Tag: Classes

  • The schools where even young children change classes 

    The schools where even young children change classes 

    by Ariel Gilreath, The Hechinger Report
    January 13, 2026

    BATON ROUGE, La. — About two dozen second graders sat on the carpet at the front of Jacquelyn Anthony’s classroom, reviewing how to make tens. “Two needs eight!” the students yelled out together. “Six needs four!” 

    “The numbers may get a little trickier,” Anthony told them next. “But remember, the numbers we need to make 10 are still there.” The students then turned confidently to bigger calculations: Forty-six needs four ones to make a new number divisible by 10; 128 needs two to make 13 tens. 

    At the end of the hour, the second graders slung on their backpacks, gathered their Chromebooks and lined up at the door before heading to English and social studies class across the hall. While most schools wait until middle school to transition students from one class to another, kids at Louisiana’s Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts do so starting at age 6 or 7. It’s part of a strategy known as departmentalizing, or platooning. 

    Anthony, rather than teaching all four core subjects, specializes in math. The school’s new facility, built in 2025, was designed with departmentalizing in mind: The classrooms have huge glass windows, so teachers can see their next class preparing to line up in the hallway.

    “Teaching today is so different than it was a long time ago, and there are so many demands on them. And the demand to be an expert in your content area is very high,” said Sydney Hebert, magnet site coordinator for the art-focused public school in the East Baton Rouge Parish school district. “We want to make sure that our teachers are experts in what they’re teaching so that they can do a good job of teaching it to the kids.”

    As schools contend with a decades-long slump in math scores — exacerbated by the pandemic — some are turning to this classroom strategy even for very young students. In recent years, more elementary schools have opted to departmentalize some grade levels in an attempt to boost academic achievement. The share of fourth and fifth grade classrooms operating on this schedule has doubled since the year 2000, from 15 percent to 30 percent in 2021. Often, that means educators will specialize in one or two subjects at most, such as fourth grade English language arts and social studies, or fifth grade math and science. The theory is that teachers who specialize will be more familiar with the content and better able to teach it. 

    That may be particularly important for math: Studies have shown that some early elementary school teachers experience anxiety about the subject and question their ability to teach it. Educators also say that the curriculum and standards for math and English in the early grades are changing rapidly in some districts and have become more complicated over time. In a departmentalized setup, it’s also far less likely that math instruction will get shortchanged by an educator who prefers spending time on other subjects.  

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education. 

    But while some schools swear by this model, the research on it is mixed.

    One prominent 2018 study on the practice in Houston public schools found it had a negative effect on test scores, behavior and attendance. The study doesn’t explain why that was the case, but the researcher said it could be because teachers on this schedule spend less time with individual students.

    Another study published in 2024 analyzing Massachusetts schools had different outcomes: Researchers found moderate gains in academic achievement for ELA and a significant boost to science scores for students in departmentalized classes. The results in math, however, showed few gains. 

    Generally, teachers specialize in the subject they are most comfortable teaching. When a school departmentalizes for the first time, principals typically look at each educator’s test score data over time to determine whether they should specialize in math or reading.

    “There are some arguments that, at least if it’s someone who likes the subject, who is passionate about the subject, you have a greater chance of them doing a better job of delivering instruction,” said Latrenda Knighten, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “But you’ll find mixed reviews.”

    Yet there are a few reasons why the strategy is typically reserved for students in older grades, according to school leaders: Spending all day with one teacher increases the bond between the teacher and student, which is important for younger children. In Baton Rouge, Anthony teaches 50 students throughout the day instead of the same 25 students all day.

    “Teachers want to get to know their students,” said Dennis Willingham, superintendent of Walker County Schools in Alabama. The district departmentalized some fifth grade classrooms decades ago, but recently added third and fourth grade classes on this schedule. “You tend to see less departmentalization below third grade because of the nurturing element.” 

    It’s also generally more challenging for young students to quickly change classrooms, even for electives, which means lost instructional time. Smaller elementary schools may also struggle to hire enough teachers to schedule all of them on a departmentalized setup. 

    Related: These school districts are bucking the national math slump

    But increasingly, schools that are satisfied with this approach for older grade levels are trying it out with their younger grades, too. 

    After the pandemic, the San Tan Heights Elementary School in Arizona changed its curriculum to one that was more rigorous, and it became harder for the third grade educators to master the standards of all four subject areas, said Henry Saylor-Scheetz, principal at the time.

    He proposed that third graders be taught by separate math, English language arts and reading teachers. “I told them, let’s try it for a semester. If it doesn’t work at the end of the year, we’ll go back,” Saylor-Scheetz said.

    Ten days into the experiment, teachers told him they never wanted to return to the old schedule. In the subsequent years, the school added more classrooms on this model until, by 2023, all K-8 students were departmentalized. For the last few years, teacher retention at the school was 95 percent, according to Saylor-Scheetz.

    Saylor-Scheetz, who last year became principal of a nearby middle school, credited the change for helping the school improve from a C rating on its state report card — a rating it had stagnated at every year since 2018 — to a B rating as of 2022. Since then, more schools in his Arizona school district have shifted to this schedule. 

    “I’d love to see this become something we do as a nation, but it is a paradigm shift,” Saylor-Scheetz said. “There’s merit in doing it, but there has to be a commitment to it.”

    At Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts, students in first through third grades have two partner teachers, one for math and science and another for ELA and social studies. The school has been operating on this schedule for third through fifth grade students for more than a decade. Eight years ago, its leaders decided to try it for first and second grade students, too, and were pleased with the results. 

    On a December morning at the school, young students talked quietly with each other in the hall as they lined up to go from math class to English language arts. All told, the switch took less than five minutes. “We’re at the end of the second nine weeks, so we’ve had a lot of practice,” said GiGi Boudreaux, the assistant principal. 

    The strategy has not always been successful, though.

    During the pandemic, administrators also attempted to departmentalize its kindergarten classes. It didn’t work as they’d hoped: It was a challenge to get the 5-year-olds to quickly change classes and focus on classwork again once they did. Parents also didn’t like it. The school then tried moving teachers from classroom to classroom instead of moving students, but the educators hated it. 

    “It was too much, so we didn’t do it after that,” said Hebert.

    The Baton Rouge school doesn’t have comparison data to show that students perform better in a departmentalized setup, but most educators in the school prefer it, Hebert said. Third grade test scores from 2015 — before the school departmentalized its younger grade levels — showed 73 percent scored “advanced” and “mastery” level on the state ELA test, and 56 percent scored advanced or mastery on the math test. In 2025, 80 percent of third grade students scored advanced or mastery in ELA and 55 percent in math.

    “I know that the teachers like it better, and the kids have adapted to it,” Hebert said. 

    Teachers meet weekly with their partner teachers and grade-level counterparts to discuss their classes and progress on the state standards. Once a quarter, all of the math teachers across the grades meet to talk about strategies and student performance. 

    Related: Teachers conquering their math anxiety 

    At Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona, departmentalizing some classrooms has helped reduce teacher turnover, said Superintendent Curtis Finch, particularly for early career educators, who can find it challenging to master the content and standards of all four subjects.

    “If you’re not confident in your subject, then you don’t have good examples off the top of your head. You can’t control the room, can’t pull the students in,” Finch said. 

    There are drawbacks though, Finch acknowledged. In a self-contained classroom, teachers can more easily integrate their different lessons, so that a math lesson might refer back to a topic covered in reading.

    And even though Anthony, the second grade math and science teacher in Baton Rouge, loves teaching math, she also misses the extra time she could spend with each student when she had the same 25 children in her class all day for the entire school year. 

    “It was a joy for me to be self-contained and to build that little family,” Anthony said. “I think the social emotional needs of students are best met in that type of environment. But being solely a math teacher, I do get to just dig in and focus on the nuance of the content.” 

    For Anthony’s partner teacher across the hall, Holley McArthur, teaching 50 students ELA and social studies is easier than having to teach 25 students math. 

    “This is my thing: reading books, comprehending and finding answers, meeting their goals,” said McArthur, who has taught in both kinds of classrooms over three decades in education.  

    While McArthur’s kids were at recess this mid-December day, the veteran teacher was grading their reading worksheets. A new student had transferred in from out of state midyear, and she was still evaluating his reading skills. 

    “I think you still get to know the kids, even if you just have them for three hours a day, because I’m not doing the hard math with them.” 

    Contact staff writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at [email protected].

    This story about departmentalizing was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/the-schools-where-even-young-children-change-classes/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

    <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=114257&amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://hechingerreport.org/the-schools-where-even-young-children-change-classes/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js”></script>

    Source link

  • Will Financial Aid Cover Summer Classes? How To Know If Your Student Can Use Aid In Summer

    Will Financial Aid Cover Summer Classes? How To Know If Your Student Can Use Aid In Summer

    One of the most common questions we hear from parents and students at The College Planning Center is:
     “Will financial aid cover summer classes?”

    The honest answer is:
     👉 Yes, financial aid can cover summer classes—but not always.

    Whether financial aid for summer classes is available depends on:

    • How much aid the student has already used in fall and spring

       

    • How the college structures its academic year

       

    • Whether the summer classes count toward the degree

       

    • The student’s academic standing (especially SAP)

       

    In this guide, we’ll walk through when financial aid covers summer classes, common myths, real-life student stories, and the steps families should take before signing up.

    The #1 Misconception About Summer Financial Aid

    A huge source of confusion is this assumption:

    “FAFSA automatically gives us new aid for summer.”

    This leads to questions like:

    • Does financial aid cover summer classes the same way it does fall and spring?
    • Will my fall financial aid cover my summer classes if I already used it during the year?
    • Can you get financial aid for summer classes without submitting anything extra?

       

    Most families don’t realize:

    • Summer aid usually comes from the same academic year’s funds, not a brand-new pool.
    • Summer is often attached to the prior academic year, not treated as a fresh start.
    • Federal loans do not “refresh” for summer—annual limits still apply.
    • Colleges do not all treat summer the same. Each school sets its own policies.

       

    This is why families are often surprised when they ask, “Will my financial aid cover summer classes?” and the answer is “maybe—depending on what’s left.”

    Who We See Taking Summer Classes (and Why It Matters for Aid)

    At The College Planning Center, we most often advise:

    • Rising high school juniors and seniors taking dual-enrollment summer classes
    • College freshmen and sophomores who need to catch up, boost GPA, or stay on track
    • Students changing majors who must complete prerequisite courses quickly
    • Transfer students trying to finish missing credits before enrolling at a new school
    • Students targeting competitive programs (nursing, engineering, education, etc.)
    • Students trying to graduate early and reduce overall tuition and housing costs

    Our recommendations always depend on:

    • Academic readiness
    • Financial aid eligibility (including summer)
    • Long-term college goals

    When a family asks us, “Can you get financial aid for summer classes in this situation?”, we don’t just check one box—we look at the entire academic and financial picture.

    What Types of Financial Aid Can Cover Summer Classes?

    So, does financial aid cover summer classes at all? In many cases, yes—but with limits.

    Depending on the school and student, financial aid for summer classes may come from:

    1. Federal Aid (FAFSA-Based)

    • Pell Grants – If the student is Pell-eligible and hasn’t used their full annual amount, some may be available for summer.
    • Federal Direct Loans – If the student has not used their full annual loan limit in fall and spring, remaining eligibility may be applied to summer.

    This is often the real answer behind “Will my financial aid cover summer classes?”
     It depends on what’s left in the federal aid bucket.

    2. Institutional Aid

    Some colleges offer:

    • Summer scholarships or tuition discounts for students who stay on track in their major
    • Limited institutional grants for summer enrollment

    Policies vary widely, so you must ask each school directly.

    3. State Aid & Private Scholarships

    • State grants or scholarships sometimes apply to summer—but not always.
    • Private scholarships may or may not allow funds to be used in summer; this depends on the scholarship rules.

    4. Work-Study

    Some schools offer summer work-study positions, but slots are often limited and may require separate applications.

    Real-Life Example: When Summer Aid Was Approved

    Student A – Rising Sophomore at Clemson University

    Question they came in with:
     “Can you get financial aid for summer classes if you still have some loans left?”

    Situation:
     Student A had worked with The College Planning Center through high school. Strong merit scholarships (thanks to improved SAT scores and a standout application) reduced how much they needed to borrow.

    Summer Goal:
     Take two summer courses to stay ahead in their major.

    Why Summer Aid Was Approved:

    • They did not use their full federal loan eligibility in fall and spring.
    • The summer classes were degree-applicable, which is required for federal aid.
    • They were meeting SAP (Satisfactory Academic Progress) with strong grades.

    Outcome:

    The college approved:

    • A portion of their remaining federal loans for summer
    • A small amount of institutional scholarship aid tied to their major progress

    How CPC Helped:

    • Confirmed remaining loan eligibility
    • Verified that selected classes counted toward the degree
    • Compared the cost of taking those courses in summer vs. fall

    In this case, the answer to “Will financial aid cover summer classes?” was a clear yes—because funds and eligibility were still available.

    Real-Life Example: When Summer Aid Wasn’t Available

    Student B – First-Year at University of South Carolina

    Question their family asked:
     “Will my fall financial aid cover my summer classes if we already used everything we were offered?”

    Situation:
     Student B had some merit aid but needed maximum federal loans during the year to cover tuition and housing.

    Summer Goal:
     Take a required math class in summer to get back on track.

    Why Summer Aid Was Denied:

    • They had no remaining federal loan eligibility for that academic year.
    • Their merit scholarship applied to fall and spring only.
    • Their academic record triggered a SAP review, temporarily blocking federal aid eligibility.

    Outcome:

    • The financial aid office denied summer aid.
    • The student delayed the class until fall and focused on academic recovery.

    How CPC Helped:

    • Guided the family through a SAP appeal
    • Created a study and support plan
    • Restructured the fall course load to protect future aid

    Here, the honest answer to “Does financial aid cover summer classes?” was no—because the student had already used up the year’s resources and lost eligibility temporarily.

    Common Pitfalls That Block Financial Aid for Summer Classes

    We see the same problems over and over when families ask, “Why won’t my financial aid cover summer classes?”

    1. Using 100% of Loan Funds in Fall and Spring

    If a student maxes out their annual loan limit during the regular school year, there may be nothing left to apply toward summer.

    2. Dropping Below Half-Time Enrollment

    Many forms of aid require students to enroll at least half-time.
     If a student drops a class or withdraws, they can fall below half-time and lose summer aid they were counting on.

    3. SAP (Satisfactory Academic Progress) Problems

    Low GPA, too many withdrawals, or not completing enough credits can all cause SAP issues.
     If SAP isn’t met, even summer aid may be blocked.

    4. Assuming Scholarships Automatically Apply in Summer

    Most merit scholarships are fall/spring only, even if the letter doesn’t say “no summer” in big bold letters.

    5. Taking Classes That Don’t Count Toward the Degree

    Federal aid usually only covers degree-applicable courses.
     Random electives or “extra” classes may not qualify.

    6. Missing the Summer Aid Request Deadline

    Some colleges require:

    • A separate summer aid application, or
    • An earlier priority deadline

    Missing this can turn a possible yes into a no.

    When Are Summer Classes Financially Wise?

    • At The College Planning Center, we take a balanced, realistic approach. We don’t just ask, “Can you get financial aid for summer classes?” We ask:

      “Does it make academic and financial sense for your student?”

    Summer Classes Are Often Worth It When They:

    • Help a student graduate early, reducing an entire semester of tuition, housing, and fees
    • Protect or restore FAFSA eligibility by maintaining or improving SAP
    • Make a major change possible without delaying graduation
    • Improve GPA for selective programs

    Reduce fall/spring overload, decreasing burnout and grade risk

    Summer Classes May Not Be Wise When:

    • The student has no remaining aid and summer would mean high out-of-pocket costs
    • Tuition per credit is significantly higher in summer
    • The classes don’t count toward the degree

    The student is struggling academically and needs a break more than another course

    Source link

  • Writing Classes Are About Writing, Not AI-Aided Production

    Writing Classes Are About Writing, Not AI-Aided Production

    I had more important things to do.

    The assignment was dumb and seemed pointless.

    I don’t care about this class.

    I had too much stuff to do and it was just easier to check something off the list.

    I had to work.

    I didn’t understand the assignment.

    Everyone else is using it and they’re doing fine.

    I was pretty sure [the LLM] would do a better job than me.

    Source link

  • Ind. B School to Enforce Grade Distribution for Skill Classes

    Ind. B School to Enforce Grade Distribution for Skill Classes

    Other business schools, including University of Michigan’s Ross Business School and Columbia Business School, also enforce set grade distributions. 

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Ralf Geithe/iStock/Getty Images

    Some faculty members at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business have been instructed to eliminate grade rounding, remove the A-plus grade option and keep average section GPAs between 3.3 and 3.5 for the fall semester.

    The grading changes aim to “address grade inflation and promote rigor across our curriculum,” according to an email sent to faculty in the Communication, Professional and Computer Skills (CPS) department from business writing course coordinator Polly Graham, which was obtained by Inside Higher Ed. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, [CPS] grades elevated, and in recent years, grades have remained high. In recent semesters, some instructors have awarded 100% A’s in standard (i.e., non-honors) sections, and others have awarded extraordinary numbers of A+’s and incompletes,” the email said. 

    The new grading policy was sent to instructors in early August without faculty discussion or approval, according to a faculty member in the CPS department who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. The department, which does not have its own governance or bylaws beyond what governs the business school writ large, is the only one in Kelley that is staffed entirely by lecturers who do not have tenure protections. So far, the new grading policies apply only to courses in the CPS department, the faculty member said.

    Instructors of standard, nonhonors courses must make the GPA of each section average between 3.3 and 3.5, and honors course GPA averages must fall within 0.2 points of the “section’s cumulative student GPA,” the email stated. Faculty members should not round up final grades “even if the student’s grade is very close to a higher letter grade,” and each instructor will complete two check-ins with CPS leadership—one before and one after midterms—after which “formative support will be provided to faculty as requested or needed.” It’s unclear what form the support will take, but the faculty member suspects it could be additional assistance from the chair on lesson plans or grading strategies.

    It’s not unusual for business schools to enforce a set grade distribution. At the University of Michigan’s Ross Business School, for instance, core class instructors must follow a distribution that allows 40 percent or fewer undergraduates to earn an A-minus or higher, 90 percent or fewer undergraduates to earn a B or higher, and at least 10 percent of undergraduates must earn between a B-minus and an F. Emory University’s Goizueta Business School also enforces a grade distribution, as does Columbia Business School.

    The Kelley School will also enforce an attendance policy for CPS classes this fall. Students will be allowed up to three absences without a grade penalty. After the fourth absence, they lose one-third of their final letter grade, and after five absences, they lose a full letter grade. Six absences will result in an automatic “failure due to non-attendance,” the email explained. The school will allow exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

    All Kelley students are required to take courses within the CPS department, including a business presentations class, a business writing course and three “Kelley Compass” classes that teach soft business skills such as team building, interviewing and conflict management. Like the lab time that accompanies physical science classes, CPS courses offer skills-based training that encourages mastery, the CPS faculty member told Inside Higher Ed. Faculty are concerned that the new GPA targets put an artificial limit on students’ success.

    A spokesperson for the Kelley School did not answer Inside Higher Ed’s questions about the grade recalibration and instead provided the following statement: “At Kelley, faculty design courses to be both rigorous and fair, while supporting student development and career preparation. Our longstanding priority is to ensure that grades reflect the quality of each student’s performance and that grade distribution is fair and consistent, including across multiple sections of the same course.”

    The statement language echoes what faculty have been instructed to tell students and parents who ask about the grading changes, according to the CPS faculty member.

    Indiana’s Kelley School has become more popular of late, and administrators appear to be tightening admissions standards in response. The school has fielded some 27,000 applications for approximately 2,000 spots in recent years, the faculty member said, though the Kelley spokesperson did not confirm or refute these numbers.

    In March, Kelley promoted Patrick E. Hopkins, an accounting professor who has worked at the business school since 1995, to dean. Just over two months later, on June 2, incoming Indiana University prebusiness students were notified that the minimum grade for automatic admission to the Kelley School would be raised from a B to a B-plus, starting with their cohort. Christopher Duff, the father of an incoming Indiana prebusiness student who plans to seek admission to Kelley, said the change was a “bait and switch.”

    “To be crystal clear, I have zero issues with the Kelley School of Business changing their admission criteria. I do, however, have a major issue in the timing of this change. We made our decision based on clearly stated information at the time of commitment. We jettisoned all other schools, offers and financial aid to pursue a degree from Indiana-Kelley,” Duff told Inside Higher Ed. “You want to change the criteria? Fine. Do so with the incoming class who will be aware to make an informed decision. We did not get that choice. It was made for us and when we complained—and we all did—we were essentially told to take it or leave it.”

    Duff said he met with Kelley’s undergraduate admissions director, Alex Bruce, in June to discuss the change, and in that meeting Bruce told him the school had overadmitted for the incoming class and received commitments from far more students than they anticipated.

    “I asked [Bruce] if the admission department was telling the academic departments to grade harder, to weed out even more students than prior years,” Duff said. “He assured me that admissions and academics are separate entities and have no control over each other. I do not believe anything he told me that day.”

    Source link

  • Why First-Year Comp Classes Give Me Hope (opinion)

    Why First-Year Comp Classes Give Me Hope (opinion)

    First-year composition courses, which are required of incoming students at many colleges and universities, lack cachet. No student gets excited about a comp class, and the faculty who teach these classes usually occupy the low rungs on the academic ladder. And right now, as crisis after crisis batters the country, and the world, first-year composition may seem even less important than usual. But in my 30 years of college teaching, it’s first-year comp classes that give me hope, because they offer the possibility of change.

    These small, discussion-based classes give students much-needed practice in how to disagree without disrespect, and—if these classes were embedded more firmly into university curricula—they could radically reshape not only how students learn but how they participate in public life.

    My students often come into their comp class with a chip on their shoulder: Why should they have to “learn to write”? They got themselves into college, after all, and if they get stuck on a writing assignment, there’s always ChatGPT. First-year writing is a waste of time, they think; they’re in college to take “real” classes, courses that matter.

    I harbor a secret affection for these reluctant students, because I know that their resistance will melt when they discover the immensely practical importance of finding the right words for their ideas—and the accompanying sense of power that comes with being able to express themselves so that others understand them. Universities tell students that comp classes aren’t “content courses,” because writing courses aren’t discipline-specific. But then again, neither is the world we live in: Most of us live, work and think in multiple, overlapping contexts.

    For many students, the composition class is the first (and for some, the only) place in college where they experience a seminar-style class that emphasizes process as much as (or more than) product. The paradigm of a composition course involves a reset: It’s not about “the right answer”; it’s about prioritizing curiosity over certainty and about students discovering not only that they have a voice, but that they can use this voice to explore their world. In the 21st-century university, in which faculty are asked for their “course deliverables,” as if learning were an assembly-line widget, comp classes exemplify an alternative to the sludgy tide of university corporatization.

    Composition classes encourage questions, welcome mistakes and revisions, and value messiness and curiosity. During peer workshops, which are an integral part of these courses, I remind students that grades aren’t pie: Everyone can, conceivably, get an A in the course, so their workshop task is helping one another create more effective writing, not to tear each other’s drafts to shreds. Their success, in other words, does not depend on someone else’s failure.

    There are other disciplines where students work iteratively and collaboratively—computer science, for example. But in composition workshops, students learn to ask the kinds of questions that promote reflection and refinement. They’re quick to pick up on one another’s sweeping generalizations—“throughout history, men and women have always disagreed”—and explain why those sorts of generalizations aren’t effective.

    As they talk, they see how their own experiences might be radically different from those of the people reading their work, and they begin to understand how their experiences, consciously or not, have shaped how they see the world. In classroom conversations and workshops, they learn to disagree without rancor and to understand that how they chose to explain (or not explain) an idea has consequences for how they are understood. In a recent essay in The New York Times, Greg Weiner, president of Assumption University, writes that college campuses “are places where dissenting views deserve an elevated degree of respectful and scholarly engagement.” That’s a tall order for U.S. colleges these days, it seems, but it’s one of the underlying principles of composition classrooms.

    “How could I say this better?” is a question I hear writers ask, to which their readers reply, “What do you really want to say, and why?” Students ask one another to explain the evidence for their claims, to examine their assumptions and to think about alternative ways of presenting their ideas. Composition courses help people become more effective writers because they help people become better listeners: Students learn to disagree without dismissiveness or disrespect. And as they help one another, they see ways to improve their own work; it’s a feedback loop that helps them find critical distance, which is essential for revision. Quite literally, students have to re-see their ideas and consider the impact of those ideas on their audience.

    I remember when a male student from Shanghai read an essay written by a female student from the Persian Gulf about her struggles to be a dutiful daughter. “She totally read my mind,” the Shanghai student proclaimed. “Being a good son, trying to keep my parents happy—it’s exhausting!” His comment prompted a class discussion about the generational struggles they all shared, albeit across wildly divergent cultural experiences. Their differences prompted questions that led to connections; difference became an opportunity for exploration rather than a threat. Students were excited to write the essays that emerged from this conversation; they were invested in examining their own experiences in order to open those experiences to others.

    That’s what reading and writing can give us: moments of connection with other people’s lives, which then help us see ourselves in a new light. Connection and distance, empathy and self-reflection: These are the qualitative moves that students practice in composition class. These are the deliverables.

    These deliverables, however, don’t translate into status for composition teachers, who are typically not tenure-track or tenured; they are often called lecturers rather than professors, despite having a Ph.D. Most of us are what’s known as contingent faculty because we work on renewable contracts (sometimes semester to semester, sometimes in longer increments).

    To be a composition teacher, then, means working in the trenches of the university rather than its ivory towers. I’ve been teaching some version of first-year writing for more than 30 years, and while I might hope otherwise, I know that only one or two semesters of writing instruction isn’t enough to create lasting change, even though the most resistant students admit to feeling like more confident and competent writers by the end of the course.

    If universities had the courage to put composition at the center of their missions, however, they could create real change: What if students had expository writing classes every year for four years, regardless of their majors? Four years of slow, reflective, process-based writing about the world outside their specific subjects, with an emphasis on exploration and curiosity, rather than “the right answer”? What if the ability to reflect and reconsider, the twinned abilities at the heart of critical thinking, were the deliverables that mattered?

    Imagine those students bringing that training into the public sphere. People who are eager to ask questions and interrogate assumptions (including their own), people who think in terms of process rather than product: These are the basic tenets of almost any composition class and yet, increasingly, these attitudes seem almost radical. People trained in this way could re-shape public discourse so that it becomes conversation rather than a series of point-scoring contests.

    First-year comp is a content course. We just need to see that content as valuable.

    Deborah Lindsay Williams is a clinical professor in liberal studies at New York University. She is author of The Necessity of Young Adult Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2023) and co-editor of The Oxford History of the Novel in English: Volume 8: American Fiction Since 1940 (Oxford, 2024).

    Source link

  • Old Dominion University launches fill-in wellness classes

    Old Dominion University launches fill-in wellness classes

    Instead of canceling class sessions, professors with conflicts at Old Dominion University may now schedule guest lectures on substance use, stress management, nutrition, safe sex and sleep.

    xavierarnau/E+/Getty Images

    “Hello faculty! Are you attending a conference, going on vacation, taking a sick day or want to take a break from your usual lecture? Consider having staff from the Recreation and Wellness Health Promotion team come in and lead an engaging and educational presentation during your class time!”

    So reads a circulating announcement from Old Dominion University’s Rec Well staff, inviting professors to consider their guest-lecturer services when conflicts with teaching schedules arise.

    What it is: Health educator Steven Gunzelman says that the new service—called “Don’t Cancel That Class!”—is also available to conflict-free professors who simply see value in connecting their students with key health information they might not otherwise get.

    “One of our strategic cornerstones is health and well-being, so we really wanted to develop something that would go into the classrooms and meet with students in that kind of setting, where we can talk about these kinds of things that they might not learn other ways, like feeling stress or sleep issues,” he explains. “Students are here to, of course, get their academics. But in order to be able to graduate and get those life skills, they need health and well-being. It’s a big component of [student success], as well.”

    ODU follows the collective impact approach to well-being, meaning that no single department or office on campus owns this responsibility, or—to put it another way—that everyone owns this responsibility. Rec Well, for its part, offers programs throughout campus on a wide variety of topics. But the “Don’t Cancel That Class!” initiative allows professors to pick a guest talk from the following list of five, starting with one concerning the use of alcohol and other drugs:

    • AOD & Me: Safety With Substances
    • Burn Bright, Not Out: Strategies for Managing Stress
    • Food for Thought: Nutrition 101
    • Play It Safe: The Lowdown on Safe Sex
    • Zzz’s for a Better You: A Sleep Hygiene Journey

    The why and how: Gunzelman says the list is informed, in part, by the top four health campus health concerns, based on internal data gleaned from the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment: stress, anxiety, depression and sleep.

    This tracks with Inside Higher Ed’s own Student Voice survey series, which in 2024 found that nearly all students said stress was impacting their ability to focus, learn and perform well academically, either a great deal (43 percent) or some (42 percent), and fewer than half (42 percent) rated their mental health as excellent or good. And in another 2023 Student Voice survey that asked about sleep, 60 percent of respondents said getting more of it was a top health goal.

    ODU professors interested in scheduling a guest lecture can fill out this form. Gunzelman says the first to schedule a guest lecture was a professor of engineering, who wanted students to learn more about managing stress. He expects this to be a particularly popular topic.

    While the current “Don’t Cancel That Class” staff is small, Gunzelman’s hope is that it will be able to accommodate as many requests as possible and possibly expand topic options with time. As for measuring impact, Gunzelman initially plans to solicit feedback from students about the usefulness of the information shared and how likely it is to influence their behavior going forward.

    The student feedback will also help staff members refine their approach.

    “Can we add in more engagement, or can we add in more topics that are more geared toward students?” he says, for example. Gunzelman also suggests that professors encourage student participation, “whether it be surprise, whether it be a plan, whether it’s built into the syllabus for credit, or if they want to be part of it and are still in the room with us.”

    Don’t cancel that class: ODU is one of a growing number of institutions to offer a Don’t Cancel That Class–style initiative. The University of Minnesota at Morris, for example, offers one that includes workshops on professional development and academic skills such as time management, financial literacy and résumé building.

    Programs of that nature highlight the connection between academics and other pillars of student success, such as health and wellness. But the general practice of finding alternatives to canceling course sessions, especially multiple course sessions, is also considered a best practice in faculty work. The English department at the University of Louisville, for example, suggests rescheduling sessions (including via synchronous online sessions), asking a faculty colleague to fill in or assigning students an independent learning exercise or asynchronous lesson.

    Does your institution have a different kind of don’t-cancel-that-class initiative? Tell us about it.

    Source link

  • Solutions for Students Skipping Classes: Tips to Boost Performance

    Solutions for Students Skipping Classes: Tips to Boost Performance

    High education institutions and colleges are trying hard to suppress student skipping rates to boost performance and improve education standards. Management is trying hard to tackle truancy by imposing strict penalties on students skipping classes. Suspensions can only count as time missed from classroom instructions. Parents also face a blitz on attendance, and they are trying to keep students in higher education.

     

    No more students skipping classes – try these out!

    With nearly 25% of students admitting to skipping classes, we have churned out 10 sure-fire ways to tackle the issue behind students skipping classes. Easy to adopt, try these out for a result in a split-second.

     

    Techniques to tackle students skipping classes

     

     

    Monitor Attendance

    This is practically the first and foremost way when trying to clock in to stop students from skipping classes. Monitoring attendance at high education is not new. Forget the days when faculty used to pass a piece of paper around the classroom to check attendance. It was ideally to support students who silently disengage. But trust us, of the hundreds of students attending lectures, 10-20% can even be missing without the lecturer realizing. Do not think of suspensions – for even they count as time missed from classroom instructions. Having an attendance policy in place works better! With electronic registrations, there can be a more structured attendance pattern. RFID-based attendance management system tracks unauthorized absence or lateness of higher education students in real-time. This will reduce the scenario of students skipping classes keep up-to-date records for all courses and improve student outcomes.

    Track Discipline

    When it comes to tackling the problem of chronic absenteeism, students who already have a track record of skipping class can be a particularly tough crowd to sway. So infectious they could be! The overall strategy for tackling such high education absenteeism should be to prioritize discipline. Getting into a friendly discussion helps. Figure out ways to help such students. Pool in mentors! Take complete ownership. Alternatively, manage and track behavior incidents of students using discipline software and generate automated reports for quicker decision-making.

    Parent Communication

    Get parents involved! This can be a way to reduce tardiness amidst such irregular students. Increased communication with parents will curb the notion of students skipping classes. Today, there are many parents connect software that provides real-time access to student’s academic information.

    Manage Assessments

    Another reason for students to skip classes could be their exam anxiety. If these classic signs of test uneasiness fill your classroom, attendance muddles will be there. Make assessments tension-free by creating online tests and assignments and sharing results with students and parents often. This will reduce the rising numbers of withdrawals from assessments and remove fears and inhibitions from students and parents.

    Review of Curriculum

    Hard to believe, but yes attendance truancy could be a result of the ill-fitting curriculum too. Teachers can review the curriculum and align the portfolio of courses to deliver quality learning for the institution. The curriculum management system provides student access to all the relevant course and curriculum data.

    Smart Classrooms

    Students feel aloof when teachers do not spend little or quality time with them. With smart classrooms paperwork gets eliminated, enabling teachers to spend quality time to improve teaching and learning.

    Teacher Evaluations

    Never neglect students who are chronically absent themselves – be all ears and resolve it at the earliest. This strategy works better! Analyze the teacher’s effectiveness in classrooms with a strong evaluation system and set performance goals to improve their skills. An ineffective faculty is but a drabby asset to the class. After all, it is they who matter the most in the classroom.

    Role-based Security

    The high education management system provides role-based authorization which facilitates discipline and eliminates privacy concerns of students. This information is protected and will be visible only to the targeted students or groups. Parents will be able to access and see the information about his or her children.

    Event Management

    Turn mundane days into gripping ones by scheduling events and announcements! With many departments and units, scheduling an event might seem like a task. Using an online calendar can be a lifesaver here. With such a calendar in place, make instant academic information available to students, teachers, parents, and alumni for specific purposes.

    Automated Notifications

    Don’t wait for the students to turn up the next day to notify them. Sending mass notifications with pre-built templates helps! Dish it out to students, teachers, staff, and parents via email, SMS alerts, and push notifications.

     

    How Creatrix Campus Cloud Can Transform Your Institution and Simplify Student Life

    Here’s a tip: Cloud and mobile technology can tackle regular and chronic absenteeism and benefit in many ways. They drastically result in increased attendance rate, improved student performance, reduced staff workload, and improved efficiencies of the institution.

    Creatrix Campus offers the most advanced cloud and mobile-based cloud suite of solutions designed for higher education institutes. Adaptable, it easily integrates with other modules and provides secure access to track all your information in a single unified system.

    Source link