Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge and Chelmsford Foundations Of Instructions Discussion

Please respond to Princess Williams with 250 words

Higher Education Institutions exist to serve students. While I feel that all the chapters assigned in this weeks reading provide valuable tools and theories regarding outcomes, integrity, course design, and classroom management, we should never start off focused on all the layers without having an in depth understanding of the population we serve. In this case, I would Chapter 1. Chapter 1 emphasizes evaluating student demographics, student maturity and growth, and the characteristics of students in the generations. A person new to teaching must understand all of these things in order to be successfully and reach the appropriate outcomes. According to Reid & Monroe, American schools of the 21st century have become a diverse environment where educators need to have a strong understanding of the differences of backgrounds and beliefs amongst our students (2008).It is more beneficial to start off knowing who your students are in order to help students reach their goals. If your students are first generation college students and you are teaching at a two year institution, you must understand the college readiness challenges. On the other hand, if you are teaching at a four year selective honors university, you must understand the need to academic rigor and expectations of the environment. It really boils down to student success being defined differently in certain environments. Prior to structuring courses and defining outcomes, we must develop course structures based on the population be served.

The student body profile information and the generational information is most important

“ At minimum, you should find out the distributions and percentages on these variables: age, marital and family status, socioeconomic background, race and ethnicity, full-time and part-time employed, campus residents versus commuters, native versus international, geographical mix, and special admissions” (Nilson, 2016, p.24). Knowing this is key to determining best practices. For instance, the population consist of married students with families, they may only be able to attend online or within a hybrid modality. For traditional students who recently graduated from high school, your course schedule could be face to face. Understanding these factors allow us to understand student needs. The course structure for a student who may need developmental classes are different than a student who is staking honors classes. Since we know that we are teaching student across a multitude of generations, we have to understand the different experiences of those generations. The section regarding teaching todays student ls is extremely important. One things that stands out to me as extremely important for a new teacher to understand is the level of dependence on parents this generation has.

I’m familiar with the phrase helicopter parent and we use it daily. According to Nilson, millennials do not hunger independence for their parents like generation before this(2016). It is extremely difficult to foster growth and accountability in students who rely on their parents to resolves their issues for them. College should foster independence but it is getting more difficult to develop maturity.

Nilson, L. B. (2016). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated

Reid, M. J., & Moore, J. L. (2008). College readiness and academic preparation for postsecondary education: Oral histories of first-generation urban college students. Urban Education (Beverly Hills, Calif.), 43(2), 240-261. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085907312346