#resistant learners

(Photo courtesy of https://thesocietypages.org/sociologysource/2011/07/05/student-resistance-paralysis-and-rage/)

As a new auxiliary instructor, I cannot say that I have much experience with resistant students in my kitchen lab or classroom.  So far, most of the classes that I have taught have been in the middle to later units in the course, so the students in my class have chosen to be there because they are interested in baking and pastries and wish to graduate with their baking diplomas. For a Red Seal trade like baking, there is normally a waiting list to enter the program, so everyone that enrolls and registers at VCC has paid tuition and paid for their tools and textbooks. So, it could be fair to say that most of the students are invested in the course.

Despite this financial investment, sometimes there are students that decide to leave the program after a month or two because the course didn’t meet their expectations or they did not match well with the type of work that is involved, or they were not doing well academically with the weekly homework assignments and quizzes. Therefore, it’s possible they were not fully emotionally or cognitively invested in this course as they thought they would be. For others, they may be resistant learners because they are not keeping up with the reading of assigned material in their textbooks or they question why they must understand the science behind baking and all its extensive terminology when all they want to do is bake bread or decorate cakes. As I have not yet had the chance to instruct any of the beginning levels of the program, I have not encountered students that are resistant learners, thus, I feel ill-informed to provide a proper opinion on this topic is not pure speculation and guesswork.

(Photo courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/groups/507231329632837/)

The only frame of reference that I have to this topic would be my time at UBC as a student where I was taking a 3rd year biochemistry class. I barely managed to pass this course because I ended up skipping classes due to the boring lecture style my professor would inflict upon us.  It didn’t help that he was basically reading notes from the textbook off of his overhead projector. Also, I would have to sprint across campus from my English class, and barely make it to the lecture on time, just to sit in the back of a 300-seat lecture hall and not disturb anyone. I believe that I would have classified myself as a resistant learner in that specific class because that was my worst learning experience ever. It’s a miracle that I passed the exams! When I think back on that class now, I can laugh about it, but from an educational point of view, there was nothing funny nor skillful about that professor and sadly, I don’t think he really cared about being an engaging teacher either.

(Photo courtesy of https://dailyillini.com/opinions-stories/2016/01/31/lecture-hall-etiquette-101/)

For some further reading or listening, I found this great podcast called Truth for Teachers and the host speaks with Dr. Robyn Jackson about barriers to motivation (instructional, institutional, interpersonal, internal) and the need to have students believe that classrooms are worth investing in.