Making The Most of College

Introduction

Richard J. Light's Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds is based on over 1600 interviews with college students, along with interviews and discussions with faculty and other staff. The book is based on two research questions: "First, what choices can students themselves make to get the most out of college? Second, what are effective ways for faculty and campus leaders to translate good intentions into practice?"

The book has a number of strengths:

It is very readable.
It is wide-ranging, focusing not only on topics such as what makes an effective class, but also on student advising, extracurricular activities, etc.
It provides practical advice.
It contains advice not only for teachers (and advisors, administrators, etc.), but also for students themselves.
As the title indicates, the book is based on student interviews, and often contains lengthy, illuminative quotes from students.

This document focuses on three items from the book that might be useful in some TA work:

"One Minute Papers"
Advice About Writing
Miscellaneous Observations About Teaching and Learning

Part 1: The One Minute Paper

We asked faculty and students what single change would most improve their current teaching and learning. Two ideas from both faculty members and students swamped all others. One is the importance of enhancing students' awareness of "the big picture," or "the big point of it all," and not just the details of a particular topic. The second is the importance of helpful and regular feedback from students so a professor can make midcourse corrections.

This quote, which starts a section in a chapter "The Most Effective Classes," brings up two important challenges: First, what's the key point or key points? How do all the details — and any worthwhile university-level course consists primarily of details — fit together to form a coherent whole, the "big picture?" How do we as teachers help students understand the big picture? And what can students do themselves to understand the big picture? Second, how do we know what they know? That is, how do we as teachers know what students have learned and what they are struggling with? Note the most useful times for us to know is not once the semester ends and we have final exam and/or course evaluation data. It is not even after during-the-semester exams. Instead we'd like to know frequently so we can help students learn, and they can illustrate that learning, in all course activities.

Light then presents a simple technique called the "one minute paper": The idea is to conclude the regular class lecture or discussion a minute or two before the end of class time. Then ask each student to take out a sheet of paper and write down, anonymously, brief answers to two questions:

What is the big point, the main point, that you learned in class today?
What is the main unanswered question you leave class with today? What is the "muddiest" point?

Students then hand in their answers on the way out of class, or submit them electronically.

There are a number of variants of this technique: sometimes it is called a "two minute paper" or even a "five minute paper;" sometimes it includes additional questions (for example, one question I often use is "what was the most surprising or unexpected thing you learned today?"); sometimes similar questions can be used as part of between class activities (for example, when I have quizzes on readings I often include the "muddiest point" question). The one minute paper, while not applicable to all classes, is a popular pedagogical technique. You might have done it in classes you have taken, or in other training.

According to the book, "Some experienced professors comment that it [the one minute paper activity] is the best example of high payoff for a tiny investment that they have seen in years of teaching." Why is it so effective? Light identifies four reasons:

Knowing that they will need to write at the end of class prompts students to listen better during class.
It helps professors identify when students need extra help. And it can help students self-identify when they are struggling.
As the class progresses students improve in their ability to write key points and to identify gaps in their understanding.
It assures students they are indeed learning important ideas in the course.

When might you find this technique useful as a TA? After all, this technique is most useful for a course's lecture sessions. Nonetheless, here are a few possibilities:

if you are presenting material during a recitation;
if you are guest-lecturing;
if you are leading a review session where you are presenting material;
if you are constructing an informal quiz.

You can probably think of others as well.

Moreover, this technique is not restricted to the end of class. For example, suppose you are leading a recitation or review session but don't have any specific material to cover other than whatever questions students have. At the start of class you can ask students to do a one minute paper over recent topics, then take a minute or two to quickly read through some responses, then use the recitation or review to respond to the most prevalent questions.

If you do a one minute paper, what do you do with the responses? Many professors will include some time in their next lecture to address muddy points from the previous lecture. However, this might not work for a once-in-a-week recitation, or a one-time review session. However, there are other ways to use the response data. Here are a few:

If there is a very muddy point (most of your group mentions it), then alert the professor. It might be useful for them to explain the point further in lecture.
You can write a summary to post to the class web page. I've often done this for classes I've taught, especially when we're concluding a major topic. I'll include examples of big points students have identified (it is useful for students to see what other students have noted), as well as responses to some of the questions. Often the question responses are short explanations, example problems and solutions, or links to additional relevant resources. I usually keep such a write-up reasonably short, both so it does not take overmuch time, and so it focuses on the most common questions.
You can post some muddy questions to a forum and invite students who understand the points well to explain them.
You can use the muddy points as a basis for later review sessions or postings.

Questions

Here are two questions to think about on your own, or to discuss with your peers:

What is one key point from this part?
What is one question you still have about one minute papers?

Part 2: Student Comments on Writing

Of all skills students said they want to strengthen, writing is mentioned three times more than any other. Most know they will be asked to write an enormous amount at college. Most expect this to continue after they graduate. When asked how they work on their writing, students who improve the most describe an intense process. They work with a professor, or a writing teacher, or a small study group of fellow students who meet regularly to critique one another's writing. The longer this work-related engagement lasts, the greater the improvement.

The results in Richard J. Light's book Making the Most of College are based on interviews he and his research associates did with Harvard undergraduates from a variety of majors. Not all of his findings hold true for computer science and engineering undergraduates at the University of Minnesota. For example, many of our majors do not see writing as important, and do not expect to write a large amount after they graduate. (At the same time, one point employers who hire our students make is they want students with better "soft skills," such as communication skills and group work skills.) However, many writing-related observations in Light's book are applicable to our program. This part will highlight a few such results, discussing how they are relevant.

Writing plays a larger role in Light's book than one might expect. In fact, one of his nine majors findings that he lists in the book's introduction is “I was surprised by students' strong attitude towards writing. I would have guessed that they value good writing, but I didn't realize how deeply many of them care about it, or how strongly they hunger for specific suggestions about how to improve it.” He then has a substantial section "Courses that Emphasizes Writing" and "How to Improve Students' Writing" in his chapter "The Most Effective Classes."

What results in that section are most relevant to our program? Here are three:

Writing in the discipline. Senior interviewees reported that writing instruction was most helpful when it is "organized around a substantial discipline." This result echoes what writing studies researchers have found, and why our department is participating in the University's Writing Enriched Curriculum program: an essential part of writing instruction is teaching students how professionals in their field write. This is not something that students can learn in a first year English composition class. Rather it needs to involve writing instruction and assignments, particularly in junior and senior computer science classes.
Students writing for other students: A number of students mentioned the value of writing not only for the course professor or TAs, but also writing for other students. This has a number of benefits: knowing that their work will be seen by their peers motivates students to do a better job; students are more attentive to their audience's background; and reading others' writing gives students exposure to a wider range of approaches, styles, etc.
Feedback strategies. Students who improved their writing significantly had a number of tips for other students. These included asking for clarification of repeated feedback comments from instructors, asking about different revision strategies, and getting help from others.

The final suggestion in this last item, getting help from others, was particularly useful for many students. "Some schedule extra conferences with their teachers to discuss their ideas or their drafts. Others go to a campus writing center, friends, classmates, or roommates for comments." Light related a compelling story about one student who mentioned her hesitancy to get feedback to a friend who wrote for the Harvard campus paper: ‘The friend told her that, at the newspaper, editors criticize one another's writing ruthlessly. Relentlessly. For many students, this tough but constructive criticism is a high point of working for the Crimson. The friend suggested that the woman enlist several other friends to serve as a writers' consulting group. She did it. She and three others began to meet whenever any of them had a substantial writing assignment and wanted to discuss it. The group had only two rules. First, the person who wanted feedback on a paper had to have at least a second draft. Second, the other three students were not allowed to do any word-by-word editing and fixing. ... The woman called this group her “turning point." She said it was by far her most time-consuming obligation at college, yet of all her activities it was the most valuable. …’

Even if these observations are not applicable to the course you are TAing this semester, they are good to keep in mind for situations where writing plays a prominent educational role.

Part 3: Miscellaneous Observations About Teaching and Learning

Richard J. Light's Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds covers a variety of topics. This part presents a few odds and ends that might be useful and/or interesting. Page numbers here are from the 2001 paperback version of the book.

On extracurricular activities (p. 26):
‘The big finding is that significant commitment to one or two activities outside of classes — for as much as twenty hours per week — has no relationship to grades. But such commitments do have a strong relation to overall satisfaction with college life. More involvement is highly correlated with higher satisfaction.’

On students having academic problems (p. 35):
‘One symptom, a warning flag, is that the student feels a sense of isolation from the rest of the college community. ... they deal with low grades by going from classroom to dorm room, closing the door, and studying, studying, and studying some more, nearly always alone. ... The second symptom is unwillingness to seek help.’

More about reasons for academic problems (pp. 36-37):
‘The single biggest trouble with time for most students who struggle is their pattern of studying in short bursts. Instead of spending sustained periods of time engaging with their coursework, they squeeze in twenty-five minutes between two classes. They stop by the library to read for thirty minutes on the way home from dinner. …’

On the importance of study groups (pp. 51-52):
‘We learned that how students study ... outside of class is a far stronger predictor of engagement and learning than particular details of their instructor's teaching style. Specifically, those students who study outside of class in small groups ... benefit enormously’.

On the importance of student-student and student-faculty interaction in science classes (p. 75):
‘One suggestion was brought up by more students than any other: substantive work in the sciences should be structured to involve more interaction with other students and with faculty members. Many students perceive serious work in the sciences as impersonal. In contrast, they think of classes in humanities and social sciences as "dealing with people — their real-life dilemmas, their joys, their tragedies, their conundrums," as one woman who switched from chemistry to anthropology put it.

‘When I mentioned this point to faculty colleagues in the sciences, one responded, "But physics and chemistry and biology [and, of course, computer science and engineering] are beautiful and rich and deep too — just in a different way." I know this. And some students know it too. But unless professors make a conscious effort to share their conception of this beauty, they will continue to lose some students. And the most promising way to share such perceptions, according to students who have chosen to work in the sciences, is to build small teams so students interact more.’

On good academic advising (p. 88):
‘They [a group of highly successful students] say that at key points in their college years, an academic advisor asked questions, or posed a challenge, that forced them to think about the relationship of their academic work to their personal lives.’

On making a connection between course material and students' lives (p. 110):
‘The faculty members who had an especially big impact are those who helped students make a connection between a serious curriculum, on the one hand, and students' personal lives, values, and experiences, on the other.’

On teaching students to think like professionals (p. 117):
‘The professors students remember most are those who go beyond such [basic] principles, and are able to convey to students "how physicists think" or "how psychologists think." Undergraduates contrast this ideal with the other end of a continuum — class in which, say, a psychology professor conveys information in a lecture: "Freud's contribution to psychology is ... . And Skinner helped to create and formalize behavioral psychology, which means ... ." ...

‘The sharing of basic information is valuable. Information is important. Students want some of it. They do not argue that classes should be devoid of it. Yet graduating seniors report that if they could do it again they would seek out more classes in which a professor asks questions, or poses problems, that help a student "learn to think like a psychologist." [or like a computer scientist or engineer]

‘An empirical finding supports the value of this approach to teaching: a student's choice of what field to major in is driven more by this than by any other single factor.’

On interdisciplinary classes (p. 126):
‘Many seniors pointed out interdisciplinary classes as the courses that meant most to them’.