Why Are Academic Papers So Hard to Read Bullshit
Higher ED TEACHING STRATEGIES FROM MAGNA PUBLICATIONS
- Education and Learning
Why It'southward And so Hard to Go Students to Read the Textbook, and What Happens When They Do
- Nov thirteen, 2009
- Tracey Eastward. Ryan
"Do we really need to buy the textbook? It's so expensive!"
"Can't you just summarize information technology for us?"
"Would y'all merely tell us what parts volition be on the exam?"
"It was so long and then wearisome. I couldn't go through it!"
Quotes like these indicate that many of our students want u.s.a. to help them with the hard work of extracting difficult fabric and new vocabulary from their textbooks. They may use the term "dull," but what they really mean is difficult and time consuming. In turn, nosotros sometimes fall into the trap of summarizing the textbook in our lectures and PowerPoint presentations.
In my experience teaching psychology at the university and community college level, I accept been flattered by student praise for "making the concepts seem easy." Recently, however, I am finding myself troubled by the tendency of making it seem easy for students. I accept been reminding myself and my students that there are important reasons why they should practise the difficult piece of work of reading the textbook on their own.
Here are merely a few conclusions I've made regarding the challenges and importance of getting students to read the textbook.
- Many of our students are poor readers. They ofttimes don't know how to excerpt key information from the textbook, even when the textbook is "user friendly" and written at a lower reading level than a standard college text. I discovered this by asking my novice students to read out loud in class. If you've never done this, I recommend that you attempt it.
- Near of our novice students know niggling about the structure of their textbook, how the chapters are organized, and how each section is painstakingly validated with current inquiry. Most don't preview and browse the text before reading, as expert readers normally practise.
- When students grapple with the text before class what happens during class makes much more sense. Such prior preparation results in students having a deeper understanding of fundamental concepts and makes it easier for them to integrate those concepts into their own lives.
- They learn the difference between informed and uninformed discussion. When students take read the material before class, discussions in class are richer and more than fun, not merely for the teacher merely for the students besides.
- Coming to grade prepared and with some groundwork knowledge transforms students from passive to active learners. They stop doing stenography and kickoff doing the kind of disquisitional thinking that promotes learning.
For these reasons, it is worth the effort information technology takes to go students to come to class having done the reading!
Excerpted from What Textbook Reading Teaches Students, The Teaching Professor, April 2008.
Tracey E. Ryan is a professor at the University of Bridgeport, CT.
Source: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/why-its-so-hard-to-get-students-to-read-the-textbook-and-what-happens-when-they-do/
This Post Has 5 Comments
Santiago 2 Feb 2013
Newer textbooks are only filled with the same thing that older textbooks already have. I think its complete bullshit how expensive they are. Its all almost the coin, and most of them add a bunch of unnecessary information only to brand the book seem "professional". Nearly all college students don't care, they only desire to pass the class. All these full general didactics classes are a waste of time, just to supply more careers for professors and to brand more than money for universities. Honestly, do colleges really believe that students are going to remember at least xx% of what they learned in general education classes. I can almost guarantee college students forget virtually 90% of everything they "learned" in all general ed classes.
tiare 26 January 2014
we are in the 21st century and yes students demand to know how to read merely when you are in high schoolhouse like me y'all just get assigned pages to read and write notes on it. so are y'all telling me instead of people making it easier and saying what parts are more important, teachers are going to spend mounds of coin on textbooks for usa to read when teachers know that textbooks are way to long and boring and could be simplified another mode. student do not desire to read textbooks because they are not interesting and therefore they wont read. teachers always think if you raise the points on the reading that students would really do them. me personally wouldn't read because it is to hard to stay in my room for 2 hours doing notes that could take been simplified by the instructor creating those power points.
Jerry ODell 5 Aug 2014
I taught statistics for 31 years, and the answer is elementary. If you dont read page 1, you lot won't understand page 2.
This sequence goes on until you are completely lost by page v (unless yous get a really meaningless book) —
say in that location'southward a skilful idea. Write books with no significant , and you'll make a fortune.
The sad part is simply that some people tin can't sympathise math. Or won't do any work.
I had to deal with this problem for 31 years. The assistants loves the money, tho jwo
Mom knows best 10 Jan 2015
bmj seven Sep 2014
I accept a different view — they are boring because they are just plain badly written. Many use a poor, overly wordy writing fashion, yep especially statistics textbooks, that take simple concepts and hid them backside barricades of obscure writing. This is an case from my daughters textbook tonight (and what brought me to this site):
"In this way the quantitative content defenseless in the dot production formalism comes from the analogical multiplication that arises by projecting one vector onto some other."
What the heck does that even mean? OK, I know because I've been a practicing physicist for 30 years, but I knew before reading that judgement. But if I were a student reading that passage, I'd want to throw the book into the lake and run screaming into the dark.
Comments are airtight.