"My Freshman Year"...Surprisingly Similar to MY Freshman Year...

The final reading for the semester, My Freshman Year – What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, written by the author pseudonym Rebekah Nathan, an anthropologist and ethnographer, proved to be an enjoyable read. I was annoyed with the pseudonym and inability to give the name of the university and students that the viewpoints came from, but am going to resist a Google search that will reveal some of these answers and roll with Nathan’s ethics of being an ethnographer. While I did not find many standout teaching tips while reading the book, the concept of being mindful and relatable to your students emerged and was reinforced throughout the novel, something that can relate to many aspects of successful teaching. I will reflect on surprising aspects of the book, my advice for new teachers, and my perspective on undergraduate students.

What was the most surprising aspect of the book, and why did it surprise you?
The most surprising aspect of the book was how comparable nearly everything was to my freshman year. I was a freshman four years ago, also when this book was published, so it was like a walk down memory lane for me. While reading, I pictured myself at my residence hall meetings, making residence hall community contracts, eating in the dining center, choosing different organizations to become involved in, and changing my major among the many activities described. I used to wonder what college life would be like at a different university in another part of the country because North Dakota State University is not necessarily the most glamorous or well known college. However, after reading this book, though it was written based on a college of similar population (13,000 students), the life of a freshman at this university was so similar. Depending on the location of the school, there may be more things to distract you from your studies, but the responses and observations of these students were all things I did or can think back to observing as a freshman.

Another surprising thing is that students do not feel a sense of community and really don’t care to. So many opportunities are on every campus to become involved and so many students do not. The way Nathan related so many things back to the theme of community and belonging showed me many different ways in which students do and do not embrace campus. Community not only included those organizations that some students see themselves conforming rather than being individuals (I would love to elaborate on Nathan’s references to Greek Life, but that could be a whole separate blog in itself) but also people watching the Superbowl in their own rooms instead of together at the residence hall-wide sponsored event. I then contrasted this with some of the international students’ comments about how the American culture is very individualistic but have so many group projects. Is this so that we don’t fail and lose credibility or face as individuals but as a group where one can’t be easily blamed?

In light of the challenges faced by undergraduate students highlighted in the book, what advice would you give new college instructors?
Reading this book reinforced and reminded me that undergraduate students are faced with so many other things in their life and your class is not always going to be their biggest priority. I think if the research found in this book about the number of students that work, their average amount of time spent preparing for class, volunteering, and doing other activities would be even more different compared to the few years ago when this book was written. College students seem to have the academic side of going to college on the backburner. Comments like those on page 102 about staying in college to experience the culture, parties, and climate of college more so than to earn a degree are disheartening but the reality of the education system today. I myself have said I want to stay in school rather than get a “big kid job” Many of my friends also feel this way. Students today are balancing working and going to school while getting to still partake in these fun parts of being a student.
New instructors need to remember those conversations they hear in class like mentioned in the book about how students talk about parties they went to or other activities they did but then say they did not have time to finish their assignments. I am learning to not be so understanding and that I know that students were probably procrastinating and doing less important things. I wish I could tell my students that I was vice president of my sorority for two years, a Bison Ambassador, an Ambassador for the College of AHSS, in 4 honor societies, worked on weekends I did not have any other activities going on and maintained exemplary grades. New teachers are given very dissonant advice. Some people tell us to be understanding of our students and others say to stop caring. Some classes might lend themselves to lenient policies while others not. My advice is to be consistent with your views and expectations. When you are hired to teach at the college level, you were chosen for a reason and able to teach at such a high level because of your abilities and were most likely a successful student. The habits of some undergraduates will not put them on track to put them in a position to one day teach.

Has this book changed your perspective on undergraduate students? If no, why not? If so, how so?
Reading this novel has not necessarily changed my perspective on undergraduate students because I was an undergraduate student just a mere 6 months ago. If I was further removed I may have found this information more valuable. The experiences and information was very comprehensively covered which could give an older teacher insight of current challenges of students. However, near the end of the book, Nathan effectively gives the reflection of “the teacher as student.” Since I am still so close to the time when I was an undergrad, I can still relate to my experiences and am obviously still a student while trying to take on the teacher role at the same time. Nathan was trying throughout her time to conform and relate with the undergraduates, while I find it challenging for myself to distance myself from them and create a credible authority figure.

Two more textbooks to add to my collection...

Call me a nerd, but I always get a small feeling of satisfaction when I reach that point in the semester when I can say I have read my entire textbook. In this case it may not have been the most dense readings to celebrate completing, but I have a notebook and blog full of tips and ideas to incorporate into my own education and teaching from two texts. The final section of our readings discussed the topic of strategic learning and how to make students more responsible for their own learning. I found the following tips to be helpful and can be incorporated into the field of communication and my teaching as follows:

Ethical Teaching:

• Ethical teaching has been brought up now in both texts. However, in McKeachie's teachings, he brings up other ethical situations that go beyond the obvious of not having personal relationships with students, accepting bribes for grades, etc. I have never taken an ethics class, but I find it interesting that so many actions and scenarios can always be related to ethics. The most useful thing McKeachie addressed was that teachers are being unethical when they are unprepared to teach (p. 329). It is half the battle getting students to come to class and want to be there. It is unacceptable to have students in the classroom and not be getting their full worth out of each class period. It is the teacher's duty and responsibility to be prepared. I appreciate that McKeachie acknowledges that every class period will not be your best. An ethical teacher will also always stay up to date on the content they teach and adjust lessons accordingly.
• Teachers need to follow ethics of not only being a teacher, but also their distinct fields. Communication ethics is again something I have not taken a class on yet but I would like to begin independently reading about how to stay educated on from this site and many others. To address staying up to date with communication content to teach current information, communication scholars and teachers face a rapidly advancing field. New ways of communicating are being created as fast as technology is advancing. Research and knowledge of these new mediums are going to be needed to most effectively use these new tools. Teaching future communication scholars about the past and current methods will prepare them to be the future of the discipline.
• As a graduate student now, I get excited when I hear undergraduates talking in the library or students of my own that are communication majors. I want to share stories or give suggestions to those I overhear and get nervous teaching communication majors. I am teaching such an introductory class that I want to do a good job so they can use what they learn in my class to build on in future communication classes. I also want to show my excitement and knowledge of the field to inspire them as my professors did for me. In regards to preparation, I know that I am not a good presenter when I am unprepared so I need to spend extra time preparing. There have been days that I have been more prepared than others to teach and I think judging by student reactions that it was obvious. Some lectures went short and some activities did not go as planned. I will use these setbacks as learning experience for the next time I teach as all good teachers learn from their mistakes.
  

Strategic Learning

• I have noticed early in my teaching experience the different types of students. I am happy to read that there is some theory behind my observations and it is not necessarily my teaching that attributes to why some students do not do well while others excel. Strategic learners are those that know when they learn something and when they don't. They are the students that will ask questions of the teacher, peers, or seek out other sources (p.301-302).
• I hope that once students find the discipline they enjoy that they become more strategic learners. Some students will just understand information easily while others will struggle. Once I found my major that I truly enjoyed, I began to become more engaged in class, choose harder topics to study, and even challenge information I found. I think this is applicable to strategic learners in all fields. The more information one seeks, the better the scholar. Being motivated by enjoying your discipline is one of the best feelings. I hope that I can elicit this excitement one day by being a professor in an upper-level course to further the discipline of health communication.
• I think to encourage strategic learning in my classroom I would follow McKeachie's tips to increase student self awareness. McKeachie says that when students have goals, they will know what it is going to take to learn and achieve those goals (p. 302). I will also do a better job of introducing the class I am teaching right from the beginning. As I have learned from being a first time teacher, nobody can predict how your class is going to learn the material best on the first day. However, I have learned from this semester that I will need to be more explicit next semester and teach students how to use their textbook the best way. The thing I think will improve my teaching the most for next semester is that I have SO many examples of what my students did this semester that worked and did not work that I can anonymously share with future classes, as McKeachie suggests on page 307.

Lifelong Learner

• The final tip I found helpful this week is similar to the ethical concern of staying up to date with the content you are teaching. Teachers need to be lifelong learners and also teach their students to want to be lifelong learners. I find the suggestion of utilizing the power of observation to be one of the most helpful I have read this semester. I think by observing excellent teachers as well as those that one may view as poor (possibly because of unmatching learning styles) to learn from. My teaching observations are proving this as well as feedback I have gotten from doing the teaching demo in class and my COMM 110 mentor observing me teach my own class. McKeachie suggests videotaping yourself to watch. I think this is an amazing tip that would be very beneficial, but I just can't bring myself to do this or watch the tape. Like McKeachie also said on page 349 that feedback from peers can make you very anxious, the day I was observed I felt more nervous than I ever had before. I remember the day my own COMM 110 teacher videotaped herself and we all thought was strange. I now know why she was doing this.
• When teaching, it is important to also practice the things you are teaching your students. I think that the COMM 110 teachers maybe should videotape parts of their teaching and watch to see what vocalized pauses or other bad habits they do while teaching.
• To incorporate lifelong learning and observation in my own teaching, I will follow McKeachie's tips of observing others and using techniques from other disciplines. It would not be fun to have the same style of teaching in all of the communication classes taken in a semester, so observing only other communication teachers might be a bad idea. It is best to get the basics down from watching a seasoned professional in the field, but new ideas that can be adapted will benefit the students as well as the teacher. Also, being observed by a peer and using feedback from students will help adapt to the current semester as well.

On a final note, I try to take a minute or two most days to reflect on the phrase "you learn something new every day" by thinking about what I learned for the day. McKeachie also closes on page 357 by saying, "The great thing about teaching is that there is always more to learn" in regards to teaching and improving yourself as a teacher. I don't always learn a new skill or some profound new piece of knowledge, but instead take the little things people say or do to help shape the person I am today and the interactions in and outside the classroom are now starting to shape the teacher I am.

Helpful additional information from this week's readings:

President Barack Obama delivered a historical speech to the school children of America this year. In his speech, he challenged students to take more control and be more responsible of their own education by setting goals. I think this follows what McKeachie suggested about motivating students. This link provides the video and other links to material that relates to the speech. Even though the speech was geared towards students in k-12, I still think it contains pertinent information for all scholars.

This link is to a book review of The Ethical Teacher by Elizabeth Campbell written by
Aubrey J. Scheopner. I found this useful because of the examples and further definition of ethical teaching and being an ethical role model for students. This article further defines the obvious ethical standards of teachers. One example I found helpful that is discussed and I learned a little about in my teaching classes last year is that you must be mindful of the language you use. For example, when asking for papers to be signed or discussed at home, it is not ethical in this day and age to always say "your parents" or "mom and dad" because some students will feel excluded because more and more students do not live in traditional family settings. Instead, it is appropriate to say "parent or guardian".

Teachers need to be lifelong learners. This short article addresses how a teacher can and should teach their students to be lifelong learners also.