So, I've been talking with many about what I could do to help my poor students succeed in my courses. I'm at the point that I want broad feedback, so this post invites all to offer suggestions for how to improve my courses.
[Addition] You can leave a comment, or use the hashtag #fixmycourse on Twitter with your suggestions.
Before you click on "Leave a reply" to offer a suggestion, please read both what I already do and what I can't do.
Things I already do:
- Highlight resources at Normandale poor students might use, such as our food shelf.
- Keep food and toiletries in my office for any student who needs a snack or mess kit.
- Maintain a small lending library of textbooks for short loans, free of charge.
- Put copies of all books I use on reserve in the library.
- Use only free software or websites when assigning digital history work.
Things I can't do:
- Offer students any significant resources (snacks I can manage, paying for tuition I can't).
- Offer poor students options that differ from the rest of the class. For example, poor students can't get extra time to work on projects.
- Lower academic standards.
- Restructure the institution at which I work or the funding received from the state. I can structure my class: that's it. I don't get to hire, fire, build, fund, or defund.
What I'm looking for are endings to the following statements from poor students:
I wish my professor would have done X, that would have allowed me to succeed in this course.
I wish I had known X about college or this course before I started.
All of the things I do already were suggested by students. In keeping with Freire's notion that any good pedagogy should be with its students, I'm emailing as many of my former students as possible. Comments will be moderated, but I will post all that aren't spam or vulgar.
Give me your best ideas. If I ever write up anything beyond this blog, I'll credit everyone who posts with their legal names. One student in Spring 2013 gave me one idea about loaner textbooks and that idea directly helped a student pass my course this semester.
