Tag: college

How Do Games Help Us Learn?

In an early post of mine, you can read about a couple of games that I have used in my classes to get students moving, talking and thinking: a getting-to-know-you game, and a grammar relay race.  A few weeks ago, a reader (OnQuicken), left a comment on that old post, asking to hear about more classroom games.

There are many ongoing studies of video and computer games as learning tools.  Educational researchers are also investigating the general concept of play, and its role in learning.  I’d like to look into some of the research in this area, and write about it here in the near future.

For now, though, I’d like to hear about your games.

I expect that if you are a primary teacher, you incorporate games into your teaching.  Do you use any games that would be suitable for, or adaptable to, older students?  I’m especially interested in how teachers of high school, college, university and adult education use games in the classroom. What experiences have you had with playing games?  What are the pros and cons of using them?  What successful games have you used?

Students, can you think of learning games that you’ve found especially effective?

Most importantly, have you seen any evidence to suggest that the games you have played, in the classroom or otherwise, have helped you or your students learn?  What and how?

Image by Mark Daniel

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Posted on by Siobhan Curious 28

University Isn’t Everything

This is the final post in our series “What Students Think Should Change About School.”  In today’s post, Ruth explains that our fixation on getting everyone to university means a poorer education for everyone.

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Society has this idea that certain levels of education are necessary for a person to have any worth. I think this is a ridiculous idea that is harming students today. In many circles, a person is told they must at least have a college bachelor’s degree in order to get a job or be respected in society. Just going to a technical school or learning a trade is not enough anymore. And yet, if everyone is getting a college degree, then soon even that will not be enough. How far will we push those outrageous expectations?

Because of those expectations and the increased attendance rate at universities and colleges, it seems that our value of education is lowering dramatically. With increased class sizes and more and more fees everywhere a student turns it is so difficult for the average student to get a good education. I know so many students (including myself) who have to take a packed class load while working one or two jobs on the side just to get by without starving. How is a student to get a quality education while stressed to the max?

The thing that has frustrated me the most in my college career has been the useless classes I have had to take. I realize that part of this is because I am going to a liberal arts Bible college. However, I do not think a student should be forced to take (and PAY for!) classes that they do not need. That part of the system is definitely messed up. College is not the place for high school students to play catch-up at the expense of their fellow students.

The last comment I have to make is about how prepared college students are to actually face the world. My biggest complaint is with the Teacher Licensure programs around the country. I had so many teachers in high school fresh out of college that had no idea how to actually function in a classroom and deal with students. When a carpenter learns his trade, he does not spend the majority of his time sitting on his backside learning theories of carpentry. He also does not spend only a few months doing actual hands-on carpentry. If such a method would not work for a carpenter, then how can we expect it to work for a teacher? Teaching really is a skill that cannot be learned sitting in a room learning theories and making cut-outs. Students of teaching need to BE teachers and spend most of their time practicing in order to become skilled. Most Teacher Licensure students at my college spend three and a half years in the classroom with a practicum thrown here or there and only one semester actually teaching. Even though it is not my personal goal to become a teacher, I have spent almost every summer for the past seven years working in a summer school classroom. Comparing my experience with what some of my friends are learning in a classroom shows a major discrepancy in ability and skill level. My exposure and experience actually being in the classroom have prepared me more than years of sitting in class have prepared them.

It seems that the push for a college education has caused schools to create degrees for things that do not need a conventional college degree. Students are then forced to sit through boring and unnecessary classes in order to achieve their goals.

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What do you think of Ruth’s perspective?  Is it true that pushing everyone to go to university makes for useless degrees, boring classes and an inadequate education?  Please leave your thoughts below!

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Previous posts in this series:

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I’ll be taking a hiatus next week to take care of some other matters, so I’ll see you again on October 24.

Image by Piotr Lewandowski

Posted on by Siobhan Curious 14

If You Can’t Pay for College, Don’t Go

What would students like to change about school?  Our series continues.

Today’s post is from Aewl.  His perspective?  College should be reserved for those who can pay for it.

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I’m currently a Freshman at a local Junior College. All my classes are online classes as I work during the day full time as a Carpenter for the local school district. Yes, I’m a bit older than most students as I graduated from High School 28 years ago. I did a semester of college right after High School, but didn’t do well as I was more focused on partying than studying. Times have changed and I’ve matured just a bit.

One thing that I can’t get over about college today is all the remedial and prep classes that are not only offered but usually pretty full. 28 years ago, there were few if any remedial courses offered that I remembered. I’ve never had to take a remedial course, so I can’t comment on whether they are a help to students or not.

If I could change just one thing about college, it would be to get rid of Pell Grants. That may seem a bit outlandish, but let me explain. By making college affordable to many people that years ago would not have been able to go to college, it basically makes it an extension to High School. There are quite a few people that if they had to work to pay for their college would not go. These are the same students that do poorly in college and really have no business being in college. Colleges are obligated to try to teach students that are not prepared and are also under pressure to show decent graduation rates. To achieve this, they have to hire more faculty member to teach remedial courses and also to lower the bar of expectation. There is a real danger of grade inflation going on throughout the nation. Today an “A” doesn’t mean near as much as it did a few decades back.

As I do the work for my classes, I have an incentive to do well which has only come from years of working hard and learning from life’s experiences. Unfortunately, even though I do well in my classes, due to grade inflation, it is not seen as much of a big deal as it used to be.

In my day job at the school district, I get brief glimpses of students from K-12 in classes. I also get to interact and develop friendships with various teachers. For the most part, most are motivated to teach well, but of course there are the bad apples in the system that have forgotten why they are there. The lack of parental involvement is a clear indicator of a student’s future failure in the academic world. Consequentially when these students go on to college because the government is subsidizing their education, they have to go to remedial classes which take up resources from the college that in my opinion could be put to better use for the students that are prepared for college.

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What do you think of Aewl’s perspective?  Do you agree that students should hold off on college until they have the means to pay for it themselves?

Tomorrow’s post: Katy thinks we should lighten up about grades.

Yesterday’s post: Emily thinks school is too easy.

Are you a student?  What do you think should change about school?  Go to this post to leave your thoughts, or write me a message.

Image by jitheshvv

Posted on by Siobhan Curious 20

Rolling in the Girls’ Room

Yesterday, the following conversation occurred on my personal Facebook page.

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Siobhan: Am I an old fuddy-duddy because I just emailed Security about the two boys and their girlfriend sitting on the counter in the women’s washroom rolling a massive joint?  Am I less of a fuddy-duddy because, after I kicked them out and found them still hovering around the door as I was leaving, I warned them that I was going to call Security so they really didn’t want to go back in there?  I actually hesitated about it, but my rationale, as I phrased it to Security, was, “Please patrol the bathrooms – a lot of teenage girls do not want to walk into the washroom and discover two boys and a pile of weed on the counter.”

J: Kind of?  Oh wait, there were boys in the women’s washroom? That’s different. The joint I’d just let pass, but that intrudes on the comfort of everyone. You made the right call.  That said, were I to catch students rolling a joint in other circumstances, I’d tell them to lose it immediately and let them know it’s their last chance to learn to do that kind of thing where they won’t get caught. It demands a response, but I’d hesitate to bring security into it since it in no way threatens the safety of students, faculty, or employees.

Siobhan: It’s the total lack of common sense that floors me. I mean, half the female teachers on that floor use that washroom, not to mention tons of students who could easily report them. What did they think would happen?  J, fair enough, but it does threaten some students’ SENSE of safety. A lot of girls would feel very uncomfortable walking in on such a scene, and might hesitate to use that washroom if they knew such things were likely to be going on in there. If students know security guards check washrooms, they’re less likely to do stuff in there that puts other students in awkward positions.

J: Sure — I see it as totally a part of teaching to teach kids to watch their asses if they’re going to do something like that. However, I feel like there is too much appeal to top-down authority when it comes to marijuana. I’m not at all trying to argue that drugs or alcohol have any place on campus, but I’m concerned about resorting to a reaction that places students in a position to be punished well outside the realm of what that sort of stupid, clueless behaviour deserves. A stern talking-to and a threat, for sure, but security I’m uneasy about, particularly because it could lead to expulsion (and in some insane cases, criminal charges, which over marijuana constitutes a total abuse of authority to me).   Also, I’d like to state here that I don’t do drugs and find potheads irritating as anything. It’s just the issue of authority over soft-drug use and the execution thereof that leaves me very uneasy.

Siobhan: J, yes, I totally get that, and that’s why I hesitated. The fact is, if two girls had been in there rolling a joint, even as blatantly as these people, I probably would have ignored it, although the best reaction would have been to chew them out for being stupid, as you say. It was the boys just casually hanging out in the girls’ room with their grass hanging in everyone’s faces that made me feel like it was appropriate to contact security – and the concerns you mention that made me warn the kids that security was coming. I’m not sure what I’ll do if it happens again, but I certainly can’t see myself calling the dogs on some kids just for being pothead idiots – it was the total arrogance of it all that made it seem somehow dangerous.

J: Agreed.

P: Nope – doing your job dear. If the rules forbid this, which they do, whether you agree or not is irrelevant…at least in my book it is. I used to tell my students that I didn’t care much for certain rules but because they were there, I would respect them, and that I expected the same from them…I would have emailed security too!

J: P, with all due respect, I must disagree strongly. CEGEP, in my opinion, is not a place for teaching blind obedience to the rules, particularly rules one personally disagrees with. If a student feels the anti-drug, anti-alcohol rules are unjust, I’d prefer to see them work through the reason for those rules’ existence and attempt to find the means to challenge them then to have them obey for no reason other than the rules’ authority.  This has made my job difficult with students at times, since I’ve never been able to tell students, “Do it because I say you have to,” but I feel that it provides them a more humane education and presents them with more challenging ideas at an instance that may be the last chance they have to be challenged like that.  (I also think the vast majority of students would conclude that the rules against drugs and alcohol on campus are for everyone’s benefit and thus not be able to excuse their own flouting of those rules.)

M: Oh dear, I feel compelled to wade into this now. As a CEGEP teacher and a parent of a CEGEP student, I think you absolutely did the right thing, Siobhan. As for J, your approach is refreshing but very hard to manage. If the students in question were in one of Siobhan’s classes, she could have used the situation as a teaching moment, I suppose, and have a discussion about developing a critical approach to following rules. As they were just some random students, I think Siobhan’s approach was right on.  I sometimes compare school to a workplace with my students. Behave at school as you would in a work situation. Unless they are training to be jazz musicians or artists or beat poets, most students get the message. (I just thought of the poor teacher who will have stoned students on her class later that day…)

K: Siobhan, I would have done the same as you (including warning them about security). If they continued their activities after such a warning, it seems to me they are basically asking to be caught. On the other hand, I would probably make an issue out of students smoking in a bathroom period. Some people have asthma, others prefer not to have to inhale second-hand smoke, whether it is tobacco or pot. That rule has been put into place to protect others, and so should be enforced.

Siobhan: K, they weren’t smoking, just rolling – if they were planning to smoke there, then yes, I agree, they would have deserved absolutely anything that came down on them!

B: I think you can question the reason for a rules existence and, at the same time, respect other people’s wish to pee in peace.

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What are your thoughts on this?  What would you do if you were a college teacher and came across such a scene in a bathroom?  Would you handle it differently than I did?

Posted on by Siobhan Curious 10