Status Updates From The College Fear Factor: Ho...

This chapter was a study of a few English professors classes and how students acted in them....and it made me very glad that I am not a professor in the humanities

Through Part 1: "Students" (The student fear factor, student aspirations: getting the biggest bang for the back, and "how is that helping us?")

Reading because of my kid. Sigh.

"...we must uncover students' preconceptions and expectations and integrate those results as we rethink course objectives and the means of accomplishing them."

K-12 about memorization not problem solving. Without understanding argument literacy a “persuasive research paper” makes no sense. Application of concepts to scenarios makes no sense.

Biggest stumbling block to success is students don’t understand or practice: argument literacy (take position and support with persuasive reasoning), can’t discover or invent problems, don’t know the language.

Success resulted from the students’ perceptions of the instructors’ attitude and classroom environment.

Students needed a lot of positive comments to recognize this. Students need to perceive the environment as encouraging.