The first day at wass’ higher education course

Taken from http://www.workforcedqc.org/who-cares-about-data/students-workers

The First Day at WASs’ Higher Education Course

By Prof. Jonathan AcuĂąa-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.

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 1

Appropriateness of the

expected from them to learn, but also what they

questions asked by the

expect from the instructor.

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.

From the video, the instructor’s posture and attitude was the right one. The need to know who is in class 2

Posture and attitude of the course instructor

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

3

Posture and attitude of

them that I will turn my back on them.

Since the instructor in the video was just dealing with

the course participants

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.