reality with a live human being physically present.
Granville,
Good questions. From the start, every school should assess the learner's technological competencies to ensure the apptitude is there to navigate through a courseroom. There are many levels of motivation a learner has to participate in online education and the learning team should target that motivation to direct the student in the right direction. Most schools have a first course that introduces the learner to the learning environment and school policies. This online course is the first step to measure and test the skills of the student to hopefully ensure their success in any degree program.
TD
The responses so far are very interesting to me. I am a fairly new online instructor and was a bit surprised at the skill level of some of my students. Not only are they expected to learn course content, some are learning the technology for the first time as well. As an instructor, I try to help as I can, but in some cases it is clear other intervention, as described above, is necessary. I was happy to hear in a recent faculty meeting that my institution would begin to require courses in technology for those incoming student who are minimally skilled. I believe that if we want to capture this student population, we need to have processes in place to foster their success well beyond the initial student orientation. In the end, do we not fail a bit ourselves if they fail?
This is a question that has been debated many times by all of us in higher education. At times it is easy to blame the K-12 system for not preparing the students properly. At other times the answer is to only accept the students that are "guaranteed" to be successsful.
I believe that every student has a right to learn, but when a college accepts a student that is under prepared, they also accept the responsiblity for trying to catch the student up to the level they need to be at to be successful. But the key is early identification and intervention along with a great deal of support and encouragement.
Having a tutoring center for online students is very helpful for students. Thanks for your comments Steve.
Students that are behind with basic skills do need extra attention and instruction.
I agree that a college accepts the responsibility for trying to catch a student up to an appropriate level for success. There should be a variety of remedial courses offered to those students who may need additional support that should have to be passed before they are allowed to enter into courses for degree credit. It only serves to set students up for failure when they are placed into courses that they are unprepared to achieve the basic requirements.
Thank you for your insight Karen. Identifying students that need remedial work is key to their success.
Granville, I teach mostly students who are new to the online learning environment, so I am very familiar with the problem that you described.
At the institution I teach online for, each online instructor is required to hold one weekly office hour per week, and then have two live chat session hours per week.
I dedicate my weekly office hour to working one-on-one with the students each week, so that they get the extra attention they need, even in an online course!
I have found that this one on one time is an excellent way to help the students with their grammar, usage, etc. I also ask the students to bring drafts of their work with them to my weekly office hour, so that I can proofread drafts of their work for them, while they wait.
Mike Crowley
In my on-site classes I am now incorporating at least one lesson on study skills at the beginning of each module. Throughout the module, as I'm teaching a skill or subject, I try to refer back to the study skill that will help bring leaned information from their short-term memory into their long-term memory.
I would like to see every student's first course be a class that covers study skills, time management and success strategies, that will also identify students that may need extra tutoring in basic skills.
I think that is a great idea Janice. Providing students with specific examples on how to use the study skills gives them real examples on how to be successful when studying for the class.
It is all about the tutoring. Once a student feels successful with the most remedial of skills, they will feel confident with furthering their studies and moving onto the next phase.
One success can build on another and can increase a student's confidence tremendously. It is important to make sure students are placed in the right level class in the first place, though, so they can be successful. Thanks for your comments Gina.
Good Day, All...
For me there are two key points this raises.
#1) Before... A minimal technological comfort level needs to be in place before actually beginning an online course. This would seem to primarily be in the hands of the university level of support. I think this should be part of an initial assessment. Another reply speaks to the importance of confidence building and this is very relevant.
#2) As faculty, early detection of this type of problem can be even more difficult online than "on ground". Any thoughts on techniques for early detection of technical deficiencies in the online environment???
One idea would be to have students include their experience with other online classes in their biography at the beginning of the class. This would at least identify students that haven't taken an online class before. Another way to identify students with technological deficiencies would be when they are not using the technology appropriately.
I haven't yet made it through all of the posts and this thread was from some time ago, but for anyone new and reading this thread I do find it particularly relevant to my experiences as an online instructor. What I see happening is students who are either new to college or have not been in school for years coming back. They are really not equipped to deal with the technological aspect of the online learning environment, nor do they really understand or know how to access the services available to them. Instructors can only do so much and I feel as though it has to be a team effort. I am wondering if this "technology" class, before they even start taking real classes, might help better prepare them for what is to come. Trying to learn how to us the computer and an online classroom are hard enough without having to learn course content as well. I like this idea a lot.
This is excellent and certainly the ideal. How do you help students that don't come to you for help though? I am finding students that I know need my help but who are not coming to me or communicating with me in anyway??!!
You bring up some great points Shelly. There are some schools that do have classes like you described that are to prepare students to be an online student. Thanks for your comments.
