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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.
Hello, Transform Your Teaching listeners. It's Jared. Whether you are new to the podcast or have been around since day one, we want to hear from you. Please take a minute and fill out our quick survey and help us make the podcast even better. Click the link in our description.
Jared:We'd be very grateful if you did. And for participating, you'll be put into a drawing for a handcrafted transform your teaching mug. And we're doing a drawing in the month of October, November, and December. So be sure to participate and help us out. We'd be grateful if you did.
Jared:And as always, thanks for listening.
Narrator: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.
Jared:Welcome back to the Transform Your Teaching podcast. My name is Jared Pyles, and with me is doctor Rob McDole.
Rob:Good afternoon.
Jared:We are continuing our series on understanding the new college student. And in our previous episode, we tried to create a student profile. In this episode, we're going to look at some current trends as far as high school and college students go. And as a disclaimer, just like in the last episode, we did primarily Ohio research for this since we're in Ohio. Yep.
Jared:You can call it laziness or you can call it just ease of access. But
Rob:I'm gonna call it ease of access.
Jared:Ease of access. Okay. That's a fancy way of saying lazy. But we wanted to just create a profile of or not really a profile. We we wanted to create just some We wanna discuss trends.
Jared:Yeah. We wanna share some trends of what's going on currently in education. So we have different areas we're going to hit on, technology, mental health, and just academic performance in general. But let's start with technology access.
Rob:And all of this has to do with readiness. Right?
Jared:Yes. Totally. Yeah. So it all comes back to a readiness for college. Right?
Jared:So whatever, capacity that is, you know, if it's a four year school or two year school or anything outside of high school. Post high school, post secondary is the correct term for it, education. This is talking about that stuff.
Rob:Right. And we're gonna do our best to set the stage because we are gonna have some folks coming in who are gonna speak much more specifically to things that they have experienced and are seeing because they are in these areas. So
Jared:Yeah. We are having some folks come in because we can only set the stage as much as this is what we typically do in our series in this podcast thus far is, like, we set the stage, and then we have people come on it and either tear down our stage or support our stage and say,
Rob:actually, you'll me we were missing it altogether.
Jared:Yeah. We kinda create a draft, they let everyone else revise it and take chunks out of it. And then we present the the finished product at the end.
Rob:So you you wanted to go with technology first. Let's talk about technology access.
Jared:Sure. Yeah. So technology access, we found a study. I shouldn't say we, Evan. I gave Evan a shout out last episode.
Jared:I'll do the same here. Evan Groff, our research student extraordinaire, found a study that was done by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, done in February of '21. And they wanted to, you know, if you if you recall back in 2020, 2021, we had we had a pandemic.
Rob:We did.
Jared:And so they wanted to
Rob:Understand the impact Right. On students in terms of technology.
Jared:Right. They wanted to understand what exactly students had access to Right. As a result of the pandemic. So in order to better understand what our students were going home to, because if you recall again, most schools went completely closed and completely online or they did a hybrid HyFlex version of that. Remember my kids went to school two days a week and were home three days a week.
Rob:So what they found was a large majority of students when they did this study, like what, 83%
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:Had access to broadband Internet.
Jared:Yes. 83%, large majority had Internet connectivity and technological devices at home. 83%.
Rob:That sounds like a lot, but it really I think what's glaring to me is the, you know, 17%. Am I right there?
Jared:17%?
Rob:That didn't have it.
Jared:Right, correct. So 17% do not have access to Internet or any kind of devices that could connect to the Internet at home. And this was in 2021. So think about that, those students who went home for the pandemic. What how did they access their school stuff?
Rob:I know at my wife's school district that they actually turned the Wi Fi on outside Mhmm. And told students who didn't have access or families that didn't have access that they could come park in the parking lot, and they should be able to get and connect to the school's Internet. And they had several that took them up on that offer. So that was one. And then I know there was some sort of act to provide connectivity to those who didn't have it.
Rob:But, you know, it took a while for that to happen or it was subsidized in some way. But after that, you still have issues where students with shaky home lives
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:Where they're not in a a good location to begin with, they didn't have it to begin with, or they're living with a grandparent. Right. The grandparent doesn't have it. Probably a lot more than we know.
Jared:The term is internet connectivity and technological devices. In a rural area, it could be DSL or it could be satellite, but even then the strength is not that great anyway. So while it says yes, they are connected, it's not broadband or it's not, fiber or anything like that that's showing up.
Rob:Well, let's look at the regions then in terms of connectivity.
Jared:To me, that's even scarier is that, you know, you look at, you know, this study revealed that there are exceptions among district typologies, which we talked about last time, and within student subgroups. Or like, you look at the rural area, percent relied on cell phone hotspots. For rural districts, 10% relied on cell phone hotspots for access to internet. So even then, there's no wireless at home, a student is using their phone or a relative's phone to connect to the Internet in order for them to access, to do assignments or whatever it was at that time. 10% in rural, 11% in urban, and some bigger or major urban districts was 23%.
Jared:In comparison, suburban, which is your more affluent
Rob:areas Right.
Jared:3%.
Rob:Because they all had broadband.
Jared:Correct.
Rob:Yeah. So there were a couple more points in this technology or Internet connectivity report, you know, that I think popped out to us both. One one that I thought was very interesting was that 84% of those who would identify as racially white had connectivity. Yep. As opposed to those who would identify as Hispanic, they were the, like, the lowest reported connectivity at 78%.
Rob:Like, 78% had connectivity, but there's a larger number that did not.
Jared:That is correct. Yeah. So the reason we're bringing all this up is because these are the students that are matriculating into college as well. Can't assume again that everyone's got high speed Internet, everyone has reliable access, everyone has a device they can use, and they're well versed in it, in order to interact with the stuff you're doing in your classroom.
Rob:And, again, this may not necessarily be Cedarville. No. Right? But it might be some others that are listening to us. They might see some of these kinds of same numbers in their area.
Rob:That'd be interesting to know. It's just what we're saying is this is what we're seeing in Ohio. This is what ODE, Ohio Department of Education has come out and said. Yep. This is what the state of Ohio is facing.
Rob:Right. And there was that one last data point that was, like, really crazy to me, and that was that the districts themselves don't even know, like, 14. Like like, they can't even speak to 14% of their population as to whether or not Yeah. They have access or not.
Jared:Yeah. Which is scary. Like, can't even figure that out? I I it's either they can't figure it out or they haven't they didn't weren't able to report on the number.
Rob:So so that's I mean, based on the report that we have here Mhmm. That we're looking at, a 182,000 students Yeah. That they don't know whether or not they have access or not.
Jared:Yeah. It's a little frightening.
Rob:Well and everything is connected, though. I mean, most of the schools now are using online curriculum. I know my wife uses an online curriculum. Yep. And she's in what would be considered a rural school district.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:So she has to deal with those issues with her students. Right? And she has to have workarounds and things like that, which she does, but I'm just saying. Yeah. It just kinda blows my mind that we don't even literally know for a 182,000 students.
Jared:Yeah. In Ohio. Yeah. So, yeah, this this lack of reliable Internet access and, you know, it's created this
Rob:Mhmm.
Jared:Gap in college readiness, digital divide they call it. And what's interesting is that, you know, the pandemic did kind of close that access gap a bit because a lot of districts, I know that my the district that my kids go to, they provided Chromebooks for every so there's a lot of one to one initiatives of Sure. Student to device. Sure. And so a lot of the technology gap that existed has closed a bit because of this getting a device in every kid's hand.
Jared:They have the If they work. Oh, yeah. If they work. What's really insane to me is that I think there's more this is, again, anecdotal. I think there's more Chromebooks in districts than students because my son, he had to do something on his webcam on his Chromebook and he was like, I got a new webcam or I got a new Chromebook today.
Jared:How'd you do that? He's like, my webcam didn't work. So they just handed him a new one. Instead of fixing it, they're like, here, just take this one.
Rob:Well, because they're so cheap, costs more.
Jared:Right.
Rob:It costs more to actually try to figure out what's wrong with it than actually just give
Jared:them a new one. But the Chromebooks may not work. They could be replaced. But then it doesn't still doesn't fix the fact that at home, they may not have access to the Internet they need to connect. Or if the I remember, like, day two of the the kids staying home, our power went out for, like, five hours.
Jared:There goes our access to the Internet from there.
Rob:Yeah.
Jared:Yeah. So you never know. Like, this they have these great devices that they're taking them home with them, but can they even connect when they get home?
Rob:Yeah. I think the the issue here that we're really pointing at is there is some disparity
Jared:Yep.
Rob:In those who had connection and those who did not. And so it's just a reality of of the college readiness, if you will Yeah. Of what's facing or what we're facing. So then let's move on to another one Yeah. Which is the one that seems to be the topic du jour.
Jared:Topic du jour.
Rob:Which is mental health.
Jared:What's topic of what's I know du jour is of the day. Yes. What's what's of the series? Do we know that? Topic du series.
Jared:It's a it's a direct French to English translation.
Rob:Sure. I just made that up.
Jared:Well, while you talk about this next one, I'm gonna look it up.
Rob:So we have, it looks like, six identified labels. And these labels come from a health survey from Ohio State University. Yep. And they surveyed students, OSU students.
Jared:So they they surveyed OSU students coming back to school. From From From the summer. Yeah.
Rob:Yep. So this is between 2021. Correct. And they found that anxiety had increased across the student body from thirty nine percent to forty two point six percent. They found that depression had increased from twenty four point one percent to twenty eight point three percent.
Rob:They found and I don't know what burnout means. So Yeah. Let me be clear when we're talking about these things, folks. We don't necessarily have a clear definition of what the survey defined as anxiety or depression or burnout. I am not trying to make light of any of these things.
Jared:Sure.
Rob:Yeah. Right? But I'm just trying to be honest with everyone. We don't have definitions for these. Burnout went from forty to seventy one percent.
Rob:That's huge. Yeah. I don't even know how to how do you even speak to that? I don't I mean, I What is burnout?
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:Is burnout where you just like, I give up. Yeah. There's just too much. That that seems rather relative, it seems to me. But, again, not making light of it.
Rob:I'm just going based on what the survey says. Sure. Unhealthy eating. So they said that went from 25% to 29%. So growth of 4%.
Rob:Alcohol use, 15.5 to 18. That one surprised me. I was expecting that to be higher. Yeah. Honestly.
Rob:Because I would think but you only have a four percent growth in depression, essentially, point two percent. Right. And the use of tobacco only went up 2% from six to eight. Mhmm. Again, kinda surprising.
Rob:But those I don't even how many students are
Jared:in OSU? 46,000 undergrads, 14,000 graduate students. 60,000 total in 2022.
Rob:So out of 46,000 undergrad students, vaping went from six to 8%. And then a decrease in physical activity.
Jared:Yeah, the way it's worded is weird. Increased physical activity dropped.
Rob:From 35% to 22%. Yeah. That's pretty significant.
Jared:Mhmm. I wonder if they have data, because this is again from 2020 to 2021. I'm wondering
Rob:Is it still the same?
Jared:Is it still the same? Has it increased? Mhmm. You know, this just shows us the effects of the the pandemic, and it could be that this has gone back down or, you know, something like that, but that is interesting information to look at.
Rob:So these are the things that are labeled as as health concerns or mental health concerns.
Jared:Right.
Rob:And they go towards college readiness. Or in this case, you know, these are actual college students. So what we don't have is a picture of students, like you were saying just a moment ago. We don't have a picture of what students look like right now. Mhmm.
Rob:I wonder if this is still an indicator. It'll be interesting when we talk to our guests what kind of information we get from them.
Jared:Yeah. When we talk to Dancey Gillespie and John Wood and Jeremy Oliver, When they come on to talk about the different aspects of this mental health stuff, they'll help us add more to this and
Rob:Oh, yeah.
Jared:Maybe, paint more of the picture for us. Let's talk about my favorite term I've heard so far this year, the math shark. Can we talk about the math shark? We talked we teased it.
Rob:Is it like baby shark
Jared:doo doo? No. What's really funny is that I had Evan I just told him to do some research on math shark because I because I thought it was a more universal term, but apparently not because all they could find was this math toy on Amazon called Mathshark. And all they sent me was, is this what you're talking about?
Rob:No. It's like, no. I'm not
Jared:what I'm talking about. So the math shark is the lower math scores of current, middle school and high school students
Rob:Mhmm.
Jared:That is under the surface of the water of, I don't know, academia. Again, this wasn't my metaphor that I came up with. This is someone else's, but it's genius because it's under the surface and eventually it's going to strike because they're saying that math scores are lower than other classes, other grades. And at this point, once they enter into college, you're gonna see a huge dip in performance on math scores because then the math shark is going to quote unquote strike.
Rob:Yes.
Jared:And it's going to be noticeable at that point.
Rob:It's an inability to think mathematically and critical thinking skills that underlie so much of academia. And when those start dropping off, it affects so many areas. It's going to affect then it's gonna affect the workforce. And so I think there's like this sharknado, if you will, math sharknado
Jared:Uh-huh.
Rob:That's just gonna take stuff out because students aren't really prepared. They're not up to speed, especially with peers in the world in terms of math reasoning skills. Right. So, yes, it's numbers, but math reasoning is more than just numbers. Those frameworks synthesize and move and interact in other areas in life.
Rob:Right? And so they do serve as a foundational piece in education. And so if those scores start dropping significantly, you're gonna tear the foundation out from underneath the society in a sense. Yeah. Because it'll have an an effect going all I mean, you need somebody that can count who's gonna give you your medicine when you're in the hospital.
Jared:Right.
Rob:That they take out, you know, 10 cc's of blood and not a thousand.
Jared:Yeah. To me it's more of the critical thinking and logic that comes with learning math. To me are the more universal skills that these students are unfortunately because and they they say they point it to, COVID as one of the main driving factors behind this drop in math scores is this. But the
Rob:only the only problem is is it actually started in '20 I mean, they really saw a significant drop in 2019. Yeah. Like, it went from forty one percent to thirty seven percent. From 2019 to 2023.
Jared:And these are the National Assessment of Education. So this is National, not just state anymore. This is now NAEP, National Assessment of Educational Progress and State Tests.
Rob:So the proficiency rate dropped from 41 down to 37. That is significant when you're talking about an entire nation. That's not just a 100,000 students. Right?
Jared:A lot of students.
Rob:That's a lot of students.
Jared:Yeah.
Rob:That's a lot of students.
Jared:Also, state tests showed widespread declines in math proficiency 2019 to 2022 with an average drop of eight percentage points across states. Alabama experienced the greatest loss with a 19 drop. Mississippi was the only state to fully recover its pre pandemic proficiency levels. Wow. There's a table, though I don't have it here, but we'll put it in the description of the episode.
Jared:There's a table that shows which grades are most affected and it shows like the last, there's like an eight or nine grades and it talks about how some there's going to be a dip but they're going to recover or there's going to be a dip and they project they're going to recover this much. Some will fully recover, some will have a dip, but there's one class in particular. And as of 2024, 09/09/2024, they are the current sophomores in high school. They're the ones that say they're going to have this drop and they are never going to fully recover from it. And my oldest daughter is in that class.
Jared:So she's aware of it too. Like we went through, she's in an advanced algebra two class over the weekend and you know me, I'm not math brained, but she's going through all this stuff and she's like, I just don't understand why this stuff is happening. So it's the critical thinking and logic skills that she hasn't yet developed because of this dip. She didn't quite understand why two to the power of nine is the same as eight to the power of three. And we were trying to walk her through, well, you know, two times two times two times two and then eight, you know, going through that.
Jared:She's like, yeah, but I just don't I can't make the connection. So this this is a a real thing and that you can spell it out and we spelled it out to her. We showed her and she's like, just can't make the connection yet. So it's happening. Wow.
Jared:And it's it's a real thing. The math shark is real, people. The math
Rob:shark is real.
Jared:Don't deny it. It's real.
Rob:This is a shark week we don't want. Yeah.
Jared:And all this information, by the way, is from the seventy four, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group, looks at education. So Okay. Shark the math shark is real.
Rob:Yeah. So I'm looking forward to bringing some people on. You know, I'd love to hear from our listeners as well. What are you seeing? What's the what's the vibe out there?
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:Looks like Ryan has referenced a NEA study, National Educators Association, I believe. They're usually the ones that are behind most most yeah. The union. But their key takeaways, the majority of college students today meet the criteria for at least one mental health problem.
Jared:The
Rob:rates of mental health problems are the same among students of all races, but students of color are less likely to get treatment. Oh, wow. Making matters worse, counseling centers are overwhelmed, waiting lists are long, and many counselors are burned out. And I think that was from 2023. Yeah.
Rob:03/29/2023 is when that was reported. So the question I have is it you know, we just said the mass shark was real.
Jared:Mass shark is real.
Rob:But I know we have listeners that'll probably be like, is it really that bad? Is it really that bad? And I hope that our folks that we're gonna have on in the series will be able to really talk to that issue and then help us and help our listeners find ways to not only face up to these issues wherever they're at, but also have some strategies on how they could potentially deal with them.
Jared:Yeah. The main reason for we're doing this is to whenever these students come into the classroom Mhmm. How can we be ready? When they step onto a college campus for the first time, how can we be ready as educators to be prepared? Because I I think it's it's so easy for us to look at it and go, well, these kids these days, they don't know how to do this and that and this.
Jared:They need to learn how to crochet, and they learn how to do their laundry and all this stuff. And those crocheting, I'm not sure about, but doing your laundry at least is a skill that you need to learn how to do. Right? But instead of it being like, we need to tell them to do this, we need to instead, instead of being reactionary, we need to be proactive and say, okay, Here's what they don't know how to balance a checkbook. Right.
Jared:They're they're struggling with their mental health. They don't know how to their resiliency level is super low. They get anxious about anything. Instead of trying to fix it and say, okay. Well, how do we help them?
Jared:Right. How do we serve them best? Right. Right?
Rob:The goal of education, like at Cedarville, the goal of of Cedarville's education should in no way change. Right. But we've got to figure out how to build a bridge back to where students are, not to where
Jared:they used to be. That's correct.
Rob:That's what we're hoping to accomplish is to, one, understand the current state like we've talked about today, but then two, bring folks in who've been, like, really digging into this Mhmm. And hopefully come out with some strategies of things that that we can do personally, and maybe even as an institution, find out about what's going on. So I'm looking forward to it.
Jared:Yeah. Me too. So that's gonna do it for us on this episode of the transform your teaching podcast. Be sure to email us at CTLpodcast@Cedarville.edu. Check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog and connect with us on LinkedIn.
Jared:Info on how to do that is in the description. Thanks for listening.