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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan:Well, hello and welcome to the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. On our episode today, Doctor. Rob McDowell and Doctor. Jared Pyles are gonna kick off a new series called Serving the New College Student, which is a follow-up to our series from the fall called Understanding the New College Student. Thanks for joining our conversation.
Jared:Thank you, Ryan, for being a part of the conversation. Well, as Ryan said, we are starting a new series based off of the previous series we did at the end of the fall, I guess it was most of the fall, Understanding the New College Student. And now this is the, I don't know, said the other side of the coin, where it's like that series, we kind of presented all the issues, problems, and now we are going to explore, okay, well, what's being done to meet the needs of these students? So we should probably recap Understanding the New College Student, as a way of starting this so people get a lay of the foundation. We can go back and listen to those episodes as well.
Jared:I forget what episode it starts with. Maybe Ryan can find that and say, you know, listen to the go through and listen to these. That was a really good series. I mean, it was eye opening for sure. But let's let's recap real quick what we talked about.
Rob:Well, we talked about, obviously, looking at student backgrounds, where are they coming from. Right? And then we also in that, we we talked about, are they homeschooled? Are they public school? Are they a mix of public school, Christian school?
Rob:Those are the three that we looked at predominantly. We also looked at where they come from culturally, like in The United States or even outside of the country, I think we discussed a little bit. Social and economic status. And then with that was their access to technology. What were the things that they actually had available to them from where they were coming from?
Rob:Like, we talked about inner city, and we talked about suburbs as well as rural students. So that's kind of the background. Yeah.
Jared:We looked at things like their college readiness related to access to technology. Also, we noticed the Mathshark, which is the declining math proficiency, that test scores are going down on those standardized tests specifically related to math. And they, at least the study that we pulled from, say that it's a result of the remote learning that happened during COVID. So 2020, '20 '20 '1, the students that are current in 2025 that are gonna be wrapping up their sophomore year in high school, they are the ones that suffer the most. And according to the study that created this quote unquote math shark, I assume it's the only study, I could be wrong there, but the study that we have been citing says that they'll never recover, they'll never make up those skills, so they're always going to be behind.
Jared:So, things like that. And, you know, maturity is also something we talked about. Resilience when it comes to difficulties related to stress, everything else, mental health, we're going go as well, anxiety, like that. So that's something else. You know, we also talked about the pandemic, like I said, and rural students, first gen students.
Jared:We talked with Doctor. Horan about that from Idaho and how there's been kind of a shift away from the, four year college path, where there's now more trade schools and everything else is coming about that. I mean, some students are finishing college two years after they enter college because of college credit plus. Right. Dual credit enrollment's a big factor.
Jared:I was talking with my oldest, who's a sophomore in high school, and we're talking about her plan next year. She's already she's already taken two CCP courses.
Rob:As sophomore.
Jared:As a sophomore. And she's like, oh, I might take some more next year. And we're like, well, honey, you don't really have to. As we're looking at now we're looking at college requirements and all this other stuff, which is terrifying.
Rob:Well, really pushes it up. Right? You're planning.
Jared:It does. Yeah. And she doesn't need to take these courses. She's like, yeah. But I can get credit for it, and I can it looks better on my high school transcript and looks good on a you know, that I come into Mhmm.
Jared:College with these credits done already. I'm like, that's fine. It's great.
Rob:So And in this series, we're gonna really this new series was it's kind of a follow-up to it. We're gonna kinda see what our people are doing, what can we be doing. So it's more of now that we've understood, I think, to some degree, obviously, completely, but I think through the series, we've we've looked at a lot of different areas. Mhmm. And now we're going to go back and look at those topics and then, you know, discuss what's being done in those areas.
Rob:So, like, is there an answer to Mathshark? Because based on what you just said, right Yeah. There seems to be real negative feeling about whether or not students who have this gap can close the gap. So the question is, can we close the gap? That would be something we're going to need to look at.
Jared:And there's a point on that, you know, in order for you to this is me now post doctorate, I'm thinking, okay, there's clearly a gap there. How do we close it? And it's not something that we can measure now because we're in the midst of the gap and the students are in the gap. We, you know, we won't see the closing of it until five or six years from now when they finish, right? Higher ed or whatever it is.
Jared:So you have to go back in history and see, okay, was there another gap like this? If so, what were the strategies put in place to close that gap? And I don't know if something like this has ever happened as far as a gap existing or something that was an interruption to learning that was then remedied by a new, for some educators, a brand new way of teaching. And then the resulting gap as a result of this pivot to what we had to do through through the pandemic. So it's almost like it's a once in a lifetime occurrence.
Jared:Maybe once in the educational history something like this has happened, and I'm welcome to be corrected by whoever's listening. But, like, strategies that are being done now, we won't really know if they fix the problem because we're in the midst of it. Yeah. And so I'm just thinking about this now, I'm like, wait a minute, how are we gonna, you know, we can talk about strategies. And so, you know, we're gonna we're gonna we've talked to some people, we're gonna hopefully have someone on that's gonna help us with this, maybe talk about different strategies that have helped with test scores, in the past and maybe they're going to fix it.
Jared:But I don't sound very optimistic at this point, but it's like, you know, maybe it's because my own daughter is in the midst of this. Right. And I'm trying to come to reality that she may never recover from the gap that she's experiencing right now.
Rob:Think some of the things we're looking at here are as a result of compulsory education. So I think to some degree, I do wonder based on doctor Huron's comments from the last series, you know, how much of this are we gonna see a resurgence of of professional training, More like days gone by before compulsory education was a thing and people were looking to find apprenticeships for their their kid, you know, for their kids.
Jared:Right. Yeah.
Rob:And so they'd be a baker or they'd be plumber or they'd be, you know, whatever, a cooper or glassblower or a potter. So I wonder to some degree, are we gonna see a resurgence of that in a different light? And
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:Kind of a repolarization or a realignment of our educational system? Because I think to some degree, I wonder if we haven't really industrialized everything to such a point where every child that comes through needs to look a certain way. Yeah. And that's just not the way God created us.
Jared:Right.
Rob:Right? And so some of these problems, personally, I think, are a result of, you know, wrong shoe for the wrong foot kind of a thing. Like, you're trying to shoehorn someone into something that they're just not. Right. And, you know, and and then equate I think the problem is you equate value to society based on those things.
Rob:And I think that's really dangerous. Now is that all of it? No. But I think there's gonna have to be some sort of a realignment because not everybody can do the same thing.
Jared:Yeah. I made my own head hurt by doing that, so I apologize. But that was my tangent on the math shark, but we're gonna talk about that. But we're also going to hear from educators who are meeting the needs of students from different backgrounds and demographics. So we're gonna hit on that a bit.
Jared:Like, we're gonna talk to some homeschool educators, we're gonna talk to Christian school educators, public school educators Mhmm. To get their perspective on how they are meeting the needs of the various students that they have.
Rob:Because you know they're going to. I mean Yeah. They're going to attempt to do so somehow, And I I think it's just it benefits our listeners to hear how's that happening.
Jared:Right. Right.
Rob:The other thing that, you know, we'll we'll also look at media and technology again. Where is it now? There's been a huge push to reduce that
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:Especially here in Ohio in the public school sector. Is that showing any fruit? I'm curious if it'll have any kind of if they'll do something like they did with smoking. Do you remember when it used to be cool and everybody even in high school, right, there was a period of time, and I think it was after I graduated from high school, where there were students and maybe it was in your generation. I don't know.
Rob:Did you graduate high school again? Ninety four. Yeah. Yep. So smoking just in terms of the teenage set became really seriously uncool.
Rob:Like, in the students were like, no. I don't do that kind of nastiness. Yeah. But I am curious as to what will happen with media usage. Do you think you know, I'll ask you.
Rob:Do you think it's going to decrease? Do you think it's gonna increase? Do you think students are gonna see it as a as a problem that they need to mitigate?
Jared:I think it's too ingrained now to go anywhere else. But I think because of, again, going back to the rapid shift because of the pandemic, I think technology is too ingrained now. The idea of a sick day no longer exists. Woah, woah, what do
Rob:you mean?
Jared:Okay. Remember how, like, when you'd get sick, you have, a day to make up work? Yeah. You know, I was sick, so I couldn't take the test. That was a good way of playing hooky and getting out of taking the test too.
Jared:I have a fever. Not that I would never do that, and I've never done that in my whole life. Sorry, missus Roderick in geometry freshman year. So but my when my daughters are sick now, their instructors, their teachers can still post things on Google Classroom for the whole class. Now, this could just be my daughter's, right?
Jared:But they see it posted and they think, have to get this done now. Even though I wasn't in class to get the notes or the training, especially if it's math, to do these problems, I have to still get them done. Even though they have an extra day and their parents are always reminding them about the fact they have an extra day. I think because of the technology and because of, you know, how it was a part of our students' lives for two years at the elementary, middle, high school level, the idea of taking a break from your academics, I think is no longer, like, what was it? Blizzard bags.
Jared:Yeah. So, like, you would have, oh, if in case it's a snow day, you can just do what's in these bags or whatever. Well, now that's remote. That's virtual now. Hey, you don't have a snow day anymore.
Jared:You don't have a sick day anymore. And it's already happened in snow days. It hasn't totally happened in sick days. I think that's probably just my daughters that feel that way about it. So, it's happening with your snow days?
Jared:Oh, yeah. Snow days now, or at least not in our district. In other districts I've seen in Ohio, like, or from where I grew up down there, they'll do snow day students refer to blizzard bag, blizzard pack, whatever it's called, a. And so they do the work that's in there instead of missing a day of school.
Rob:That's a choice from the actual school district.
Jared:Yeah. What I'm saying though is that the fact that this technology is readily available and that you can, you don't have to sit in the classroom to engage with the content or be exposed to the assignments, I think eventually down the road it's going to become where, well, even if you're sick for two days, you're still expected to finish the work because my notes and my assignments are online already. It hasn't happened yet, but I feel like down the road, and I'm more than happy to be wrong. What I'm saying though is I feel like eventually the idea of a sick day is going to be nonexistent because of the, technology. And then to go back to your original question, no, I think the technology is, it's not gonna go down.
Jared:It's either going to stay the same or it's going to grow.
Rob:So it seems like the technology as well as the social and, political kind of impact that we've had over the past four years, five years, especially given COVID.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:It sounds like you're saying it's erased boundaries?
Jared:Oh, yeah. There, yeah, there are no boundaries. There's no more home and school. It's now skom, if I can if I can coin a term. Skom.
Jared:Skom. So, yeah, going back to the you'd mentioned removing boundaries, and I think that's something that is happening. And I think it's also and I know your question was probably about both, about the educational side of technology, but also our student usage of social media.
Rob:Yeah. Because when we had those students on Right. They that was something that they really talked about quite a bit Yeah. And how they would just spend hours. I think that's when doomscrolling came up.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:And I was able to identify with that. Right. But to hear them say that they would spend hours, you know, looking through something, closing an app, and then reopening it again and scrolling through, I that was kind of shocking. So I was just I wonder, you know, will students will students respond to that and self regulate?
Jared:I don't know. And I I think it depends on the the student, and I think it goes back to you using the smoking. So smoking was, like you said, it was really popular when I was in middle school. And our middle school and high school was combined, and you could go off of our little block where the school was and you could walk around town for lunch. And as soon as kids would cross the street, they would light up and start smoking literally across the street from the school.
Jared:And it was just rampant. But I think also of like seat belts, the idea of like seat belts to my dad's generation was like, I Ridiculous. Dad never wore a seat belt growing up or whatever. But as soon as I got in the car, was like, as soon as I started driving, I was like, I'm wearing my seatbelt. I understand the this.
Jared:Then now dad, finally, thank you dad for finally wearing your seatbelt. But, you know, so I think students might self regulate. I think it depends on the student itself, to be honest with you. So media technology, fostering engagement and community. I really want to explore the idea of intrinsic motivation.
Jared:I'm not sure if we can do it we'll do it somewhat in this series, but I think the idea of stoking motivation, in students is important. And one of my good friends from Anthology, who you may have heard of Blackboard, she is the director of accessibility. She's going to join us, to talk about that. So those are the topics we're going to talk about. And, I don't know, I'm excited, I'm apprehensive.
Jared:I'm at the same level of apprehension and excitement as I was with the first series we did about this. Because, you know, I have, back then the level of apprehension and excitement was more of, I have no idea what we're going to find. And now it's like, I know what we found. I'm a little terrified about what the what's actually going on and what and and whether or not what's being done is going to be is helpful or do we need to find a new strategies and everything else?
Rob:I have I have a good deal of optimism and hope, I think, just because I know, at least here at Cedarville, I believe faculty and staff alike have a drive, and it's it's driven from the reality of who we serve. And because of that, I know that we already have folks looking for answers and and quite frankly, maybe have found some. I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say. I'm looking forward to this the series, and I hope our listeners are as well.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. Remember to like and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Please also, if you have a comment or a question, feel free to reach out to us on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out our blog, cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.