School Culture and Structure Proposal

MiraCosta college is a public, co-ed community college located in Oceanside, California

(MiraCosta College, 2020).

Source: Google maps

Aspect 1: Quantity over Quality

One of the main issues I had in my experiences with the American schooling system was the clear
focus on quantity over quality when it came to assessment. The aim seemed to be having
students marked on how many assignments they nished rather than how well they had learned
the material or how good the graded assignment was. During one of my classes in particular I had
to complete eighty individual graded tasks, all worth sizeable chunks of the class’ nal grade. This
meant that if a student missed one or two assignments they could not nish with a high grade
even if all the other work submitted was completed to an excellent standard. The rate that these
exercises had to be completed meant that no feedback could be received and acted on to
improve performance between assessments.This made it seem that schools were more focused
on pushing students through their courses rather than providing thorough grading schemes which
focus on providing in depth feedback to help with future assignments. The learning itself became
a process of focussing on key points to pass the assignments and tests. There was not much
encouragement for students to think critically or spend time learning more about a subject, so
there was no real depth of learning, just the main points for the assessment.

As a student-athlete I witnessed this idea of pushing students through, rst hand. The scheme
helped with getting athletes to high enough grade point averages (GPAs) for them to graduate and
qualify for NCAA certi ed schools. These colleges have a minimum GPA for athletes to be eligible
to play. Many of my teammates and students from other sporting disciplines struggled to hit these
minimums for a number of reasons, such as: socio-economic disadvantage, language di culties
and lack of time due to sporting commitments.

This dynamic is troubling as it sets students up for failure further down the track since they are not
fully learning the content, but working to achieve a grade on a test. The grading system should be
switched from the current approach to a system where less assignments are set but more of a
focus is placed on the quality of work and evidence of learning. The United States should look to
other nations such as the United Kingdom and Australia to see that this approach does work.
There are however some notable issues with this way of grading. One main issue is if a student
gets a poor mark on one assignment it could drop their grade considerably if there are only a few
assignments. This might be managed by allowing students an opportunity to resubmit certain
pieces of work for an opportunity to be regraded, but within strict guidelines. Alternatively, the
addition of one extra assignment could mean the lowest grade from the assignments would be
subtracted, thus creating a more even grade.

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 Aspect 2: Presumed knowledge of America/American subjects
A presumed knowledge of American approaches to subjects and basic understanding of each
subject was especially needed when starting a new class, even when they were considered an
introductory class. It seemed as if to actively participate in most classes one needed to have done
the subject previously at a high school level even without the subjects stating the need for
prerequisites. This was di cult at a school with a high number of international and disadvantaged
students, and in particular at a community college which is designed to be accessible to a
broader range of students, not just academically talented ones. Mature students and people
returning to study are accommodated at community colleges, but need to take introductory
courses to progress into other subjects but they are unlikely to pass without this prior knowledge.

Another e ected type of student are disadvantaged students, or students from disadvantaged
areas as they may not of had the resources to learn these basic components.The Oceanside,
California area is hugely diverse, with military bases and students from Mexico or Latino
backgrounds. People from Hispanic or Latino backgrounds make up around 35% of the
Oceanside population (Oceanside, CA | Data USA, 2020). Many of these people will not have even
been taught the same examples or may have found schooling harder due to the language barrier
presented by having English as a second language. The graph below outlines the diversity rates in
Oceanside and shows a clear diversi ed population.

Source: Data USA

International students were particularly e ected as not only did they not study the same
curriculum, but examples provided were presented for an American student, relating to their
experiences. These examples were often biased towards American views of the world (eg WWII
only commenced following the American involvement) and presented a closed o way of thinking
in the sense that students had to repeat information given and not think critically. There was little
encouragement to seek out other sources of information that might disagree with the position of
the author of articles being used.

The school should look at presenting introductory subjects as with a base level of information in a
neutral way like other colleges do internationally. It should also spend some time considering the
level of bias in its resources, considering using articles from internationally recognised sources or
engaging with international organisations. These changes help US students develop another point
of view or way of thinking. One negative that comes from this is that the US students may not be
able to engage as much as before as the examples made it more realistic and easier to
understand for them. I think this change is essential for a school with a heavy international and
culturally diverse population around the area.

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 Reference list

MiraCosta College. (2020). Retrieved 22 March 2020, from https://www.miracosta.edu/index.html.

Oceanside, CA | Data USA. Datausa.io. (2020). Retrieved 22 March 2020, from https://datausa.io/
pro le/geo/oceanside-ca/#about.

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