prepping high school seniors for college

[kaysixteen]

So I guess I will revisit this old Chronicle thread of mine-- what do you all think hss should do in terms of properly prepping their seniors for college?   I have some ideas, of course, but I will wait to see who else posts what else, before blathering on...

[dismalist]

Not all high schoolers need be prepared for college. And not everyone needs to go to high school.

High schools should be short and substitutable.

[Vkw10]

Other than teaching them to write an essay, to question what they read, and to approach equations with variables confidently? I'd like them to introduce the concept of taking responsibility for their own learning by (1) reading the syllabus, (2) managing their time, (3) asking for help, and, (4) being ready to explain what they've already tried when asking for help. But if they know the 3Rs, I can coach them through taking responsibility for their own learning.

[ergative]

Vkw10 describes two types of knowledge, as I see it. The first is content-specific: how to write an essay; how to approach equations with variables; how to read for understanding.

The other is logistical: How to read a syllabus; how to manage time; how to take notes; what to expect when asking for help (not extra credit, unlimited extensions and make-up work, spoon-feeding, but genuine guidance on a path that requires them to do the actual thinking work.

The problem is that much of secondary education sacrifices the latter in an effort to focus on the former. And I'm not sure that it's always the wrong decision: Especially in early high school, students do need to know how to write an essay and how to deal with equations, and sometimes that does require spoon-feeding, extensions, or other extra guidance that doesn't assume the sort of independent work we expect from our students. They are different types of students: younger, less experienced, and genuinely in need of more guidance.

But because they learn the content-specific information when they are younger, they also imprint on the teaching methodology that they encounter as they are learning that information, and so unthinkingly form expectations about college that will set them up to fail.

So I don't think preparing students for college can be completed by teaching specific discrete skills. It requires also integrating a shift in logistical knowledge in the latter half of high school. This means instituting more constraints on things like extensions, more expectations of independent responsibility, less extra credit, less spoon feeding. And that's difficult, both because the culture of the school as applied to freshmen and sophomores will make such constraints seem arbitrary and mean, and also because emphasis on success in standardized tests and graduation rates are going to limit teachers' abilities to enforce such structures.

[marshwiggle]

Not all high schoolers need be prepared for college. And not everyone needs to go to high school.

High schools should be short and substitutable.

Absolutely. Getting students to deeply examine why they're even considering post-secondary education would be a good first step.

So I don't think preparing students for college can be completed by teaching specific discrete skills. It requires also integrating a shift in logistical knowledge in the latter half of high school. This means instituting more constraints on things like extensions, more expectations of independent responsibility, less extra credit, less spoon feeding. And that's difficult, both because the culture of the school as applied to freshmen and sophomores will make such constraints seem arbitrary and mean, and also because emphasis on success in standardized tests and graduation rates are going to limit teachers' abilities to enforce such structures.

There's the unspeakable reality. As a society, we have decided that

• Virtually everyone should get a "high school education".
• Everyone should get a "high school education" by the time they are about 18 or 19 years old.
• Getting a "high school education" should adequately prepare anyone for whatever post-secondary path they choose.

This is a bit like the design mantra applied to many fields. (I've specifically heard it for software development.)
You want it done

• quckly
• cheaply
• well

Pick two.

For the three points regarding education,

• If you stop requiring it to be basically universal, you can keep the standards high enough to make it worthwhile.
• If you stop requiring it to be accomplished in a fixed amount of time, students can take as long as they need to master the material and skills.
• If you make the generic part much shorter, (as dismalist implies), then you can stream students so they can focus on what each one will need for the path they choose.(This requires students to decide earl on, probably by 13 or 14 years old, about what path they want to follow post high school.)

If society could accept one of those 3 choices, high school education could be significantly more successful.

[Puget]

At my selective university, students are generally pretty well prepared academically. However, they have often been so aggressively managed (helicoptered/snowplowed) by adults that they lack some basic self-management skills-- time management, keeping track of deadlines without reminders, being proactive in seeking help rather than waiting passively for it to be offered, etc. I teach a non-credit course that focuses on these skills, and a lot of stuff that is obvious to you and me is really not at all obvious to them.

They also need to understand that (a) there are wrong answers, (b) when they give one in class we have to correct it or everyone learns the wrong thing-- this does not constitute us being "mean" or "disrespectful" of them, (c) they have to risk being wrong to learn anything. I've started explicitly talking about this at the beginning of the semester.

I think all of this has been compounded the last two years as they got used to lots of "flexibility" -- real enforced deadlines and real grading come as a shock to some of them.

[marshwiggle]

They also need to understand that (a) there are wrong answers, (b) when they give one in class we have to correct it or everyone learns the wrong thing-- this does not constitute us being "mean" or "disrespectful" of them, (c) they have to risk being wrong to learn anything. I've started explicitly talking about this at the beginning of the semester.

Honest question: How much is this complicated by them being raised with the concept of "your truth"? Are they able and willing to admit that there are actually areas where there is objective truth that is true whether they believe it or not? And do they have a framework for determining what those areas are?

[ergative]

They also need to understand that (a) there are wrong answers, (b) when they give one in class we have to correct it or everyone learns the wrong thing-- this does not constitute us being "mean" or "disrespectful" of them, (c) they have to risk being wrong to learn anything. I've started explicitly talking about this at the beginning of the semester.

Honest question: How much is this complicated by them being raised with the concept of "your truth"? Are they able and willing to admit that there are actually areas where there is objective truth that is true whether they believe it or not? And do they have a framework for determining what those areas are?

Very little, I'd say. We're equally likely to complain about students who are convinced that the 'right answer' must necessarily be something oversimplified or wrong, because that's what they learned in kindergarten. That complaint itself serves as evidence that students are perfectly comfortable with the idea of right vs. wrong. I think they're perhaps shakier on figuring which are the domains that have objective facts and which domains are squishier and depend as much on style and argumentation and the careful use of textual evidence as on 'correctness'. But, to be fair, that's a difficult thing to learn.

[Puget]

They also need to understand that (a) there are wrong answers, (b) when they give one in class we have to correct it or everyone learns the wrong thing-- this does not constitute us being "mean" or "disrespectful" of them, (c) they have to risk being wrong to learn anything. I've started explicitly talking about this at the beginning of the semester.

Honest question: How much is this complicated by them being raised with the concept of "your truth"? Are they able and willing to admit that there are actually areas where there is objective truth that is true whether they believe it or not? And do they have a framework for determining what those areas are?

Very little, I'd say. We're equally likely to complain about students who are convinced that the 'right answer' must necessarily be something oversimplified or wrong, because that's what they learned in kindergarten. That complaint itself serves as evidence that students are perfectly comfortable with the idea of right vs. wrong. I think they're perhaps shakier on figuring which are the domains that have objective facts and which domains are squishier and depend as much on style and argumentation and the careful use of textual evidence as on 'correctness'. But, to be fair, that's a difficult thing to learn.

Yeah, in the sciences they definitely accept that there are facts. They just don't like being told they are wrong, especially in front of their peers. Who does? But they need to understand that wrong answers can't go uncorrected in class, and I also can't spend a lot of time padding telling them the answer is wrong with layers of praise for effort.

I think the fundamental problem for a lot of high-achieving students is they have based a lot of their identity around always doing well, so being wrong or getting anything less than an A is a crisis. It's something I think we really need to find ways to change the culture around.

[Istiblennius]

What I would love to see all students emerge from High School with:

Academics:
Production of clear and concise written communication through an iterative revision process
Reading for meaning and understanding within a context
Quantitative literacy - using and solving simple algebraic equations to find an unknown, using probabilities, understanding and interpreting graphs, unit conversions.
Basic scientific literacy - using an evidence-based approach to understand the world
Basic civics - how your federal, state and local government works and how and why you should engage with it.
Computing skills - use of online platforms to communicate and share information, information literacy, basic cybersecurity, programming and familiarity with common programming languages

Life skills:
Treat others like you want to be treated
Your experience is not universally representative of everyone's experience
How to fail forward - learning from mistakes
Consequences exist and they usually result from your choices (time management, for example)

[marshwiggle]

What I would love to see all students emerge from High School with:

I think we can probably achieve that with the top 20% or so of students.

[ergative]

programming and familiarity with common programming languages

That's a lot to ask from a high schooler. We can't even get most of them to hold a conversation in Spanish. And you want multiple programming languages? (I think it would be great, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's as important as the other skills you list.)

I like the life skills list, though. I'd add something like, 'How not to be a chump'. E.g., how marketing and advertising work, what scams look like, and so on, combined with financial literacy--not 'how to invest in the stock market' but 'how not to get fleeced by an intro APR'. Bunch of 18-year-olds on orientation day have to run the gauntlet of Visa and Mastercard student-account booths.

[Istiblennius]

@Ergative, Fair point- my list is aspirational. I kind of feel like programming is the new "typing" and/or "home economics" of my high school days - basic life skills that help you be more flexible and potentially increase your productivity if you are familiar with them. Even if they only learn one language maybe the key is to focus on the iterative process of troubleshooting and debugging.

FWIW I have no idea how to program anything and it is definitely holding me back in life now. So is not being able to speak Spanish. Those are definitely two learning goals I have for myself.

[the_geneticist]

At my selective university, students are generally pretty well prepared academically. However, they have often been so aggressively managed (helicoptered/snowplowed) by adults that they lack some basic self-management skills-- time management, keeping track of deadlines without reminders, being proactive in seeking help rather than waiting passively for it to be offered, etc. I teach a non-credit course that focuses on these skills, and a lot of stuff that is obvious to you and me is really not at all obvious to them.

They also need to understand that (a) there are wrong answers, (b) when they give one in class we have to correct it or everyone learns the wrong thing-- this does not constitute us being "mean" or "disrespectful" of them, (c) they have to risk being wrong to learn anything. I've started explicitly talking about this at the beginning of the semester.

I think all of this has been compounded the last two years as they got used to lots of "flexibility" -- real enforced deadlines and real grading come as a shock to some of them.

My place is not as academically selective so we don't have as many hyper-protected students as the place up the freeway.  But the current cohort with 2 years on online/remote high school are more shocked than usual about firm deadlines & due dates.  And that we grade for correctness, not just "effort".

[Anon1787]

What I would love to see all students emerge from High School with:

Academics:
Production of clear and concise written communication through an iterative revision process
Reading for meaning and understanding within a context
Quantitative literacy - using and solving simple algebraic equations to find an unknown, using probabilities, understanding and interpreting graphs, unit conversions.
Basic scientific literacy - using an evidence-based approach to understand the world
Basic civics - how your federal, state and local government works and how and why you should engage with it.
Computing skills - use of online platforms to communicate and share information, information literacy, basic cybersecurity, programming and familiarity with common programming languages

Life skills:
Treat others like you want to be treated
Your experience is not universally representative of everyone's experience
How to fail forward - learning from mistakes
Consequences exist and they usually result from your choices (time management, for example)

One area that my high school math education didn't spend much time on was statistics. I ended up taking a statistics course at a local community college. I think that basic statistics should be part of general education.