They are the foundation of knowledge that the student has. By assessing these, an instuctor will be able to help them and ultimately, the student will be able to retain their place of employment more readily.
Hi Jessica, This is indeed a problem too often. We must do our best to help our students with these skills during the short time that they are with us. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
As I am an instructor for a medical profession the Gen. Ed. skills must first be assessed. If a student has a weak foundation, it will greatly impact their chance to succed and pass the course.
Couldn't agree more! TEaching in the healthcare industry, if a student cannot read the basic instructions or perform the basic mathematical operationsm someone else's life is at stake.
Those are the basic skills they need in the adult world.
These aspects are importsnt to instructors because without these basic skills of comunication it becomes much harder to deliver the material to students. Even with the use of technology in the classroom, students still need to know how to read, write, and compute basic math.
its a true barometer for their potential learning curve. To teach a content with the understanding of reading,communication, and math of the students gives the teachers winning formula as educators
Assessing the general education skills of your students allows you to better tune you aproach and technique from student to student. While I am teaching at a vocational school that doesn't not require a baseline assesment, I understand the importance of them, and truely wish that we did.
Hi Jason, Thanks for your pos to the forum. Yes, that is what we haer from employers as well, which is why we do our best to improve their basic skills while students are enrolled in our programs. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
I think because of how much gets built upon these basic skills throughout the duration of a students academic career. The amount of companies comnig forward with percentages and numbers of employees let go for the lack of basic general eduation skills ie. oral/written communication is somewhat concerning.
These are basic skills that you need to build on, of you do can't do the basics, you will struggle with the advanced projects or learning as both instructors and students. I get a lot of students in my class that jump right on the advanced projects the first day, and I encourage them to do the pre-requisites first.
By knowing the students learning skills this will help in having students that will complete a course with higher grades.
It plays a large role in the presentation of material to the class.
Hi Eric, Yes, these are the skills that our employers say they want to see in our graduates. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
Working with students in general ,we want to make sure that the have what they need to get to the next step/level.
These are skills that are required in the every day professional life of working adults. Our students have aspirations and goals to be professionals in the fields that we have already been successful in, thus we understand the importance of "soft skills" in the professional environment.
Thanks for sharing a great example, Carrie!
Susan Polick
It is important to instructors because they need to know where each student is before the begin of a new term. If an instructor does not know the student in there class cannot read very well, and assigns enormous amounts of reading every week, that student may fall behind and get discouraged and eventually drop the program, even if they seem adept for the specific career they have chosen.
It is the instructors responsibility to make sure that they are teaching for all students in the course, not just the best and brightest.
This past term I had a student who did not know how to cite references in her paper. So instead of coming to me she just never turned in her paper and failed my course. I spoke with her and told her that college is a place for learning. Mistakes will be made but we learn from those mistakes and continue to move forward. I told her that one day she may be asked to write a professional paper about her research and if she does not learn how to cite her references now, how is she going to be able to publish her work. She then understood why learning general education skills in her career college classes were so important.
The reason those skills are so important is because they help us identify what our students understand and also how fast they learn things in a discussion.
Hi John, Thanks for your post to the forum. Unfortunately we get too many students with dificient basic skills. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Susan Polick
