Children with adult responsibilities

Recently I've observed what I sense may be a growing theme among high school and college students. Almost all of my 16-year-old son's friends work - and many of them have to. The vast majority of my college students work multiple part-time jobs or a full-time job in addition to a full load.

This is not like the days of ole' when I was in high school when kids only worked during the summer or maybe weekends. Kids today have more responsibilities and multiple demands on their time.

Given that, what happens when we as facilitators begin to treat high school and college students as adult learners - at least in the andragogical terms of tying new learning concepts to existing knowledge and experience, explaining why something is important to learn and getting buy-in before beginning learning experiences, etc.

Reflective journals and humanism

Because of technology's influence on education in recent years, I think we've seen a shift to the right in philosophy (from classicalism and behavioralism to pragmatism and humanism). Malcolm Knowles said adult learners were self directed, built knowledge based on previous experiences, had to see an application or reason to learn something so they could apply the new knowledge right away (forgive my paraphrasing).

These are characteristics of humanism and align with the shift in focus of the student from passive to active, the focus of the teacher from sage on the stage to facilitator, and the growing awareness that students have different learning styles and strategies and are there is more than one appropriate way for students to learn. Humanism also points to learning that is social and constructed.

I've been working on my prospectus and the literature points to growing acceptance of a learner-centered approach to education. Simply put, students who are more actively engaged in the learning process (whether in the classroom or online or somewhere in between) tend to have better learning outcomes. Reflective journals are a good example of a learning component that engages the learner.

Having said that, one criticism of humanism is that it can become permissive. The focus is on learning rather than teaching and concepts such as assessments must be clearly communicated or students can become disoriented and disengage.Thus the pros and cons (or cautions) of learning components such as reflective journals.

Writing for the eye vs. writing for the ear

The use of IM language in education . . .

One of the online universities that I teach for has synchronous weekly seminars. The students all pile into a big chat room and I facilitate the discussion. They know the general topic before the seminar begins and receive participation points for making substantive comments. Because the seminar is one hour it is very fast-paced and there is an acceptance and understanding of misspelled words and shortcuts such as IM phrases.

But, more importantly, it's conversational. The intent is to develop social interaction in the virtual classroom and to facilitate learning through communication. That's the purpose.

I say that to say this: professional writers understand that there is a distinct difference (and talent) in writing for the eye and writing for the ear. If you've ever heard a television or radio commercial that sounded "fake" or stilted, you've witnessed an example of a writer who wrote for the wrote sensor. When we write for the eye, we write for print.

The printed word is most easily comprehended and digested when there is clear and correct grammatical structure. Paragraphs, commas, proper grammar all facilitate easy reading which improves comprehension.

The verbal or broadcast word is most easily comprehended when it's conversational, natural, and we hear phrases used in everyday speech. This type of scripting ignores the parts of grammar that deal with complete sentences and sentence construction. Concepts like verb agreement and avoiding jargon and slang are important because they improve understanding and comprehension - if, again, that is the goal.

There are very, very few writers who are talented and effective in writing for both styles - the eye and the ear. The reason is simple: they use very different (and often opposing) concepts and structures to be effective in facilitating communication.

I think we keep coming back to this point over and over again in articles, books, etc. There are simply different standards and styles that work best in facilitating communication for the eye (print) or for the ear (speech and broadcast).