re: #114 freetoken

I guess the question I have is whether your students are coming in unprepared because of creationism, or if they just didn’t have a good high school education in general.

What’s the biggest problem you are finding? I.e., language (English), math (quantitative thinking), general science knowledge, mental discipline?

I encountered it primarily in Bio 101 that all students are required to take. There isn’t much math involved there - my bio statistics classes hammered everyone but that was an advanced majors class - so I can’t speak to that. Mental discipline is always an issue for freshmen. LOL It was certainly an increasing lack of general science understanding, even something so basic as cellular structure or phylum organization or simple AaBb genetics. When I started teaching that used to be one of my favorite courses to teach since I could pull all of their past science education together and watch the lights snap on in their heads as they started to see the connections and get excited. Without those basics I felt like I was constantly trying to fill in the pot holes in a dirt road. The only other area I heard similar complaints from other profs was English and especially literature.