Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (Teaching and Learning in Higher Education)

by Jessamyn Neuhaus

Contrary to the popular discourse about snowflakes overly protected by helicopter parents and society’s trophy-for-showing-up cult of self-esteem, academic entitlement most frequently manifests in students who are fearful, feel helpless, and who are “harboring doubt about their abilities.”54 Studies show that it is consistently associated with a student’s belief in an external locus of control over academic achievement.55 Many students believe that the power to do well in any one class depends not on their own individual effort or behavioral self-regulation or increasing their own skills but on factors outside their control. Namely, you, the instructor. Across many different teaching contexts, “students think classroom teachers are the most significant factor in student learning, and rank it ahead of their own study habits in importance.”56 They “see teachers as bearing all or a majority of the responsibility to educate and produce learning” and “students’ perceived powerlessness in their own education translates into a lack of their taking responsibility for their own education.”57