Education As A Journey, Not Simply A Means To An End
By: FIINA SHIMANENI-VATUVA
IT IS 07h10 and there are already many students on the Polytechnic of Namibia’s campus.
On the surface, the institution seems abuzz with activity. Students are shuffling from one class to the other, some are outside hanging out with friends, first-years are lost, not knowing where the classes are and some are in lecture rooms daydreaming about the moment their classes will end. This ‘buzz’ may be deceiving. It implies that students are awake and active in their learning. Well, in my opinion, they are often not. These are the students who are physically awake, but disengaged from the learning process, their institution and opportunities around them. How often do I mention a service/support that the institution offers to my students in class, and I get a look that says “what are you talking about”?
It is not necessarily their fault: education is marketed as a means to an end with little emphasis on the journey to get there. In my opinion, these students are unaware that they are sleepwalking as they shuffle from one class to the next.
They come to class every day, take notes and do all the required assessments and that is it. They are uninvolved in any other aspects of the university life. They are disengaged, not only with their learning process, but with the faculty, services and the support around them.
Through my teaching experiences, I have noted that students do not generally go beyond what is expected of them. So, what can institutions of higher learning do to wake them from their sleep?
Student engagement can be used as an alarm clock to wake up the sleepwalking students. Student engagement refers to the time and effort students devote to activities that are linked to desired outcomes of university and what institutions do to encourage students to participate in these activities (Kuh, 2009). Research has shown that students who are committed to their own learning have a tendency to actively participate in life-long learning opportunities after graduation, based on their experiences while at university. Active learning requires more from students than just attending classes, doing assignments and working on assigned projects. Students are required to develop high-order thinking skills to be able to analyse, to synthesise and to evaluate raw information acquired from lecture rooms.
There has been a public outcry for accountability within the higher education system. We have often been blamed for producing graduates who are not ready to meet the challenges of the today’s working environment. It is worth noting that institutions of higher learning have been facing many challenges, which may force them to compromise on paying attention to student engagement.
Some of these challenges are high enrolment pressure, insufficient budget from the government, inability to attract faculty staff, and emerging new technologies. Regardless of those challenges, I feel that institutions are doing well by going beyond solely enabling people to gain entry into the university to providing students with realistic opportunities to earn a four-year degree. Institutions relate teaching and learning to the wider world and maintain constant dialogue between academics and business industry. They have support and services to help academically unprepared students.
But perhaps what needs more attention is for teaching staff to actively seek and create the conditions that can foster learning, show the students the skills they need in order to succeed by clearly and systematically demonstrating these skills themselves.
Lecturers are key players in fostering student engagement. They work directly with students and can be influential in students’ educational experience. What happens in the classroom, the quality of teaching that sparks engaged student learning, is critical.
When we are familiar with how people learn, including pedagogies that have an impact on student success, we become more effective and confident teachers. However, quite often we do not have time to engage fully with students, but have to prepare for classes and finish the curriculum. Institutions spend massive resources in never-ending improvement in curricula while the real payoff comes from how we ask students to learn.
For learning to be transformational, we must train our teaching academic staff how to teach. When efforts such as these are put in, academics will be able to create a culture of achievement, develop interactive and relevant lessons and activities and will be supportive to students.
Until then, students will be sleepwalking around campuses with their eyes wide open, but psychologically absent from their studies.
*Fiina Shimaneni-Vatuva is a human resource management lecturer at the Polytechnic Namibia