Ed. Tech Talk Reflection

Ed Tech Talk:Teachers Teaching Teachers 247 

High School-College Transition and the “Framework for Success in Post-secondary Writing” 5.18.11

Okay, so while there was definitely a lot to take away from this conversation- it was nice to have a multifaceted perspective on the high school to college transition regarding the necessary framework for post secondary writing success- I found the lack of structure and organization of the talk frustrating to say the least. I suppose there is something to be said for actually participating in the conversation, but listening to it and trying to glean valuable information after the fact was just downright boring. The conversation started out strong, with contributions on the habits of the mind and the psychological underpinnings of student success by the head of the writing center at the University of Minnesota, but then the conversation meandered away from the topic at hand with mildly relevant contributions from several students followed by convoluted contributions by various educators trying to get back on track. I get the importance of high school student contributions to the conversation- how else are we to determine what strategies would work best for them?- but if they want talks like these to be of benefit to the general public and their intended audience, something needs to be done in terms of structure.

Very basically the talk went over the difficulty in transitioning from the structure and content oriented nature of high school writing classes to that of self discipline and structural aspects necessary for college writing success. College student Jake, a music major in Chicago, provided insight into the major differences he observed as a new college student. For him the primary issue was fine-tuning his time management skills. The educators in the discussion, however, cited the lack of education on essay structure as one of the greatest issues they encounter with first year college students. All in all the information allowed me to gain a better understanding of topics to address in my 9th-12th grade English classes, but the discussion could have been condensed to fifteen or twenty minutes and I think we'd all be better for it.