My Students: All about them

I've been buried neck deep in grading and this seems to be a perfect opportunity to reflect on my students and their learning.

My learners range from freshmen to seniors and all in between.  In the past few years, I have taught course that involve learning of basic IT/database skills and some managerial courses such as Entrepreneurship, Quality Management and Project Management.  Hence I've had the opportunity to work with students at various levels and seeking to learn a variety of skills and knowledge. 

In this blog, I will focus on my freshmen students to whom I teach basic IT concepts and skills. They are young and are not always equipped with the best of study skills.  Being just out of high school, some come into college expecting to take it a little easy.  That notion is soon dispelled with the first assessment!  They generally struggle with time management and the ability to work on more than one project at a time.  They like the idea of independent learning but protest when asked to be accountable for their learning.  This requires some assertive handling from me - their teacher.  Most of them are motivated by grades while some appreciate the fact that they are learning new skills and work at improving them.  While most of them are comfortable with technology and smart phones, computer literacy overwhelms them.  So it takes a while to get them to learn and master some skills.  I believe that more they do the better they get and aim to provide a variety of learning opportunities in this course.

These students like to learn by doing.  What works best for me and them is working in a student-centered learning environment. To that end, each lesson has a task/ tasks to be completed.  Some of these tasks are tutorials.  Others are a task that combines some research and application of a skill that they have learnt.  Students work independently on their tasks while I monitor their progress by walking around. I tend to spend more time with students that have difficulties in learning a new skill/concept.  

At the beginning of a semester, when they haven't formed into groups, students tend to work on their own sometimes this is quite productive.  As the semester progresses students begin to work in their groups and while most of them work well, some groups regress in their learning as socializing takes over.  At this point, I intervene - sometimes even reorganizing groups. 

At the end of a task, students ask me to evaluate their electronic document - a word document/ a presentation or a spreadsheet.  I usually provide a verbal feedback.  I've learnt that this feedback is for naught -feedback is usually valid when accompanied by a grade!  Something to consider for future editions of this course!  A simple oral examination is a technique that I use to ensure that students have learnt. 

Assessments are usually practical - blogs based on topic that they have researched, development of solutions to simple business requirements using Word/Powerpoint/Excel. A problem that students face in such assessment is the ability to complete a task to the level of detail that is required of them.  This can make learning in this course frustrating for some students.  Students also find it a challenge to read instructions - they would rather do the task and have you tell them what is wrong with it.  It takes a lot of perseverance and patience to get them to go back to their instructions and follow them!  Worth the effort as they begin to cultivate a habit.

At the end of the course, it is quite satisfying to see some good work produced by these young men.