I agree with Lisa - I have found all the contributions really
interesting and helpful. And whilst I definitely agree with Martin that
we should not blame the students, I have experienced Christine's
frustration when you set up something really interesting - and there is
no engagement.
Overall I think that much of the problem stems from structural changes
in HE - over which students have no control; especially the shift to
modularity, the push for coursework over exams - and the reaction to
Widening Participation - which has become accompanied by a refrain of
'It's not as rigorous as it was in my day!' A nonsense which through
repetition is becoming an accepted truth.
I remember being a UG myself some thirty years ago... We did not have to
produce anything like the sheer amount of work that students do these
days: few SHORT (750 words) essays in the first year - and these did not
need any BIB at all!
We had three exams - and these at the end of the third year (though 8 at
the end of the 4th) - plus nine pieces of coursework over the second
and third year - and of those only six had to be re-submitted for the
degree grade (plus dissertation).
We did not have to work - so we had TIME. Time to chat, time to discuss
the ideas that came up in the lectures and seminars - time to learn
without really realising that was what we were doing!
Now our students undertake four modules per semester - and each of those
requires at least two assessments (and sometimes many more) - the
shortest is 1500 words - and all requiring bibs of length! So students
are having to churn our more pieces of work in a year than I did in a
three year degree programme - and still they are being blamed for
lowering standards!
Sandra
Clughen, Lisa wrote:
> Dear All
>
> This is such an important discussion. I was orginally going to make the point that deciding how to encourage students to do the reading for the seminars depends on why they aren't doing it in the first place, but you've all made it for me. That some students don't prepare because academic texts are dense and off-putting is a common issue, I think. I've, therefore, gone down the route suggested by Sandra of suggesting that colleagues do the reading with the students in class so they can face difficulties with reading head on and demonstrate what they, as academics, do with texts.
>
> However, I'd love to hear more on the actual processes of dealing with difficult texts alluded to by Colin below and Rob, as the issues of 'perservering' and 'struggling' are still pretty abstract for me. How exactly do you 'persevere' or 'struggle'? How do you relate ideas from texts to your lives if you haven't a clue what these ideas are in the first place? What if, no matter how many times you read something, you just can't get it? Reflecting on the way I 'struggled' with difficult authors like Butler, Adorno and Jameson, I have to say that the only way I could face reading them (to start with at least) was by reading them with friends, and especially friends who were politically engaged. Once I made some sense of the ideas, I was then more motivated to read them alone. I couldn't have even started the struggle without the help of other people, though.
>
> I'm not sure I agree that academic writers, who are often writing for other academics/to further intellectual debate, can always make exceptionally dense ideas more accessible in terms of language (although I do agree that, sometimes they could, and I do get really frustrated with academic verbiage!). For example, terms like 'subject' and 'object' are off-putting when you aren't involved in the debates, but they are shorthand and speak to people who have understood their meanings. To have to explain them each time you write would never get you off the starting block. I realise that this is a can of worms, though, so I'll not go on.
>
> Lisa
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: learning development in higher education network on behalf of C Neville
> Sent: Wed 28/02/2007 10:18
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Motivating students to read
>
>
>
> When I came back into education as a mature student in the
> 1970s, I remember feeling thoroughly intimidated,
> frustrated and angry at the academic texts I was expected
> to read in the social sciences and arts.
>
> It seemed to me then - and still does - that too much
> academic writing was dry and lifeless, obtuse and
> unfathomable, exclusive, rather than inclusive.
>
> However, I persevered with it, resentfully.
>
> Later I discovered Hudson's 1978 book 'The Jargon of the
> Professions', which argued that the less secure a
> profession feels about itself, the more excluding jargon it
> spouts; Hudson singled out education, business & social
> sciences at that time as the main culprits!
>
>>From my work in learner support I know that many students
> still feel thoroughly intimidated by the set reading, and
> some disengage from it, or serve it back undigested and
> unintelligible in assignments - a link with another
> discussion on plagiarism is here, perhaps.
>
> I spend time with students now in workshops encouraging
> them not to be intimidated by extracts like the one,
> immediately below, taken from an academic text book:
>
> "Garfinkel argues that the relationship between the act of
> representation and represented object is dialectical not
> unidirectional.
> The character of the representation changes in the attempt
> to explain the perceived nature of underlying reality while
> the object 'changes', in turn, to accommodate the language
> employed to represent it. Representation, in other words,
> is a dynamic, interactive process in which the 'actor', and
> the form of representation, that is language, 'constructs'
> some at least of the reality under investigation"
>
>
> In the workshop students try and work out what the author is
> saying. Eventually, and together, they crack the codes and
> work out that this particular writer is trying to say that
> it can be difficult to explain the nature of <LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK>reality<RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK>,as
> it depends who is talking about it, how they perceive it,
> and the words they use to explain its meaning.
>
> They will then usually comment as to why the author did not
> simply say that in the first place.
>
> Motivating students to read? Let's mount a LDHEN campaign
> to encourage more clarity, less pretension, and better
> communication, in academic writing.
>
> Colin Neville
> Bradford
>
> ---------------------------------
> C Neville
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> This email is intended solely for the addressee. It may contain private and confidential information. If you are not the intended addressee, please take no action based on it nor show a copy to anyone. In this case, please reply to this email to highlight the error. Opinions and information in this email that do not relate to the official business of Nottingham Trent University shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by the University.
> Nottingham Trent University has taken steps to ensure that this email and any attachments are virus-free, but we do advise that the recipient should check that the email and its attachments are actually virus free. This is in keeping with good computing practice.
>
--
Sandra Sinfield Coordinator Learning and Language Development
_______________________________________________________________________
The Learning Development Unit (LDU), London Metropolitan University,
North Campus, LC2-12, The Learning Centre, 236-250 Holloway Road, N7 6PP.
Direct line: call Sandra Sinfield: (020) 7 133 4045
[log in to unmask]
For LDU City Campus, contact: [log in to unmask]
or call Pam Dorrington on: (020) 7 320 1125
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/college-of-london/ldu/
_______________________________________________________________________
|