I know universities vary...

[1Togo]

I am still thinking through high school for dd and reflecting on our oldest son's experiences at a local university. At least for the first two years, most of his courses were textbook courses, and his biggest hurdles were dealing with pacing, i.e. usually covering one textbook in 4.5 months, and volume; i.e. reading and notetaking in 5-6 textbooks at the same time. In addition, he had to memorize vast quantities of information from that notetaking as well as his lecture notes in order to take numerous tests; i.e. including cumulative finals. On top of all that, he was churning out papers for English and literature classes as well as short response papers in other classes. Btw, some profs tested just from their lectures, so ds only read the textbooks as filler. Other profs were clear that the tests came from their lectures and the textbook, and ds found he needed to takes notes and study the textbook material to nail the exams.

 

For his American lit class, he wrote several short papers plus a 5-6 page formal lit analysis paper, and he was reading 40-50 pages per night in an anthology. His prof expected the students to be able to discuss the short stories and poems in class and gave (or took away) participation points. Ds's final required a working knowledge of all stories and poems because there were short answer responses and quote identification.

 

Our son's first year at college was a struggle and stressful for all of us since he had to maintain a certain average to keep his scholarships. Quite frankly, I was surprised at the volume of work. It has been decades since I was in college, and my experience at what many people called the "hippie" university was different.

 

With that in mind, is this typical for most colleges, and if so, how many of you spend at least some your child's high school years prepping them for the pace by taking them through textbook courses at a half-year pace? In addition, what else do you do to prep your students? We have always used Cornell notetaking, which works for all our children, and our son's class notes were flawless. Also, he worked out a study system that pinpointed exactly how many times he needed to run through his notes to do well on tests. His only weakness that I can see was writing. He was not a strong and fast writer, which we both knew, so he needed help from the writing lab, me and paid tutors.

 

I love the idea of literature-based curriculum and want that to be a part of dd's plan, whether using SWB's idea or something packaged, but taking into account our son's experiences, I see a place for using textbook courses at a shortened pace instead of a "drop-a-day" with many subjects.

 

I look forward to input from others who walked the college-after-homeschool road.

 

Bonita

[memphispeg]

I think it really all depends on the college that they go to. My oldest daughter goes to a school with a seminar-style discussion class for her subjects, even math and science (she went to ps where it was all about multiple choice testing, ugh). I have no idea where my current student is headed. So, I am trying for courses that do the discussion/response paper thing and also the "here's the book...learn it" thing. I am trying to mix it up in some courses to keep things interesting. I think the writing stuff is most important. I am trying for daily short response activities and weekly/monthly projects that are a bit longer. DD is a Jr. so I will try some research papers in our 2nd semester. I think it is important to do lots of interaction with texts as they learn, problem sets, questions, etc. That way they can find how they learn the lit/humanities things the best.

[choirfarm]

Well, my classes had tons of reading but not necessarily from textbooks. I remember on semester I had a Shakespeare class where we covered at least 1 play a week sometimes two, another literature class where I had 5 or 3 or 4 novels and a huge anthology, and two history courses that had a spine and 3 or 4 novels each. I read constantly.

 

So, I am doing TOG with my boys which I think will get them ready for the volume of reading. Next year they may do AP government which will help them with textbook work, though they do science and math with a textbook. I started Teaching Company lectures and my oldest is learning notetaking right now. So after he finished those lessons, he will be required to take notes on all the lectures. I will be using the information from those lectures as well as from his readings to construct a test. I also make tests and big papers most of his grade now. No piddly daily work for the most part. I'm working on getting his writing up to snuff.

 

Christine

[Leanna Tomlinson]

I have tried to give my dc a rigorous high school education, and my first dd seemed to be well prepared for the volume of reading and level of work at her university. After her first semester, I started having my next two do more essays with a 1 day turn around. Prior to that, my dc had done timed writings and essay tests, OR essay questions where they had at least a week to think about and analyze the answer. I think they were too used to having all the time they needed. My second dd needed to learn that good enough is sometimes....good enough, and a decent essay can be written in a few hours. Every piece of writing doesn't have to be a masterpiece.

 

We use the Cornell notetaking method too. I think it works well. I have started notetaking with my kids at the Jr. High level. We use DVD lectures.

 

I also give cumulative finals in all of our science classes, and our Lit classes. My dd found she had cumulative finals in about half of her college classes. I think it's important to learn how to study for these in high school. I haven't tried doing a textbook at "double pace". You may be on to something there....

 

I was thankful I had stressed MLA format and dd was already familiar with that. She has had to switch to another format, so for my future students, I may introduce them to an additional format they are likely to encounter (i.e. - APA for my science geared kids).

 

One huge contributor to my dd's college success was managing a part time job her senior year in high school. Her jobs made it necessary to learn time management in a way that just doing school and housework had not. Her jobs were tutoring, teaching at a co-op, and childcare, so we were not having to deal with changing schedules, but she didn't have an entire week to leisurely approach her school work. She was gone 8 hours 2 days per week, and a third day she was gone for 5 hours. She had to get her work done in the evenings, on weekends, and in short blocks of time when the opportunity was there.

[1Togo]

Thanks, everyone. It seems that our son's college experience is comparable to others, so the work he did at home was good prep except for his weak writing. I will definitely add Teaching Company lectures and cumulative finals for subjects. We use BJU for science, but it does not have cumulative mid-terms and final. I may get their Test Bank product if we stay with BJU. Dd is out almost every afternoon for ballet, voice or violin. Plus, she has significant practice time for voice and violin. Even in junior high, she knows that she must stay focused and move through her work or she will be doing work in the evenings.

 

Btw, Leanna, what did you use for literature?

 

Bonita

[tearose]

Here's my perspective from having taught at a university:

1) I agree with getting your dc used to reading a lot. I had no problems assigning 50-75 pp per class (if some of the material was dense, I'd assign less). I expected students to be able to discuss the assigned reading in class, and I took note of who participated and who didn't.

 

2) Have two longer assignments due the same day once in a while so that your kids learn how to manage their time. My syllabus was as I set it--it wasn't really my problem if a student had a big exam in another class or another paper due on or near the same day as my paper due date.

 

3) Get used to writing longer papers without resorting to "filler". Seriously, we can all see through that--don't tell me about the author's life or give historical background if it doesn't answer the question. In the humanities, I considered 3-5 pp short. Teaching a freshman seminar, I might do 3-page papers, but then I would assign them almost every week.

 

4) Have your dc get used to writing drafts. So many students turn in papers finished at 3 am that day. Even if you only write one draft but set it aside for 24 hours, you will catch so many errors when you go back to it. Do you really want whoever is grading your paper to catch these errors instead?

 

5) This isn't something to teach them, but tell your dc that they should never email asking "Did I miss anything important in class today?" if they were absent. Well, I assume that none of your dc would do this, but it is something that drove me nuts (actually, I could probably write an extremely long post titled "how to avoid irritating your professor or TA" based on my experiences and those of my friends). I can't tell you how many times I just wanted to respond with a simple "YES" and leave it at that.

[Leanna Tomlinson]

Btw, Leanna, what did you use for literature?

 

Bonita

 

My eldest used Cornerstone with an outside teacher.

 

I am now teaching my other dc in a co-op class using TOG.

 

I like both programs, but chose TOG because of the resources available for the teacher.

[Kareni]

... I could probably write an extremely long post titled "how to avoid irritating your professor or TA" based on my experiences and those of my friends). I can't tell you how many times I just wanted to respond with a simple "YES" and leave it at that.

 

Your last comments brought to mind this piece from the Rate Your Students site. (The site is now sadly defunct but I found a cached copy of the article.) The piece is entitled: We'd Encourage Future Students to Read the Syllabus, or Maybe Just Take Another Class.

 

Warning: The link contains implied obscenity!

 

Regards,

Kareni

[tearose]

Your last comments brought to mind this piece from the Rate Your Students site. (The site is now sadly defunct but I found a cached copy of the article.) The piece is entitled: We'd Encourage Future Students to Read the Syllabus, or Maybe Just Take Another Class.

 

Warning: The link contains implied obscenity!

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

:lol:

 

But, seriously, I think it can make a difference. For students who are very borderline between two grades, one is more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt if the student has not already done a bunch of annoying things. Do you really want to send the message "I have so little respect for you and your class that I won't bother reading the syllabus"?

Edited August 13, 2010 by tearose
punctuation