At some point we just need to check the cable connection

I "enjoyed" another hour online today listening to a First Year Writing program faculty meeting from Metro State. It was a hybrid, with some "live" in the room on campus and most online. The topic was basically how to be more effective with our online students. Too many of them are not being "retained," which is ominous for a university that is facing increasing challenges with enrollment.

The good news is that we are being taken back to "hard times" economically by our Fearless Leader and his lackies (THAT'S good news?) and experience teaches us that more students will dip into higher education as jobs dwindle and things stagnate.

The not so great news was that the organizers had a tough time simply getting the Teams meeting going. In the end, it appears that the HDMI cable from a laptop to the Internet had been pulled out. So, a good lesson there was that it's hard to get everyone on the same page technologically and that something we likely need to do more of is simply teach students how to use the course management system, called Canvas. 

A PowerPoint was eventually shared that summarized a 2020 book on online learning that advocates for PARS: personal, accessible, responsive, and strategic. 

The research suggests that online instructors need to make themselves more "human" and that students need to know that they are welcome to contact us, to ask for help, etc. Instructors are to respond, as kindly as possible, but also in a timely fashion. And, finally, instructors should have clear strategies in mind when constructing courses and assignments. Things should build logically to a goal.

Today was another great reminder that most college professors haven't labored in secondary schools (well, not after enduring them, of course). To me, all the advice sounded like "Teaching 101," and, as usual, a few in the Teams meeting were eager to share their insightful and practical strategies engaging students.

Honestly, to hear most online instructors tell it, there simply cannot BE any problems with retention. Everyone is just so darn skilled and creative. 

And yet online courses are under fire. Some college administrators support simply eliminating online courses, particularly for first-year students. After all, when it all comes down to money and total enrollment, we must do what we must.

On the other hand, many of our online students are somewhat older and nearly always balancing work and family with "going back to school" with an eye on bettering their financial positions. 

So far, online remains. 

One of the things I like about teaching my first-year writing course for Metro is that I control everything about it, beyond some mandated skills and policies the university insists upon. Every reading and video and link and handout comes from me. 

Of course, the last ten minutes of the meeting were led by a rep from McGraw-Hill, extolling their amazing program of e-books and online analysis and testing and writing support. All for the low low price of... 

The powers that be will likely, once again, mandate some commercial program as they flail about for answers to the retention problem. 

My advice would be to compile some actual data on particular students and which instructors they had for their online courses. We might discover some common strategies.

Oh, and then we might consider paying all the adjuncts more money as they struggle to improve student writing and thinking while keeping them happy enough to come back next semester.

Yay! College!

Best catch there is

Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22 focused on the absurdities of WWII in Italy and I think I have read it at least four times (and enjoyed the movie and the TV series). It's hilarious but that is not what sticks with me; it's the darkness that underlies the entire story.

In the novel, the "catch" is that a pilot cannot be relieved of flying more combat missions by claiming insanity, since the mere act of claiming insanity to avoid the dangers of flying those missions proves that the pilot is sane.

You don't need to have read the novel to have heard about Catch-22, of course, since the phrase has been part of our lexicon for the past 60 years. Briefly, a catch-22 is a situation where people are trapped in a loop, so to speak, because of a rule or circumstance that denies them a way out.

Kilmar Ábrego García is living a current version of Catch-22 after being spirited away to a notorious prison in El Salvador due to an administrative error. He entered the country illegally as a 16-year-old fleeing from the threat of violence in his home country. He became a transportation union apprentice, married an American, and they have three children, all with disabilities. 

Life has not been easy for the guy. 

He has been swept up in the Trump administration overreach on immigration ("overreach" is applicable to nearly everything the Current Occupant, a convicted felon, does). He has never been arrested or convicted of a crime. The government admits it was all a mistake.

The Supreme Court unanimously agreed that Mr. Garcia needs to be returned to the United States, but the Trump administration claims that since the man is in the custody of El Salvador, the U.S. has no power to force his return. The dictator of El Salvador claims he can't return Garcia because that would be like smuggling a terrorist into the country.

The U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to house about 200 supposed gang members in their most secure and dangerous prison.

Yesterday, a U.S. Senator was able to meet with Garcia briefly in El Salvador, and the good news is that he appeared unharmed, at least physically. 

But Garcia was then returned to the lock up. He shouldn't be there, but the catch is that since he is there, no one can help him. 

Catch-22... best catch there is, as Major Major would remind us.

Of course, Trump and his goons are also brazenly defying clear court decisions in this case... and so many others. Native-born citizen will be next. After all, once someone the government wants gone is out of the country, nothing can be done. 

Yes, it was in "error," but what's the most powerful country on earth to do? 

They may be paying but college students are often not engaging

I "lurked" during a CSU journalism department meeting on Monday which included an option to join on Zoom rather than driving up to Fort Collins. It was clunky, as these things often are, and those of us on Zoom were soon forgotten as the discussion ebbed and flowed. Most of the time, I had no idea who was talking but I could hear most of what was said.

And what was said was somewhat surprising, honestly. I mean, Colorado State is a major university serving over 30,000 students and one of the flagship state institutions. Journalism and Media Communications majors occupy thousands of positions in media organizations of all sizes and types.

But the topic that produced the most discussion was basically, "What do we do about students who seem intent on doing the least possible amount of work?" That included attendance problems for those on campus. 

There was some confusion, but the consensus was that the university had a rule or policy that instructors can only penalize for lack of attendance up to 10 percent of the final grade. This may be a campus myth or may be communicated in informal ways, but there is no clear university published policy that I can find. The department chair had no data to refer to but said that if your syllabus spells out attendance policies, you can do as you wish with grading. She said she would check with the higher ups and get back to everyone. And she might... just not yet.

It reminds me of the Metro State English department policy that is communicated to faculty that no more than a 10 percent penalty for even egregious grammar and spelling errors can be applied to any essay score. Again, I am not sure this is published or just "faculty expectations." That policy makes sense to me as many Metro students are English as a second language students, and many are what I might term "non-traditional" college students... often the first in their families to attend a university.

On the other hand, I can make a strong argument that an essay so riddled with errors as to become incomprehensible (and I had one of those this week) ends up being marked down mostly due to failure to make any clear argument. The errors might not be needed to provide a very low score for some essays. 

I often wonder how a dispute over this might be adjudicated. "May it please the Court, I deducted 3 percent for the student having a dozen misspelled words that Word or Google should have flagged..."

But back to the faculty meeting: there were a series of stories of individuals who have pushed the limits, missing up to 80 percent of classes, and one tale of a large lecture class that featured 8 in attendance, in a class with 86 enrolled, during a nasty weather day. Again, that seems possible, and if it's just a one-off, who cares? The professor proudly proclaimed that he had posted the lecture using the university's online video system and that he "knew" that 60 students had seen the class online since he uses some online quick quizzes to check for understanding. 

Interestingly, the people who speak up during these discussions rarely admit to being completely list as to how to get students to attend or participate. In fact, there are so many stories of successes that an observer in Highlands Ranch (like me) might begin to wonder if there really is a problem after all.

My sense, though, was that many in the room were having trouble not only with attendance, but with submitting assignments, meeting deadlines, and a general lack of engagement. 

In other words, college students are not much different from high school students in being less and less engaged in their learning and in education, generally. 

I read today that about 30 percent of Americans read at or below the expected reading level of a ten-year-old child. Think about that. College students are not in that group but the effects of phones and the pandemic have combined to create a huge population that doesn't read and sees no reason to do so.

After all, AI will take care of all that.

The end of the American era

Apparently, the entire 330 million American population plus the rest of the world, in varying degrees, are now at the whim of one old, tired, and angry man... a man who appears almost entirely divorced from reality and likely in some stage of dementia.

The Dow Jones is in free fall, dropping over 3400 points in two days. Other markets are just as bad. The reputation of the country among the 190 nations we share the planet with is shot, and it will likely take a decade to recover. And that supposes that we will eventually be rid of Trump and his cult.

At this point, who wants to bet his 401K on that?

A lot of Americans are outraged or puzzled or confused or just terrified. A significant percentage is blissfully unaware, and I envy them right now. Life goes on as most people know that they can't make much of a difference as individuals in anything the government is doing. 

There is frustration with elected Democrats and assorted rational leaders, but there is only one small group of people who can exert any meaningful pressure on the Fearless Leader: Republican senators and representatives. 

Anyone want to bet the aforementioned 401K on that happening?

It's a strange feeling, sitting in my comfortable home, watching Opening Day for the Rockies on TV and going about my day of judging and critiquing and grading... while the economy is tanking and the secret police are spiriting college students off the street and congress pushes for tax breaks for the fabulously wealthy. 

The world is metaphorically on fire and I just sit and type. 

I read that the tariffs were calculated using AI and that they are based on all sorts of erroneous assumptions. Trump has lied for his entire life but his latest lies are now producing enormous problems that are difficult to even wrap our heads around. 

Big law firms, big universities, and big journalism are all cowering in fear of Trump and his Cult Army, but no matter what you do to appease a bully, there will always be more demands. 

The only good news, from my perspective, is that true change doesn't happen until things get REALLY bad. 

Maybe we are approaching that point. 

Yay!