To get an overall idea of where your students stand in these areas so you can reach them all. If not you may loose them.
As an instructor teaching Automotive Service Writing, I stress the need for reading and understanding customer concerns on a repair order, writing the cause of the problem on the back od the repair order and calculaing flat rate time hours for their paycheck. Without these skills, they will be lost in the field.
you need a foundation on which to assess a students ability to comprehend
I must assess students reading comprehension otherwise they may not understand the material they read in their textbooks.It may be above them
Hi Michelle - Thanks for your post to the forum. Your students are lucky to have an instructor willing to go the extra mile to help them. I find that if I walk my students to the writing center or the math tutors they are more comfortable. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
I have found that if my students do not know the basic skills of reading, written communication, and math, school becomes much more difficult for them. When school becomes difficult, students become frustrated. When adult learners get frustrated, they tend to start losing confidence in themselves, which in turn causes many to give up.
I try my best to be encouraging and helpful in finding students the resources that they need in order to be successful in these three areas. I don't teach math, but I know that I can refer students to the math lab on campus. Luckily, in addition to the class I teach, I also run the writing lab. So, if I notice that a student is having problems in writing on assignments in my class, I can encourage them to visit me at the writing lab where they will get one-on-one attention.
These three areas are basic building blocks that every student needs! If we as instructors cannot teach all three of these areas, we need to know who to send our students to. We also need to possibly tweak our own lessons to accomodate the levels of the students in our classes.
As a math instructor, I need to see that the students leave my class with the skills needed to succeed in their career requirements. Though many students need remediation, most of us would benefit by reviewing what we learned. . . in math, writing and any gen ed. Some things we've forgotten, other things have changed.
You have to access where the students are in their learning to know where and how to guide them toward the goal.
Hi Tony - Thanks for your post to the forum. You make a very good point. Not all students will have the same abilities and still we need to be able to teach them. It is a delicate balancing act trying to teach so that the students who have less general education skills get it, without boring/frustrating those who can handle a faster pace. Best wishes- Susan
Knowing the general education skills of each student helps the instructor in the way that instructor presents the material needed for the class and for each student. That doesn't mean that the instructor dumb downs the information, but that the instructor is aware of each students learning abilities and the instructor may have to take extra time with certain students that may have some difficulty in understanding what is being taught in that class. It is not fair or smart for an instructor to assume that each student is learning or has the capability to learn all on the same level.
They are the skills that create the expression of learning. They are essential skills.
Hi Claire - We sometimes have the employers who hire our grads, or our grads themselves, come into our classes to confirm how important the communication and math skills will be when they begin their careers. It always makes a big impression! Best wishes- Susan
These general education skills are one of my biggest challenges as an instructor. Students want to focus on the content of the particular class, and often forget that reading, written communication, and math skills are involved in every single thing they'll do in their careers. In our Intro class, I have students look at these areas and rate themselves. I remind them that there's nothing "wrong" with being weak in these areas -- this is simply information that's useful to know so they can create a plan to improve themselves. I encourage students to take writing and math classes as early as they can so they can work on these skills in their core classes.
Hi Tania- Thanks for your post to the forum. We really have to walk a fine line when we encounter students who are lacking in general education skills. Do we "dumb down" assignments to accomodate them? Is that fair to the other students who are working at a higher level?
What do you all think? Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
Assessment of general education skills are important to instructors in that it allows the instructor to get a baseline of where the student is academically. It allows the instructor to plan assignments accordingly.
HI Thomas - Thanks for your post to the forum. I think that all of us agree- too many students enter higher education without the skills they should have gotten already. We just have to do the best that we can with these students. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
This is a sad area the high schools in the USA are failing on all these areas. You have to be able to teach students with out a lot of skills. They come to a technical school with hopes that they can make it in the world with out the need to write ,read and do math. It is to bad. course material is written at 8 grade level and they struggle. you can dumb down the lesson but it will not do justice to the material. Somethings need to be accessed before the student is enrolled. in the school.
General education skills are important to instructors for two reasons: one, we assume that the student comes to our class with a solid foundation in general education; second, strong communication and basic math skills are an asset in any career. Our best students don't need time to compensate for weak foundational skills.
HI John - Thanks for your post to the forum. Although it takes longer, I agree that taking the time to rephrase questions is especially important if there are language issues. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
By assessing the general education skills of my students, I often find a language barrier. Knowing what some of the students are up against can give you a heads up so you can learn to strengthen their weaknesses. I often rephrase my statments with different words so the students can fully understand.
