Even Top Students May Not Be College-Ready

In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Elaine Tuttle Hansen (Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth) recalls what a math professor said about his students: “They have the grades and the test scores to be here. What they don’t have is a deep understanding of why the techniques they’ve been taught work, the actual underlying mathematical relationships.” Hansen says these worries apply to high-performing as well as marginal students. Here are three things she believes we need to add to the conversation about college readiness:

• Challenge high-performing students. One young man who coasted through elementary and secondary school and the first two years of college said, “By the time I found academic work that challenged me, … I realized my work ethic and study skills were atrocious, in large part, I believe, because I had never been forced to use them. I would like to know the person I would have become had I been engaged as a young learner.” 

• Assuming precocious students “will be fine” hurts everyone. “Our attitudes and practices send a loud and depressing message about how little we value academic achievement,” says Hansen. “Moreover, many of the techniques that work with the brightest students can help reach students at a wide range of ability and developmental levels.”

• College teachers need to take responsibility. College readiness is not just elementary and secondary teachers’ problem, she says. To reach a more diverse group of students, most of whom are “digital natives,” college classroom techniques and materials need to change. “Educators at all levels should work together to develop programs and courses that support all students in reaching their potential, including advanced learners who need to challenge themselves beyond easy A’s.” 

“Top Students, Too, Aren’t Always Ready for College” by Elaine Tuttle Hansen in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mar. 15, 2013 (Vol. LIX, #27, p. A33), 

http://chronicle.com/article/Top-Students-Too-Arent/137821/ 

From the Marshall Memo #477