Student Experience
Student Experience – Personal Statements 2016: Escaping the Token Student Experience
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Tom’s Comments:
Yes, you as students have the most to lose under the current one size fits all paradigm and the most to gain under a revised 21st century learning paradigm.
Traditional education and traditional educators like the status quo. It works well for them, even though it doesn’t work for students.
You would assume that purely due to long term job preservation motives traditional educators would understand, embrace and implement 21st century deep learning methodologies as well as research proven, best practices pedagogy. Not only are they not fearful for their jobs and not proactively engaging proven student centric paradigms, they are for the most part oblivious to the student success initiatives out there. Go Figure…
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Student Experience – Writing prompt:Â University of Chicago alumna and renowned author/critic Susan Sontag said, “The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.” We all have heard serious questions, absurd questions, and seriously absurd questions, some of which cannot be answered without obliterating the very question. Destroy a question with your answer. (University of Chicago)
Over the past year, Iâve taken my first halting steps into the Higher Education conversation. As a student, Iâm either a token of âthe student experienceâ or an audience member at a gathering run by educators for educators. In their conversations about digital tech, progressive pedagogy, and the inevitable lack of funding, one educator will ask another, âHow might we reimagine Higher Education in the digital age?â
Weâre asking this question with the wrong group of people present. I canât help but imagine what the answer would look like if the mainstream student body, given power over the national conversation, joined with these progressive pedagogues to reimagine Higher Education. Gathering together as educators is potentially ignoring the most involved group of stakeholders. Reflecting on this year, we, the students, are asking who has the power to reimagine higher education.
In my experience, there seem to be two generalizable conversations in higher education. On the one hand, you have the mainstream, student-driven conversation around issues of identity, privilege, and social justice: racial, sexual, economic, environmental, etc. It is primarily critical and reactionary. On the other hand, you have the more niche, faculty-driven conversations around issues of progressive or regressive pedagogy, active/passive educating and digital teaching/learning. Students protest cultural spaces. Educators reimagine intellectual spaces.
As we students propose new structures for cultural spaces, we need to be present for the recreation of these intellectual spaces.
Student Experience –Â Read the entire article, here
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