What Topics Have You Covered in Class?

02/01/2016

Parents,

This past week’s snow storm was one of those rare times when the University cancelled classes. Each faculty member will have different strategies for making up work that was missed. Students really enjoy these rare days when classes are cancelled. I remember sled riding down North High Street on cafeteria trays when I was a freshman in January 1963. Huge snow storms tend to stay in our memories longer than most events.

Soon students should know the results of the first round of tests especially in math and science classes. If these results aren’t particularly good, please have your student see his/her advisor. Now is when students need to take corrective actions. Unfortunately, a common trait of the engineering personality is to try to “gut it out” without help.

For the past few weeks, I have been meeting regularly with students who are on probation. I have been giving students very specific advice, and I have been insistent that they follow that advice. I am very encouraged by the progress that I see. If your student is on probation, he/she should be taking a course that helps develop study skills. There are a number of students in ENGR 150, the course that I teach. The students that are doing what is expected in this course are doing very well. Unfortunately, there are about 20 percent of the students who are in the course who have done nothing and will receive an F in a course where they should have received an A. Here are questions you can ask your student if he/she is on probation. For each class your student is taking, ask:

■What topics have you covered in class?

■What types of assignments have you done?

If your student seems not to be able to answer these questions, please make sure that they start doing what is required. It’s hard to help a student who you never see.

In this email, I would like to give you my sense of this current generation of students. I’m often asked by our alumni and by business people about my impressions of the students I have in classes. You can tell by the tone of the questions that they have concerns. These concerns are a national phenomena.

My reply to them is not to worry. This generation of students will do fine. This is my sixth decade of teaching (I started in the 60’s). I have to say that I enjoy this generation of students as much as any I have taught. I am a big fan of our young people.

Here are some of my impressions of what I observe. I would love to hear from you about your own observations.

Students today are interactive learners. They don’t like highly scripted lessons where there is very limited opportunity for them to connect with what is being taught. They learn best when the teacher shows them the concept and then gives them the opportunity in class to try out the concept on a problem. When the class is just a lecture, students tend to zone out and end up having to teach themselves.

Students today are collaborative learners. They do best when they work with each other. If you were to walk down the halls of our building at any time you will see students helping each other on their homework. Classes work best when the structure of the class encourages collaborative learning.

Students are hands on learners, especially in engineering. They do best when they connect the content of the course with some physical activity. I’ll often ask students to read a paragraph in a book. Then I’ll ask them a question about what they read. They don’t remember anything. Their eyes passed over the words but very little information was retained. Then I ask them to write down key points of what they are reading. They will remember what they read because they made reading a hands on activity. The same applies in math/science/engineering. Concepts mean very little to them until they translate the concepts into something tangible.

Students don’t respond well to bullying. The old style of teaching which used threats and fear to motivate students just doesn’t work. You will see this on the side line of a sporting event. Our students don’t respond well to a teacher who tries to bully them into performing better.

Students respond very well to direct and specific feedback. They want to be told how they are doing, and they also want guidance on how to do better. They respond best to feedback from those they respect and trust. They receive the feedback and guidance well, but often, they need constant attention to help them act on the guidance.

Our students lead very public lives and they are remarkably open about things that other generations keep personal. They are willing to discuss their problems with you when you have gained their trust. I would expect this generation will have less of the “bottled up” problems of previous generations.

This generation probably has a harder time connecting their goals with the work it will take to achieve these goals. I see a stronger disconnect on this with our current students then with past students. The good news is that the connection between goals and effort required is made fairly quickly by most students.

I hope this was useful to you. Unfortunately, I see our teaching approaches at all of our universities going in opposite directions from these trends. We are increasingly relying upon scripted presentations in large classrooms with limited opportunity for student interaction. We still rely primarily on lectures with minimal hands-on opportunities for applying what was learned during class time. We largely ignore the collaborative aspects of learning in our course design. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded numerous studies that support what I describe here as a way to improve performance in math/science/engineering. NSF has also concluded that there has been very limited follow through on their research in universities across the country.

I am a big believer in this generation. I just wish we thought more about how we are teaching them before we criticized their education performance.

Let me close with the story of two students. David suffers from Crohn’s disease. He came to me for advice. He was suffering from his disease. He was trying to get through the semester, but didn’t know if he would make it. We discussed what he should do in the event that surgery became necessary.

David didn’t make it through the semester. He had to have immediate surgery to remove a major part of his intestines. The surgery didn’t go well and another surgery was necessary. He returned for the spring semester.

One morning early in the spring semester, he came to my office at 6:30 AM. He looked bad. We talked about whether he had returned to school too soon. As we were talking, David had a breakdown. I immediately called his father. I was afraid for David’s life.

David dropped out of classes that spring. He had another surgery. He returned the next falland I’m glad to say that he did very well. He has now graduated and begun his career.

The second story concerns Jennifer. Prior to enrolling at WVU, Jennifer’s parents got in touch with me about a special medical treatment she needed each month. I was able to find a doctor for her who would administer the treatment.

Basically Jennifer has chemotherapy once a month. It’s an all day treatment which has terrible side effects. I spent one Saturday night with Jennifer in the emergency room as she was being treated for the side effects of the treatment. She had to be hospitalized.

I recently had an email from David. He is well into his career and is doing great. He has even created his own side business. Jenniferhas now graduated. She has a job with a top corporation.

As I was sitting in the emergency room with Jennifer, I thought about the struggles that David and Jennifer were going through. They have really had to work hard to get their degrees with the personal challenges they faced. I then thought about many of the healthy students I teach who just don’t seem to care about their education. I often wonder: “Why?” Do you have an answer?