The First
Day at WASs’ Higher Education Course
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Post 280
The case provided as an opening for
the online course on WASs (Working Adult Students), in which we have a higher
education teaching professional listening to what two working adult students
have to say in regards to their expectations towards the course, is an eye
opener for many professors who do not deal with this kind of learners. But what
can be expected from a work of students in night school at a higher education
institution whose lives are divided into personal, family, and professional
study challenges? For sure, part of the answer to this question is connected to
what they need to balance all these aspects from their lives away from a
college classroom.
Understanding the personal and
professional lives of many of my students, in addition to their needs to work
to support their studies, lifestyle, and/or families, teaching strategies need
to be well-thought to help these working learners. From my point of view and
based on my professional experience, the very first thing that needs to be
carefully planned is how the evaluation rubrics are going to be administered to
help learners succeed in the course (in terms of summative assessments) but
also to develop their potential as professionals who can make use of their
working experience. Secondly, based on this working experience of theirs,
authentic assessments must be created so they can apply what they already know
along with the new theory or methodology that is being presented to them. This
will help them achieve success goals in the course, and their satisfaction and
motivation will peak. Finally, perhaps lengthy theoretical examinations are not
the best approach to a course with WASs; PBL (Project-Based Learning) could be
another good option to be used with these learners to give them instances to
develop real deep learning in one’s subject or course.
As someone who had to work and study, I
feel much connected to learners who come to a higher education institution. At
the pre-graduate level, I did not find much help from professors. Back in the 80s
when I started out my university life and started to work, both activities
could not coexist in a university setting. 30 years afterwards this is now the
norm; learners work during the day (and even nights) to come to study and
further their university studies. Being someone who was not helped by many of
my former professors allows me to understand my students and to find ways to
help them materialize their learning and success goals. Having gone through
this experience myself and finding professors back then who got interested in
my university life and learning makes me now responsible for helping WASs to
attain their university goals.
As a student back then in the 80s, I wish
I had had a professor who came to class wanting to know a bit about us. At that
time, course objectives were stated the first day of class, in many cases, and
then we, the working token of the class, had to find ways to comply with course
assignments in a world where technology was just an emerging novelty; we had to
take time out of our working agendas to go to library catalogs to find
information for our projects. Today, feeling responsible for my WASs, I do my
part of the work, which is facilitating with relevant information, Webpages to
consults, eBooks, blog articles, videos (that I have either found or created
for a given topic), and the like to support them in their efforts to succeed in
my course and university study program.
Finally, going a bit deeper into the
instructor’s posture and attitude in the first day of class, several things can
be stated.
1
|
Appropriateness of the
questions asked by the instructor
|
Certainly, the instructor
in the video was quite appropriate in requesting her students to voice their expectation
for the course in terms of what it is expected from them to learn, but also
what they expect from the instructor.
·
Any instructor interested in having
students learn ought to work on an ethnography of his/her class to see who is
seating in class and how they can be helped.
|
2
|
Posture and attitude of
the course instructor
|
From the video, the
instructor’s posture and attitude was the right one. The need to know who is
in class and how the person can be helped out.
·
Listening to what students have to
say is important to take into account in our instructional design. Not paying
attention to them is telling them that I will turn my back on them.
|
3
|
Posture and attitude of
the course participants
|
Since the instructor in
the video was just dealing with WASs, this conversation was necessary.
Students do have a voice and they need to express what they also expect from
the course and the instructor. Setting their expectations is like raising a
red flag for the professor to envision what needs to be done to produce deep
learning among his/her learners.
·
Learners have a saying in the
decision that must be made in course assessment and learning. Unhearing them
is once again telling them you do not care about them.
|
The
WAS population at a higher learning institution needs to be taken care of.
Comprehending their ethnography can help all of us teaching professionals that
they are a particular group of students with different needs when compared to
the regular student who comes to college and whose only worries are connected
to their studies and social life. WASs’ needs are very different and
understanding them can help us to design the right learning/teaching model to
satisfy their needs.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
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