The Hidden Curriculum: I Wish I Knew

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | MENTOR | July 29, 2018

I recently attended the 2018 Leadership Alliance National Symposium #LANS2018, and had the opportunity to mentor a few undergraduate students. This caused me to reflect over some of my own experiences, which first took me back to a lesson I taught previously.

It is the beginning of the school year, and I am teaching biology. The opening question projected on the board reads, “What is Life?” The students respond with all the obvious science answers, but I tell them they are all wrong. They begin to look around the room as if I were crazy. I go on to tell them, “life” is from B to D that means it is from Birth to Death. We all get the same 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes in a hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year; however, none of us knows how much time we have left. But, here is the real-world connection, what lies between B and D? It is “C.” So, what is “C”? It is a choice. Our life is a matter of choices. Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.

My experience in brief

I really had not the slightest clue what I wanted to do when I graduated from high school. My cousin was planning to pursue an academic and professional career in dentistry. The valedictorian was going on to practice and become an attorney. Meanwhile, everyone else seemed to have his or her luxurious plans set too. 

I recall a conversation with my uncle, who I always say gave me the worst piece of advice. He said, “Choose a career that suits the lifestyle you want to live.” Well, you say that to a young person who has come from very humble beginnings and was homeless, the first thought is then to choose a career that makes a lot of money. I was not athletic, so the only obvious answer was …I don’t know, I guess you better become a doctor.

Now, remind you I was homeless. In my senior year, I picked up a job at Cracker Barrel as a host, making only $6.50/hr. So aside from scholarships and grants, I had no real way to pay for school. I remember when I was applying, I did not even have the money to pay for the admission tests or application fees. I was given the money by a parent of one of the other students in the school with whom I had come in contact. Later, in the spring of my senior year, Dillard University came to my school to conduct onsite admissions and I was accepted.

I decided, I was going to major in Biology, but really was not sure if I had a true interest. Now, I was a teenager who had acne. Perhaps, I could work to become a dermatologist and cure everyone’s skin problems. This was definitely a misconceived notion. Nevertheless, the Natural Sciences Department at the university focused on grooming you to pursue a MD-PHD program. So, I felt like I really had to keep going despite my internal reservations.

I am told I have to participate in research programs in order to improve my academic resume. So, I applied and was accepted into a few programs, The Leadership Alliance being one of them. I was happy that I had a few choices, but The Leadership Alliance was my top choice because I submitted one application for three university sites. I do not recall which sites I requested, but I know University of Miami was my top pick. Who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to live in Miami with a stipend and minimal living expenses? I certainly wasn’t! Registration is now days away, I hop in my car and drive 12 hours from New Orleans, LA to Miami, FL. That summer was an enjoyable experience and a real eye opener for me. I had the opportunity to do biomedical research involving paralysis with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 

The following year, I finished at Dillard University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. Only thing is, I had a few ah ha moments after graduation and my original plans post undergrad had changed… So, I had to make some life choices and began to ask myself some tough questions. How can I leverage my life and academic experiences for the good of communities, inclusive of those traditionally marginalized, alongside the organizations that had helped to support me? 

I transitioned into education and applied to graduate school. Today, I fill the secondary to post-secondary, military, trade and industry pipelines, one mind at a time.

ORGANIZED NOTE-TAKING

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | April 6, 2017

Learning is a messy process, but as we all know, information is most useful when it is organized. Organizing content provides schema or scaffolded structures to aid the brain in understanding the content. The common denominator for all learning, however, is its active nature. This article will discuss guided Cornell notes, a strategy for note-taking I have used to help record information to be learned, revisit the information by working with the ideas, developing understanding, plus making sense of the information, before synthesizing and applying the information into a product.

            Lecture in the classroom is continuous, day in and day out, class after class, students are constantly taking in information and updating their knowledge base. Many students take notes to help them look back at what was presented in lectures and build on this information for subsequent gains in recall and comprehension. However, I have found that many students often have difficulties taking notes during lectures and studying. The problem generally presents itself as issues writing fast enough to keep up with the pace of the lecture, paying attention during the lecture, making sense out of notes after class, legibility, and deciding what is important to record during the lecture. Many of these issues often result in notes that are partial or have incomplete lecture points. As a result, I use guided Cornell notes to address these issues, as they provide a note-taking style that is quick, clear, and structured.

            Setting up Cornell notes is a simple process. The power of this strategy comes in interacting with the notes multiple times. When I initially presented this strategy of note taking to students, I distributed the Cornell Note Format, the Cornell Note Template, and a Cornell Notes Student Sample before discussing each section of the format with students. We addressed the purpose and the importance of each section, beginning with where to write the heading, main ideas, topic, keywords, and essential question. We also spent a little time highlighting the importance of the essential question and how it guides the discussion summary of the notes. It was equally important to review the types of information that go in the right column versus the left column that is used to write questions that reflect different levels of thinking. Additionally, we took note of where the summaries are written and discussed the value of writing concise summaries of readings and classroom instruction. Seeing a visual as I explained the process helped make the descriptions and explanations clear. I stressed to students the importance of taking notes in understanding and retaining content. We looked at the curve for forgetting to reiterate the point that they must use the notes as a tool, not simply take notes. Read more about this in a previous article Information Retention and Practice.