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When I started teaching Vectorworks in the UK, I noticed that while the students understood that learning and practicing Vectorworks was important, they could not find the time to practice. It was as if they knew it was important, buy they could not make it a priority.
When I asked the students, they would say “yes, I know this is a great skill to learn and I know that it will make me more money in the future, but I have these other assignments due…” Several students had similar things to say.
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The following year I asked the Institute if we could assign an exercise to the course that carry marks towards their final grade. The Institute was happy to do this, because that also noticed that the students were not putting in enough effort to learn Vectorworks. The results were instant. Suddenly the students wanted to pay attention, they attended all the classes, and they thought really are about the exercise they had to submit.
At first I thought that it may have been my teaching style, but that did not change from one year to the next. It could not have been the course notes, they were the same. It was definitely the introduction of the marked exercise. But why should the exercise work so well.
Later on, I noticed that students in NZ were the same. If there was a test, or an assignment, they would learn, if not, then my courses were not important to the students. I spoke to a lecture in USA that taught landscaping, he had the same experiences as I had. So it’s not the country, not the tutor, not the course notes, it’s not how the training is explained, it has to be the students. I personally think it is to do with the maturity of the students, and something I read by Stephen R Covey.
Dr covey has written several books about time management, personal productivity, and goal setting. One of the famous books is called “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. This was I book I have known about for many years, and I have now read it several times. Another great book is “First Things First“, and it is this book that I think has the answer to the student problem.
First Things First is about setting your direction, then helping you to make sure that everything you do is working towards these. To help, Covey has designed a better way of looking at priorities. Traditional priorities are:
The problem with this method is that it does not differentiate between important and urgent. There are some things that need to be done right now, they are the urgent things. An example of that is an assignment for a student, they know it has to done by the deadline.
There are some things that are are important but not urgent. For example, getting regular exercise. It is important, but not urgent, so it often gets put off. Learning to use Vectorworks is another example, it is important, but not urgent for most users.
Dr. Covey created a matix with quadrants, see this article…
The first quadrant is for things that are urgent and important. Examples of this are some phone calls, a fire in the kitchen, crying baby, and assignments. If you are in the construction industry, then you might have a lot of things in this quadrant to do with buildings on site.
The second quadrant is for things that are important but not urgent. If you work on these things, the don’t become urgent. Examples include exercise, planning, time with family, continuing education, and learning Vectorworks. This quadrant deserves most of your time because these things are important, and if you work on them now, they will not become urgent.
The third quadrant is for urgent things that are not important. Interruptions, distractions and the like. You have to deal with these, and you can’t plan for them.
The fouth quadrant is for things that are neither important nor urgent. Time wasters, games, tv, etc.
So, how did this help me? When I look at students I notice that they recognize Quadrant 1 issues. They can regcognise Quadrant 3 and 4 issues. But they can’t understand Quadrant 2. How can something be important if it is not urgent. I believe that they confuse urgent and important, and they see the two words as interchangeable.
Adding an assignment to my Vectorworks training has helped students to put the learning into Quadrant 1, therefore they do it.
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What an enlightenment!! I have wondered why so many times while teaching a concept never seemed to get into the “heads” of my “students”. I’m not a professional educator so the idea of grading someone I was teaching VW to never occurred to me. While I needed to know they learned something from my teaching it would be best for me to have a metric to measure what they learned and how well they learned it. That way I know they truly would receive value from my lessons.
Thanks again Jon