If your student did a GB study through high school, how did they do once in college?

[Quiver0f10]

if they are not in a liberal arts/humanities type program, how did they transition to typical text book college courses? I guess I need to rewrite this? I am thining if you did a GB type study all through high school and then you have say a science major who is now doing lots of text books, how did they manage the change?

Edited April 19, 2009 by Quiver0f10

[Annie Laurie]

bump.

[sagira]

What a great question, Quiver :lurk5:

[Quiver0f10]

bump

[Nan in Mass]

I might be able to answer your question. Maybe. We worked on learning how to learn out of a textbook and learning how to answer textbook questions, which are very weird from the perspective of homeschooled/great books students. We did it with one or two science textboks, and then used CC as a transition. It remains to be seen whether my children can do regular college. I'll let you know at the end of next year GRIN. Mine will mostly be taking technical/science/math classes, I think. I'm dashing off today, but I'll answer more fully later if you think our experience would be helpful. I'm not sure if that is exactly what you are asking, though.

-Nan

[Quiver0f10]

I might be able to answer your question. Maybe. We worked on learning how to learn out of a textbook and learning how to answer textbook questions, which are very weird from the perspective of homeschooled/great books students. We did it with one or two science textboks, and then used CC as a transition. It remains to be seen whether my children can do regular college. I'll let you know at the end of next year GRIN. Mine will mostly be taking technical/science/math classes, I think. I'm dashing off today, but I'll answer more fully later if you think our experience would be helpful. I'm not sure if that is exactly what you are asking, though.

-Nan

 

This is exactly what I meant and had in mind. Thank you!

[Jane in NC]

We use Great Books for history/literature/philosophy, but text books for math,science and foreign language, as well as the Spielvogel spine. Like Nan, I can only offer comment on the CC experience at this point since my son is still a high school student participating in concurrent enrollment.

 

My son has done extremely well in his Western Civ course which is less reliant on text books than lectures. Yes, the students read their text and articles that the instructor posts online. But most of their grade is determined by essay exams which incorporate material from lectures and the reading. Success in a course like this is directly dependent upon a student's abillity to take notes. (I recommend someting like notetaking while watching Teaching Company lessons as good prep for college.)

 

As a high school junior, my son has taken two college science courses, General Chemistry I and Intro to Microbiology. Part of his transition into chemistry last fall was the transition away from textbook exercises to Internet work. All of their homework was on the Internet using Chem Skill Builder software. He also took some of his tests online with Blackboard software. Having used Conceptual Physics and Campbell's Biology at home, the text and lab manuals for his CC sciences courses proved to be more of the same.

 

His Expository Writing course has been his biggest challenge at the CC, but this is in part because his instructor is tough and my son has been a semi-reluctant writer. Ds purposely chose the instructor to raise the bar for himself. The class uses a writing text (The St. Martin's Guide to Writing) and a book of essays (Sticks and Stones). I think there is a third book as well but I can't remember it offhand. Anyway, this writing text is probably not all that different from some that people on this board use at home for their high school students. (Word of caution to parents of reluctant or semi-reluctant writers: help your students prepare for future deadlines. They often need to turn around a first or second draft for resubmission quickly. Procrastination is not one's friend.)

 

I will say that a Great Books foundation has provided my son with clear thinking skills, a good vocabulary, and a general knowledge base. There should be more to college than reading a text book. The Great Books provide a springboard to participation in the Great Conversation which we hope our college students find whether they are working in the humanities or the sciences.

 

Best,

Jane

[Quiver0f10]

Thank you, Jane!

[Tokyomarie]

We use Great Books for history/literature/philosophy, but text books for math,science and foreign language, as well as the Spielvogel spine.

 

My older daughter did have textbooks when she attended international school in 8th & 9th grade. For her last three years at home, we, too, used a mostly GB approach for the humanities and traditional textbooks for math, science, and Latin.

 

Excellent reading comprehension and excellent writing skills is what carried dd through her college years. Learning to take good notes was probably one of the areas where she had a learning curve when she got to college, but she has good listening skills, so I don't think that took much time to learn.

[NCMom]

Mine is only at a CC (though I am praying he will transfer to the state U) but he only used 1 year of IEW, a few grammar workbooks, 2 science texts for reference and of course completed some math texts. Everything else was living books stuff and/or actual teaching or independent learning. He had never used a history, foreign language or social science text as written but had read a few on his own. ;)

 

He has had zero problems, even in English and Math, his least favorite subjects.

 

hth,

Georgia

[Quiver0f10]

Thanks ladies. I am encouraged.

[Karen in CO]

Jean, I think one of the advantages of a GB type study is that the student becomes comfortable with searching for information in multiple sources. I think this give them an advantage over kids who are only used to learning from textbooks. Don't skimp on the required writing. I feel like I spent most of my ds's t high school years researching good essay and discussion questions - and then feeling hopeless about it and just talking through the books for a few months then back to feverishly looking for great essay questions again.

 

My ds is finishing up his last final tomorrow for his first full semester away. He hasn't had any real problem with his classes so far. We had a discussion last week about a friend of his who is freaking out in his Western Heritage class (and failing) because he had to read the Epic of Gilgamesh, parts of the Illiad, whole books of the Bible, a book by Frued, plus additional books and had papers and essays requiring him to prove arguments about ideas drawn from several books. I think a GB highschool education will serve a child well, textbooks are easy compared to real books.

 

One word of caution, my ds had terrible trouble paying attention in math class of all places. He was always allowed to just work through his work, especially in math. he went to the classes, but had to learn some coping skills to pay attention to a less-than-engaging teacher teaching a subject he didn't like. Homework and attendance were optional. All the grades came from two tests. It is situations like those that seem to trip up most students and especially seem to catch homeschoolers.

[Tabrett]

When I was in college, we didn't use text books very much. Mostly lecture and required reading; essay type exams. Most classes used the text book more for enrichment and not as the spine of their class, if they used it at all.

[Nan in Mass]

Keep in mind that my son was a late bloomer, and as a family, we aren't particularly interested in in-depth literary analysis. It became obvious early in high school science that my son had trouble answering textbook questions. He had had skills-based textbooks previously, but not ones that required that the student answer questions based on the reading. I had my sons together in science and they are a stage in age apart, so the younger one began textbook science at the beginning of the logic stage. Academics come more easily to him and he caught on faster, but even he had no idea how to do it. At first, they didn't even know that the questions were supposed to be answered using the material in the book; they assumed they were supposed to be giving new information. After all, the answer was right there; why would you need to repeat it? (You can imagine their confusion and my panic until we got that straightened out GRIN.) The older one's science (MODG Natural History Syllabus) required that he draw conclusions from a chapter of a book, something that he had to learn to do. He learned at the same time that he was learning to do this in literature. He did eventually catch-on, but it wasn't easy at first. We worked orally so I could help him. I think he would have been better at this if I hadn't spent his logic stage trying to undo some of the damage of K-4 public school. The younger one's questions could be answered by finding the right paragraph in the chapter and spitting it back out or applying the information to get the answer. My older one learned to do that the next year when we did Conceptual Physics. Both of them had to learn about the assumptions behind the questions. We don't even notice these because we grew up with this style of question, but they are there. It is particularly difficult to answer true/false or multiple-choice questions. I complained about this to someone in the admissions/testing office of our community college and she said that this is a common problem for students who did their lower schooling in a different country, too. This is that cultural bias that people complain about on the SATs. Last year, the older one took CC composition. This class was like a high school English class. He got a 4.0 and said it was easy. Apparently, he was the only person to volunteer for the reading aloud and he added in his normal summaries and comments as he went along, just like we do at home. This year, he is taking intro chem and pre-calc. It is a struggle, but that is mostly because of the memorizing involved and learning to balance which class and which information on which to focus at any particular time. He is having to memorize large amounts of organic compounds. He is figuring it out. Taking notes from a lecture was a non-issue even though he hadn't practised it beforehand. He occasionally talks about how one prof's lectures are easier to do this from than another's, and how he is getting better at it, but he could do it well enough for CC classes from the beginning. I'm glad we did CC classes because he needed it as a transition between home learning and classroom learning. My assessment is that great books certainly didn't hurt him at all, and probably helped him. Practice doing some sort of textbook was necessary, but science worked fine for that. I'm glad he is having great books. The more global skills involved with that were important and would have been hard to teach using textbooks.

HTH

-Nan

[Leanna Tomlinson]

My dd is finishing her freshman year at a university. She completed "World Views of the Western World" by David Quine in high school, so she was very much used to the "great books" format and lots of discussion. Her major is English/history with a minor in editing and publishing. She has done very well in her classes and has gotten an "A" on most written assignments, but she did have to learn how to study for tests. It was frustrating for her to answer multiple choice questions when she was used to writing essay questions for most classes. She got a few "C's" on tests before she figured out how to study for them. She has been able to maintain a 3.7, so those few grades did not affect her too much. OTOH- many of her suite-mates knew how to ace a test, but have had to turn to her for help with writing. :)

HTH,

Leanna

[Quiver0f10]

Thank you all for sharing your insight and experiences. I recently read A Thomas Jefferson Education and this is what got me thinking about after high school.

[Mommyfaithe]

MIne did Great Books study through High School...

DD#! Graduated Summa Cum Laude...# 7 in her class of over 700 students from Sage College in Albany, NY BA Graphic Design...she has been working in her field since before graduation...she is smart...articulate and that is needed in the Advertising field.

 

DD # 2 is uin her 2cnd yeay of CC...so far straight A's...she is a swim coach/ teacher...and is thinking of becoming a Pediatrician.

 

DS graduates this year and is going into Alternative Energy engineering....he had a Great Books education along with lots on hands on training working with Dh as a plumber/ HVAC tech. i hope his backround in the field makes him desirable to the one school in NY that offers this degree. He also took some business classes this semester and so far looks like he is falling right into step with CC classes.

 

I intend to continue Great Books with all of my children.

 

HTH

Faithe