From the category archives:

Teaching Assistant Confessions

Student Confessions

February 10, 2010
A Student of the University of British Columbi...
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Over the last few months I’ve had dozens of students join my program. For those of you that don’t know; when I sit down with a student for the first time by phone or over skype I ask that they have 3 pieces of information prepared for me.

  1. The courses they took last semester
  2. The courses they are taking this semester
  3. Their top three frustrations with University

With this information I’m usually able to match new students with a tutor that work relatively well with them. During this initial interview I really get to the core of what they are about. Many students don’t stop to realize what kind of problems they really have with university until I force them into confronting there demons by laying out exactly what their problems are. Therefore to help more students, I’m going to introduce a new series into effective study skills where I share the frustrations many of my students faced and how they conquered them.

During this series I will be concentrating on students’ individual case studies and how they are succeeding in speeding less time studying and getting higher grades

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My Best Back To School Story

August 15, 2009
Where I worked and Stayed for Three Months

Where I worked and Stayed for Three Months

So with the fall semester quickly approaching Student Bloggers is encouraging bloggers to give their ‘best back to school story’ to be in the running for their HP Giveaway.  With that in mind I’ve decided to share with you the best back to school story ever!

My story starts back in my teaching assistant office, busily working away at the final marks for a second year ethnicity and immigration class that I was teaching.  It’s the end of the year and I’m ready to start working on my thesis over the summer for submission in October.  I get an email from my supervisor asking me to come down to his office for a quick chat.  Being a good research assistant and wanting to keep my supervisor happy I pop down for what I think will be a quick recap of what I should be working on while he goes to Italy for a few months on a work trip.  What transpired in the next 5 minutes would result in one of the most exciting and wild things that had happened to me in grad school.

The conversation went a little like this:

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Johnny Can’t Fail Policy: Why University students are becoming stupider by the minute

June 18, 2009

Ok, fair warning, this is going to be a rant post.

This should be Johnny

This should be Johnny

I’ve just read an article by Joanne Laucius on a new education policy called the “Johnny can’t fail policies”.  Very simply, the policy gives high school students the opportunity to redo tests and assignments and receive ‘incompletes’ for missed work and plagiarism instead of a zero.  These policies as stated by the Ministry of Education have been implemented to increase student’s success, quoting studies that failing students or giving them zeros does not cause them to learn their lesson and succeed in the long run.  This is ridiculous.

Why this is Ridiculous

First off, without viewing the evidence of student achievement vs harsh marking for plagiarized and missed assignments I cannot specifically comment from a quantitative standpoint.  However, from a qualitative standpoint I can tell you that this ‘policy’ is absolute bullshit and will only produce low quality, academically unaccountable students.

The western education system has made a choice in terms of how we teach students.  We have decided to use standardized testing in order to categorize and stratify students.  This is a very good way to let people who are good at crossword puzzles and rote memorization to float to the top.  I personally think our system is bullshit but unfortunately I’m not a university dean or in charge of the board of education… yet.

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