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Thriving in Academe

Many students have good reasons not to take reading assignments seriously—and some just can't afford to.

Students have a lot going on these days: part-time and even full-time jobs, “real lives” with family and household responsibilities, homework for multiple courses, community service commitments, and physical fitness routines—not to mention less noble activities like parties, football games, hobbies, “obligatory” television programs, Internet entertainment, and other forms of fun. Who has time for reading assignments?

Besides, as students reason, not doing the readings has no consequences. The next test is weeks away, and what good will the readings do anyway? They didn’t do them in high school and still got good enough grades to get this far. Certainly, skipping the readings in college won’t hurt their chances of landing that lucrative first job they aspire to and expect. Bottom line: The professor will lecture the Reader’s Digest version of the chapters during the next class anyway.

With little practice in “book learning,” it’s not surprising that few students are proficient in reading academic material. Most read passively, superficially, and rather slowly, averaging 100-250 words per minute, depending on the technical density of the text.

At this speed, reading 50 500-word pages would take students from 100 minutes to over four hours. Of course, these estimates assume that they can focus their attention on the text for so long. But many can’t focus for even five minutes, so they give up after a few pages.

What can faculty do to help students and push them to finish their reading?

Meet Linda B. Nilson
Linda B. Nilson is founding director of Clemson University’s Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation (OTEI). Before coming to Clemson, she directed teaching centers at Vanderbilt University and the University of California–Riverside and was on the sociology faculty at UCLA. She is the author of Teaching at Its Best (2nd edition, Anker, 2003) and The Graphic Syllabus and the Outcomes Map (Jossey-Bass, 2007), as well as many articles and book chapters. She also co-edited Enhancing Learning with Laptops in the Classroom (Jossey-Bass, 2005) and volumes 25 and 26 of To Improve the Academy. She presents teaching-related workshops and sessions at universities and conferences nationally and internationally. She can be reached at nilson@clemson.edu.

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