Older Adjunct/Relating to Students

[Caracal]

To be honest, perusal is the sort of word that I don't usually use in academic writing, never mind in an email. It's just a slightly antiquated word.

i don't see anything in either dictionary.com or merriamwebster about it being archaic. That's part of what I'm ruminating about here. Words fall out of fashion, certainly. How does that happen? Are teachers unwittingly decreasing our knowledge of words by trying to blend in with younger folks on campus?

I think technically archaic means a word or a sense of a word that is no longer used in contemporary writing or speech. Peruse obviously doesn't meet that standard, but it is a word that was used more in the past. Words go out of fashion all the time. That's just how language works. Eventually some of those words  fall entirely out of use. Others hang around but fall out of normal speech. If on your way to class, a student bumps into you on a skateboard, you aren't going to shout after him "be careful you knave!" It doesn't mean language is being dumbed down.

[smallcleanrat]

To be honest, perusal is the sort of word that I don't usually use in academic writing, never mind in an email. It's just a slightly antiquated word.

i don't see anything in either dictionary.com or merriamwebster about it being archaic. That's part of what I'm ruminating about here. Words fall out of fashion, certainly. How does that happen? Are teachers unwittingly decreasing our knowledge of words by trying to blend in with younger folks on campus?

I think technically archaic means a word or a sense of a word that is no longer used in contemporary writing or speech. Peruse obviously doesn't meet that standard, but it is a word that was used more in the past. Words go out of fashion all the time. That's just how language works. Eventually some of those words  fall entirely out of use. Others hang around but fall out of normal speech. If on your way to class, a student bumps into you on a skateboard, you aren't going to shout after him "be careful you knave!" It doesn't mean language is being dumbed down.

Field-specific nomenclature also changes over time, New terms are coined, some catching on others not. Some terms fall into disuse. This might or might not mean the field is poorer for it. It really depends on the specifics.

If people in mahagonny's field are regularly chucking any expectations for students to learn the field-specific terminology, that does seem strange. Without knowing specifics, it's hard to know what this does to the student's ability to develop their understanding of the field and to communicate professonally.



If it's just a matter of 'richness', you may very well be contributing to expanding your students verbal horizons by expressing yourself as you will. If a prof had sent me recommended reading with the phrase "for your perusal," I would have thought it added character. But, of course, that's going to depend on the student.

Context will matter a lot when it comes to whether or not use of such words comes across as 'snobby.'

[mahagonny]

If it's just a matter of 'richness', you may very well be contributing to expanding your students verbal horizons by expressing yourself as you will. If a prof had sent me recommended reading with the phrase "for your perusal," I would have thought it added character. But, of course, that's going to depend on the student.

Of course you would have reacted, as a student, as I did, positively. But you were well above average, not typical.

Words are never for ornateness, only clarity, I was taught. But the more words you know the more thinking you have, probably.

Part of it is identity crisis I guess. How to make getting older an attraction to students or at least not a liability. The USA is very youth-oriented. Why they sell toupees.

I suspect people who have a guaranteed workload (full-time contract) may forget that for some your popularity contest is not just a side issue. It can affect your income. Being the anonymous adjunct who can always get work as long as he's not a problem is not the situation here. We part-timers are not second class educators that the tenured community would just as soon hide. There's no tenure and we are hired not just for basic competency but ability to attract students. It's probably time for me to put more time into publishing and self-promoting.
No one has it as tough as me...;-)

[jerseyjay]

I find that I have an annoying habit, when I am trying to make a point, saying it twice in two different ways. I can only think that I developed this habit (which is annoying to me, I have no idea if it is annoying to anybody else) because when I am teaching, I have a tendency to say something, and then rephrase it and say it again. This is because I am never sure if when I say something in the classroom, students have understood (or even heard) it the first time, so I repeat myself using slightly different words. I am curious if anybody else does this.

I bring this up because it is common that my vocabulary is more advanced than my students. As Mahogany points out, this is almost inevitable when you have a middle aged PhD holder lecturing to a bunch of youngsters.  (Back in the day when I used to give more objective tests, my experience was that the difference between a "hard" and an "easy" question was often not the content material but the vocabulary of the question.)

Regarding the word "perusal": I am not sure I would call it archaic, but it is a word that doesn't really say much. In my writing, I would use "read" instead of "peruse" (based on Orwell's advice to use a short Germanic word instead of longer French word); or i would write, "read closely," "study," "skim," etc. "Peruse" has the effect of signaling that I know the fancy post-1066 word (Norman French, peruser: examine) without adding much nuance. (Nuance is also a French word, but I would want my students to know what it means, because it means something useful.) In fact, I find "peruse" confusing: does it mean to read carefully or to read superficially? Well, sort of both, which renders the word less useful. So I don't think that there is anything wrong in using "peruse," but I also think it is more a signifier of being middle-class than inherently useful.

[mahagonny]

I bring this up because it is common that my vocabulary is more advanced than my students. As Mahogany points out, this is almost inevitable when you have a middle aged PhD holder lecturing to a bunch of youngsters.  (Back in the day when I used to give more objective tests, my experience was that the difference between a "hard" and an "easy" question was often not the content material but the vocabulary of the question.)

You don't have be PhD for this to be true. All you to be is older and a little more well read.

I find that I have an annoying habit, when I am trying to make a point, saying it twice in two different ways. I can only think that I developed this habit (which is annoying to me, I have no idea if it is annoying to anybody else) because when I am teaching, I have a tendency to say something, and then rephrase it and say it again. This is because I am never sure if when I say something in the classroom, students have understood (or even heard) it the first time, so I repeat myself using slightly different words.

I understand why you do this. You could be working in the prison of no feedback. Better to know something wasn't understood now than to have to give low grades later.
Mid-lecture I will ask if there are any questions. Usually there are none. This is not reassuring. It means (pick one or more, but you're only guessing)

1. Some have questions but suspect that asking them will reveal they were not listening closely
2. Asian students in the classroom have been taught that asking questions is insolent as it suggests you are inarticulate
3. Students from another country with English as a second language are embarassed to ask for a repetition
4. My teaching style has become so bland it's not working
5. 'Unknown unknowns' (Donald Rumsfeld's term)
6. Everything's fine

The course I'm teaching is not part of a tracked sequence. The department runs a good share of its offerings more like a flea market. So you get a mix of levels.

[Ruralguy]

Many students just get used to making up for deficiencies later, rather than asking (only partially formed) questions in the moment.
Sometimes the chasm is great, but a couple of in class questions may just make it worse.

[mahagonny]

Many students just get used to making up for deficiencies later, rather than asking (only partially formed) questions in the moment.
Sometimes the chasm is great, but a couple of in class questions may just make it worse.

I can also see where that would be true, but we have our adjunct students evaluations of instructor performance so I think not explicitly welcoming questions makes us vulnerable. In this course we are not working from a textbook.

[mamselle]

I find that I have an annoying habit, when I am trying to make a point, saying it twice in two different ways. I can only think that I developed this habit (which is annoying to me, I have no idea if it is annoying to anybody else) because when I am teaching, I have a tendency to say something, and then rephrase it and say it again. This is because I am never sure if when I say something in the classroom, students have understood (or even heard) it the first time, so I repeat myself using slightly different words. I am curious if anybody else does this.

I bring this up because it is common that my vocabulary is more advanced than my students. As Mahogany points out, this is almost inevitable when you have a middle aged PhD holder lecturing to a bunch of youngsters.  (Back in the day when I used to give more objective tests, my experience was that the difference between a "hard" and an "easy" question was often not the content material but the vocabulary of the question.)

Regarding the word "perusal": I am not sure I would call it archaic, but it is a word that doesn't really say much. In my writing, I would use "read" instead of "peruse" (based on Orwell's advice to use a short Germanic word instead of longer French word); or i would write, "read closely," "study," "skim," etc. "Peruse" has the effect of signaling that I know the fancy post-1066 word (Norman French, peruser: examine) without adding much nuance. (Nuance is also a French word, but I would want my students to know what it means, because it means something useful.) In fact, I find "peruse" confusing: does it mean to read carefully or to read superficially? Well, sort of both, which renders the word less useful. So I don't think that there is anything wrong in using "peruse," but I also think it is more a signifier of being middle-class than inherently useful.

Not annoying, but good pedagogy.

"Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you've told them," is the standard I always heard.

Preface, body, summary, in written terms.

Rephrasing things in different ways also helps those who absorb information differently.

While I don't adhere to the old "learning styles" thing very rigorously, I have had students who didn't understand something until I drew a visual representation--Venn diagram, pie chart, graph, landscape vs. portrait sketch, etc.--on the board, because they absorb visual input more readily than verbal. Likewise, rephrasing in a 'language' the other person speaks may well be useful--as someone mentioned, several different kinds of code-switching happen for different students in different settings.

We all need to be able to communicate and understand visual and verbal as well as visceral input better, so becoming more fluent in those modes of expression behooves both instructors and students: no one form should leverage another.

M. 

[Puget]

Many students just get used to making up for deficiencies later, rather than asking (only partially formed) questions in the moment.
Sometimes the chasm is great, but a couple of in class questions may just make it worse.

I can also see where that would be true, but we have our adjunct students evaluations of instructor performance so I think not explicitly welcoming questions makes us vulnerable. In this course we are not working from a textbook.

If you're only asking "any questions?" half way through the lecture that's not really welcoming questions. You need to be checking in much more frequently than that, and really signaling that you *expect* them to have questions. Instead of "any questions?" try "what are your questions?". Then give them time to think of them, don't just plow on if there isn't an immediate response.

[Kron3007]

There is no need to use complicated wording when simple wording will suffice.  However, peruse is common language and I don't see any issue at all.  Even if they don't know the word, they should be able to figure it out based on context and look it up if that fails.

It is a sad state of affairs if you need to dumb down your writing that much in an academic setting.  This level of vocabulary should be fine in high school.

[Kron3007]

I am going to wager that you're probably at a community college, a for-profit university, or an otherwise non-selective institution.

At these types of institutions, mean student literacy rates tend to be much lower than what many professors were accustomed to from their alumni undergraduate and graduate institutions. Most all of us started out at selective institutions, and virtually all of us completed our graduate work at those types of institutions.

Open enrollment places are often much more like Grade 13.

So yeah, you'll start learning that there are a lot of "basic" vocabulary words that many of your students will not know. Likewise, there will be a lot "basic" math, science, history, (insert anything) that many students will not know. Most of us went through U.S. high schools' "college prep" or honors or AP programs. Similarly, most college students attending R2's or higher would have been through those programs. But the typical community college student? No, they probably were on a lower academic track at their high schools; one that was not intended or designed for college.

For incoming professors, it can be a surprising. But as PhD holders, we are masters of reading and writing. Given enough classroom observation and assessment analysis, we can adapt our lesson plans and assessments to make them more "readable" for our students. It just takes time.

I had grade 13, and it was quite challenging.  What the OP is describing is far below that...

[smallcleanrat]

There is no need to use complicated wording when simple wording will suffice.  However, peruse is common language and I don't see any issue at all.  Even if they don't know the word, they should be able to figure it out based on context and look it up if that fails.

It is a sad state of affairs if you need to dumb down your writing that much in an academic setting.  This level of vocabulary should be fine in high school.

But is this a 'need-to' situation? The original post makes it sound more like 'This is something I do. I wonder if it's a problem.'

[jerseyjay]

I should clarify that I find my habit annoying when I do it outside of pedagogical contexts, i.e., in conversations with my wife or friends. Nobody has complained to me, though.

I am still confused what the OP´s actual problem is. Are their students confused? And if so, is it because of the word peruse, or because they are confused with getting more readings emailed to them? If there is an article in the paper about a topic I am teaching, I usually post it on Blackboard with a note saying they might be interested and the students are not required to read it. I am not sure whether students know the word peruse--they should, but they should also read the daily newspaper, which they don´t--but even if they did, the word itself does not indicate what one should do with the reading. (¨Not assigned at this time¨ is unclear: does it mean students don´t need to read it now, but will need to read it later?)

In regards to Kron3007: the problem might not be the word itself, but that there is no context. Even if the OP replaced peruse with read, this still doesn´t let the students know how to read it. Read it for a quiz? Read it because it is interesting? That is, I am not sure the problem is peruse itself.

But I am not actually sure there is a problem, since the OP hasn´t said what their students did in response to his email.

[Caracal]

Many students just get used to making up for deficiencies later, rather than asking (only partially formed) questions in the moment.
Sometimes the chasm is great, but a couple of in class questions may just make it worse.

I can also see where that would be true, but we have our adjunct students evaluations of instructor performance so I think not explicitly welcoming questions makes us vulnerable. In this course we are not working from a textbook.

If you're only asking "any questions?" half way through the lecture that's not really welcoming questions. You need to be checking in much more frequently than that, and really signaling that you *expect* them to have questions. Instead of "any questions?" try "what are your questions?". Then give them time to think of them, don't just plow on if there isn't an immediate response.

It helps when you have more discussion in general. If you engage students regularly as you go and make it clear you like it when they have comments or questions, they are more likely to also raise their hands and tell you they aren't sure exactly what you mean.

[smallcleanrat]

[...]
(¨Not assigned at this time¨ is unclear: does it mean students don´t need to read it now, but will need to read it later?)
[...]

Yes, this part is far more confusing than the word 'peruse,' as this cannot be resolved with a dictionary.