How Ideas about Intelligence and College Impact Academic Success

Michael Valdez

How Ideas about Intelligence and College Impact Academic Success There is a complete misunderstanding of education by college students in modern times.

Students perceive their papers as a means to an end. Learning is the ability to absorb information from the experts and reproduce the same information on a test, project, or assignment. With this kind of notion, students become very reluctant when it comes to any form of productive and active engagement, which is likely to distract them from the ultimate goal and lose their personal motivation. The topic under consideration, in this case, is the college fear factor, i.e., how students and professors tend to misunderstand each other and the manner in which fear has made the students become disengaged learners. Instructors have failed to align their strategies with students, and each entity is pulling in a different direction, thus frustrating/instilling among the students while at the same time compromising the academic standards.

Buy this excellently written paper or order a fresh one from acemyhomework.com

1

Michael Valdez

2

st

The education goals in the 21 century have tremendously shifted. There is more emphasis on transferable skills such as creative thinking, innovation, team working, and universal citizens' production, among other skills. However, this does not appear to be happening in colleges.

Initially, the teaching approach was majorly teacher-centered, and the learning was, therefore, privileged to those who understood the system and were more familiar with the academic st

culture. This is something that was supposed to be phased out in 21 -century learning. Despite the efforts directed towards this in first-world countries such as the U.S., they are yet to realize st

educational goals in the 21 century. Even the teachers themselves are yet to understand what st

"student" means in the 21 century, as they have become a more complicated entity Rabecca D. Cox in the book "The college fear fact," refers to a student’s experience after joining the community college." Despite the many reasons for Eva to feel at least relatively confident about her ability to succeed, she felt a sense of alarm when she was introduced to the objectives and structure of her first-semester English class: "That first day, when the professor said that it's going to be an essay after an essay, I was scared"(20). This is a student who had just come and was determined to excel. However, the way the student was introduced to the first class made her lose confidence and even doubt her ability. The professor was not aware that he was instilling fear by saying that it was going to be essay after essay. However, that was the ultimate result. The communication had a negative impact on the student, which did not come to the professor's attention.

Students now feel like failures or incompetent, which has put the faculty in a dilemma about whether they should lower standards or accept that most of their students will fail even the most basic courses. Students get to the extent of being helpless, and many of them fail multiple times. The counterproductive part of it is that there have been cases where students avoid both formal and informal assessments. Apart from the humiliation of failing the exams, the students fear being judged for not being college material or being good enough. Cox observes, “A third fear management strategy consisted simply of avoiding any formal assessment. Every

Michael Valdez

3

assessment-related activity posed the risk of exposing to others (both professors and peers) what students already suspected: their overall unfitness for college.” (35-36). The students are concerned about how they will be perceived if it becomes apparent that they were not fit for college in the first place. This instills fear. The students cannot stand the feeling of their peers perceiving them negatively. They are also not certain on how their professors will react when they fail. The only option at their disposal is therefore avoiding exams. There was once a point in time in school when the end of semester exam results would be put on the notice board for everyone to see. For instance, in the movie ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (1986), I can understand how this could be of anyone's lowest moments in life because all the student population in that school not only could see their individual grade, but everyone's as well. If any student had any shortcomings in a subject or class per se, then it was in visual indication for anyone and everyone to notice. Putting ones' shame on the noticeboard could be one thing that I could predict would make anyone want to drop out of class or even school due to their individualbased embarrassment from a public visual announcement.

The high stakes and graded assignments are considered to be summative assignments. If an assessment is deemed summative, there is the likelihood that the fearful students will avoid the risk of being exposed as unworthy of being a college student. This has implications because the faculty should consider low-stakes formative assessments that give students ungraded feedback, thus providing an opportunity for revision and ensuring that they coach them towards improvement.

Ideally, there is a mismatch between the intentions of the instructors and the expectations of the students. For instance, instructors hold an assumption that a student who raises his/her hand or takes the initiative in some way is likely to be a successful student. These could be the students whose fears were guiding them not to ask the question, avoid the instructors, or not take the initiative. Another mismatch exists because the students come to class thinking that the

Michael Valdez

4

instructor's role is to provide information. In contrast, the students think that their role is to jot the information down, and they will have to record it for later use of assignments or exams. As such, the perception that the instructors have that is theoretical is wholly lost on students.

The classroom experience within itself instills fear among the students. In most cases, students are unprepared and unwilling to engage in classroom discussions, reading, or even peer review writings. Cox documented the response from one of the students “I’m taking aren't these totally, like-I don't know the word-more like a waste of time…."(30). There is a likelihood that the students will not find some of the activities exciting for them, and they may even deem them less relevant. This is just an attitude, which in most cases is not right; I remember the many times I expressed my frustrations with any work in class that I deemed irrelevant or disconnected from my grades. There is a gap between teaching and learning, which can be attributed to failure to adjust speaking, acting, and thinking habits.

The students in a college also tend to be afraid to take the next step. Students sometimes flood in a classroom and look bored unintentionally, and the instructor is likely to consider that as a lack of care. However, they may just be hiding, hoping that they can survive, or are utterly terrified. Some instructors will go to the extent of instilling fear. Such instructors cannot reassure the students that they can pass the course. Such instructors fail to understand that anything that crumples a student's confidence and causes him/her to leave the class and the college.

In conclusion, fear in colleges is real, and there are various causes attributed to it. There is a misunderstanding gap between the students and the instructors. The students are at the receiving end as they end up dropping out or failing exams. As such, it suffices to say that instructors have failed to align their strategies with students, and each entity is pulling in a different direction, thus frustrating/instilling among the students, while at the same time compromising the academic standards. There is a need for faculty to realize that it is necessary

Michael Valdez

5

for them to analyze and develop their teaching capabilities to accommodate students better while not compromising the standards.

Michael Valdez

Work Cited Cox, Rebecca D. The College Fear Factor. Harvard University Press, 2009.

6