Dr. Dembo, who has done research in community college classrooms and has developed a PD training program for community colleges, believes that teachers play a key role in bringing about needed changes.
At a recent LINKS event, Dembo called for an end to the "jumping to the solution" mentality when a student performance gap is observed. Teachers, counselors, support staff, and administrators at any community college have to overcome the challenge of understanding the causes for performance gaps first. That means analyzing three types of interacting factors that determine academic success in community colleges:
- lack of knowledge
- the role motivation plays in understanding the causes
- aspects of the organizational culture (including instructional strategies) that contribute to the performance gap.
While a teacher is quick to point out and blame those few students for having zero motivation in a just-ended class, he fails to realize that those students were actually the most highly motivated ones, only they were motivated to avoid failure! The teacher has in fact failed to teach self-regulatory processes/skills in an academic setting or to be engaged in "possible selves" intervention that gives students hope and does not allow them to see themselves as deficient.
Many teachers favor competition as a motivation method, not knowing that a group of their students, especially the low-achieving ones, are not motivated by this method.
When an instructor only warns students in his syllabus that they'll fail if they don't do A, B, and C, he is giving the wrong syllabus emphasis, and his belief will have a negative impact on his students and their beliefs. A student-centered syllabus would reflect a different belief:
"Teach the students you have, not the students you wish you had."A two-page basic syllabus would include a statement of teaching philosophy and supplemental additions of "Resources," "Study Skills," "Ways to Succeed in This Course," and the like. A student-centered teacher would make sure his students read and understand the syllabus by giving points to some activities with the syllabus such as a quiz or a class discussion. On the first day of class, a good teacher says, "I only care about your success. In order to succeed, you're expected to...," and his students say, "I can't wait to come back tomorrow."
"Read and underline" is the most ineffective strategy. Teachers ought to try "Use headlines to generate questions and then underline only the answers" in order for their students to form a habit of reading and responding to academic texts meaningfully.
Other specific advice from Dembo during his talk:
- Never ask students, "Do you understand?" Why? Because it shows you do not know what to expect.
- Don't tell me you need more time to cover the material. Time is not the issue. It's the strategy for reading that counts.
- Ditch final exams. Use a term paper instead.
- To get the students to read the book and do homework, give quizzes at the beginning of each class meeting throughout the semester. Throw out the 3 lowest scores in the end. This daily quiz can double as attendance taking.
- Teach Cornell notes.
- Be a smiling teacher. Have students sign up for lunch with you to talk about anything other than the class. These help provide a homelike environment and contribute to the social-contextual factors for motivation.
- Have students open their textbook on day one and show them how to use the aids in the book to help them read the book.
- Teachers with a high level of failed students year after year are inadequate teachers. Time to focus on self-regulation.
- Two key questions to ask teachers:
- Are the students getting it?
- How do you really know?
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