Tag Archives: Poverty

Should sites about poverty be well-designed?

A reading day.

A recent report on developmental education in MN that has a bit of data on poverty.

Also, these videos that address interventions faculty use to help first-generation students at Heritage University in Washington.

And I'm bouncing around an ancient site, Communication Across Barriers, that has wonderful information hidden behind a 10-year old site design and slow server.

Just starting to think about the info from these sources, but right now I'm contemplating website design and poverty. To the extent that people take web design as a proxy for intelligence, seriousness, credibility, or resource abundance (of the organization) to what degree do old or ill-designed website shape the reception of the information contained in them? Communication Across Barriers is a great example: smart people posting valuable resources, but the site looks largely as it may have in 2007 when it was copyrighted.

(Oh, I just used the waybackmachine of the Internet Archive: I was right, exact same site design).

A silly and petty thing to notice, really, but I've been thinking about how design and data visualizations shapes our reception of information and perception of its importance.

Safe home.

It can’t wait for a sabbatical. . .

When I tell folks what I'm doing this summer, they say, you should wait for a sabbatical to do that. But my students are drowning, and I don't know if I can save them, but I can give them a fighting shot at swimming to safety on their own if I go now. It can't wait. This is my blog about how to build a better (world history) course. I write in the hopes that others will see my work, help me, and perhaps consider how to help poor students succeed in their courses. And, if I write my thoughts down, maybe they'll be better thoughts than when they're tangled up in my head.

This is not a blog about feelings or inspiration: I have both, as do you, but we don't need better feelings or more inspiration, we need better tools to teach our students.

I'm increasingly distressed at the failure of my poor students. These folks can be train wrecks as students. They often come from un-supportive homes, have uneven or limited access to technology, they are ignorant of college as an institution and ignorant of how to navigate institutions in general. I can see their failure and I know it's historically rooted. Responses to poverty tend to be condescending (poor dears) or systematic (let's create a scholarship fund), neither of which I find useful.

After years of teaching poor students at four and two-year schools, I started asking colleagues: "If I could do one thing to help poor students succeed in my classroom, what would that be?" Most folks suggested additional resources (buy them tablets, pay for college), which I can't do. Others suggested pointing out resources my college already has, which is sound, but insufficient. You see, most students drive to college, walk to the classroom, finish the class, and drive to work or home. Car- class - car.Continue reading "It can’t wait for a sabbatical. . ."