And yet again--a big wet slap in the face of academic culture shock. Every so often I get walloped with one. and every time I am surprised. and taken totally unawares.
I like to think that I'm finding my 'Tetovo legs' as it were, that I'm figuring out the steps to the dance here, when to pause, shift weight, lift the ankle, smile to myself and then charge on, . And just like dancing the oro/valle (I'm sure someone can tease apart the differences but I can't), I find myself wrapped up in the rhythm, finding what feels like my own kind of grace.
And then suddenly Dischord (for any of you who haven't read the Phantom Tollbooth; (h)ajde!) taps me on the shoulder, startling me, and sometimes I trip, regain my poise and carry on. and sometimes I take a nose-dive.
Today brought one of those 'total disbelief' culture shocks--my students (now in their 4th year of study) have never done independent research.
Asked to teach them academic English--I put together a syllabus to work on writing literature reviews because, after reading a lot of papers from colleagues and students (and my own work!), I think it's a skill that could use some particular attention. I asked my students to log onto EbscoHost--which the university subscribes to (much to my delight)--poke around and find 10 related articles (pick something that interests you!), pick 5, read, analyze and then synthesize (over the course of the semester, mind you).
and my students came to my office today saying they had never been asked to do independent research before.
'Can you teach us?' they asked. 'I can show you,' I replied, 'but I don't know that I can teach you.'
I know part of what is coursing through my veins right now is the mismatch between my expectations (and my feelings of being in just a little over my head sometimes) and what reality presents me with. But (what a dangerous word) part of me isn't quite ready to let go of my expectations--or at least let go of them all the way.
other than just being shocked--I find myself thrown back to square one 'how how how do you teach people to be independent learners? to be curious learners? to throw obsession with grades out the window and fall in love with ideas, thinking, reading, questioning?' and I guess research can be driven by the paper, the assessment, just getting it done because it needs to get done (goodness knows we've all done it). but that isn't the kind of research I want to teach.
so if anyone's got suggestions: I'm all ears.
It was a mistake to ask them to pick ten related articles, if you wanted them to be most enthusiastic about learning. Most of my education was done through juxtaposition of unrelated content. It will allow them a broader type of thinking, that can be applied to their real world everyday problems, and hence it is much more likely to induce love of learning, which means dependence on learning, and separately curiosity.
ReplyDeleteMy goal with picking related articles was I wanted to focus on writing a literature review (how do you take a body of articles synthesize perhaps closely related ideas and write about them, which I think is especially important as many of them may continue to get a MA?) because I've been reading a lot of academic papers while I've been here written by MA students or colleagues at the university, and have noticed some common difficulties when writing lit reviews. I agree that being able to make connections between disparate ideas--broadly--is a really important skill set for critical thinking, but that wasn't quite my objective. whether that is a mistake or not, well, is I think more a personal perspective on goals and methods.
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