Andragogy, in its simplest terms, is the teaching of adult learners. It is a subset of pedagogy, which we can consider to be teaching in general. As such, andragogy deserves a somewhat different approach than what might be appropriate to teaching children.
In the first year composition program, we are faced with students who are, legally, adults.
However, for many of our students, they have only been eighteen years of age for several months. For freshmen in their first semester of college, they are very much in a phase of transition between childhood and adulthood, not only in their personal lives but in the academic careers as well.
However, as instructors it is our place to challenge our students to progress in education, and so while I believe that it is right for us to consider their backgrounds and possible limitations they may have coming out of high school I do not think that we ought to oversimplify our curriculum or reduce workload simply to pander to what we perceive to be their limitations. In my own experience I know that I learned most both in high school and college when I could sense that my teacher or professor believed in me and my ability to learn and took pains to really challenge our class, to stretch our limits and see what we could achieve.
With this in mind, I am drawn to reflect on our discussion this week on contact zones. I agree that it is good and effective to make the content relative to our students. If we are able to bring in debates and issues that are part of their lives and that they are passionate about, then we should do so. However, here I think it’s important that we walk the line between coming up with interesting and relevant content for our classes and simply pandering to students that we perceive as uninterested. At the end of the day there is certain content that simply has to be covered. However, I think that when it is possible to bring relevant content into the classroom, it should be done. Especially as we seek to teach the art of rhetoric, addressing arguments and controversial issues that affect the students can help to spark their interest and foster class discussion.
I think that at this level it is possible to focus more on concepts and ideas as opposed to the more bare bones of grammar and mechanics which may have dominated our students’ earlier English education. Although all students are forced to take first year composition, and therefore the level of self-motivation varies widely, it is still right to expect a greater initiative on the part of our students as adult learners as opposed to students in high school. There comes a time when one must take responsibility for one’s own education. As teachers of adult learners, I see it as our responsibility to guide and inspire, but not to hover and certainly not to babysit. To do so would be an insult to the students.
"As teachers of adult learners, I see it as our responsibility to guide and inspire, but not to hover and certainly not to babysit. To do so would be an insult to the students."
ReplyDeleteI love the way you put this, Mary! Could not agree more. First year students have to begin somewhere with learning to be self-motivated. For the most part they all come in focusing on external motivators--grades, avoiding criticism on assignments, trying not to sound stupid in public class discussions, etc. I'm not sure where the transition finally occurs to become an autonomous learner, but I know that it starts in that very first semester. You are right--they need no longer be babysat, and that is news to some students. By showing them that we will treat them as adults--by both taking their ideas seriously as well as holding them accountable for their newfound responsibilities--we pull the students up to another level of learning that most of them have not yet experienced.
Nice connection between andragogy and contact zones. Yes, this is it: in order to make what we teach when we teach writing engaging to students, we have to pick up on what's going on in their lives in terms of how to help them apply that learning to solve real problems. Doing so maximizes on-task thinking time, and helps what they're learning transfer to something beyond the classroom. I look forward to reading more about what you do with this in terms of your other assignments in the course.
ReplyDeleteThis is completely unrelated, and might be somewhat rude, but I just listened to and reviewed the podcast on plagiarism that you did with Jill, Rachel, and Colleen. You can check it out on my blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://krdwardb5.blogspot.com/2015/10/critique-on-extended-analysis-by-rachel.html
I'm letting you know that I reviewed the podcast so that neither of you will try to sue me for plagiarism. In any such case, I didn't make the podcast out to be my own work.