Thursday, May 31, 2012

Thinking About Rethinking: Part Two

My last post summarized what I found interesting about Keeling and Hersh's argument in Losing our Minds. I really think this book struck a chord with me. In some ways, it brings me back around to ideas I was exploring in the very first post on this blog.

In that post, I discussed the importance of two books -- What the Best College Teachers Do and Teaching with Your Mouth Shut. Returning to the classroom after all those years in administration, I have the freedom to re-imagine my pedagogy and think about what I really want to see happen in the classroom. It's a very different approach than where I started 31 years ago. While these books and the others I mentioned on Monday are all influential, there's something about how K&H present their argument that clarified a number of things for me. I'm seeing implications everywhere I look. I'll list a few here. I'm certain this list will grow.

1. The book has helped me articulate something I've been toying with all year. If we aren't focused on learning, where is our focus? I'm thinking that the enemy of learning is COMPLIANCE. We set benchmarks, deadlines, rubrics, processes, measures, and the like and substitute those for Learning. What does a student think when seeing the Intro to Soc assignment about writing a paper on Sociology and Christianity? "I have to write a paper by May 7thIt has to be this long, and is supposed to cover the questions in the handout that Dr. Hawthorne handed out. It says in the syllabus that this paper is worth 10% of my final grade. So I have to write something." Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with the papers. Too many of them failed to deal with the rubric questions, took the easy way out, or were basically rush jobs. I take the blame for that in that I didn't do a good job of setting up the assignment initially or devote enough time to it early in the semester. But if what I wanted was for students to engage the question, why did they not do that (even at a Freshman level)? Because it was a task on their to-do list that had to be cleared so they could move on to the next thing. What's the alternative? I think it will require me to be more upfront about the purpose of assignments, articulating the value I think they hold in terms of learning, and require personal interaction around the assignment (even e-mail would help). My own conversations about a paper assignment need to move from "what do you have to do" to "why this is of value". This morning I ran across this wonderful piece by John Warner in Inside Higher Ed. He illustrates how he lays out his course to focus on student learning (and references What the Best College Teachers Do in the process). I don't know if I'll write my syllabi this way in the future, but I want to devote more time to elaborating the pedagogy that I've done to date. By the way, the focus on learning also deals with faculty to faculty interactions or dialogue between administration and faculty. We also need to focus on the value of shared learning and not on simple deadlines, rubrics, or avoiding being the last one turning in the catalog copy.

2. A focus on learning shifts our measurement strategies away from grades to something more important -- change over time. One of the common concerns on college campuses is about grade inflation. We had that conversation at Spring Arbor in one of our last faculty meetings. Here is a nice piece from last summer that gives an overview on grade inflation nationally. It examines the impact of the Vietnam draft on the initial burst of grade inflation. Other articles highlight the impact of a consumer culture, a focus on retention (because we can't afford to lose students), the general pattern of grading in secondary education ("I've always been an A student"). Add to this the data on how little time students spend studying outside of class. The argument against grade inflation is that if students aren't doing work but are getting good grades, then our standards as faculty must have collapsed. But that argument seems too similar to the data on hating congress and liking your particular representative ("Some of you out there aren't holding to standards"). But K&H make me think that we'll never be successful chasing the statistics. It's not the grades, it's the learning. If the vast majority of my students are demonstrating learning, they should receive appropriate grades (actually it would be better to not have grades, but that's too far even for me). Think of the unemployment rate. We don't (shouldn't) pursue policies that lessen the unemployment rate. We should pursue policies that strengthen the economy in ways that indirectly lessen the unemployment rate.

3. It matters what we talk about. I ran across this nice tribute to the work of Walter Kimbrough, new president of Dillard University in New Orleans.  The author, Marybeth Gasman, is a professor higher ed at Penn who specializes in HBCUs. She has a list of ten significant accomplishments that Kimbough attained at his previous institution and offers them as a model that other presidents could emulate. It's a good list that many administrators would admire. I've focused on some of these myself in past administrative settings. But I realized that none of the these ten good things spoke directly to student learning. Colleges should be using the bully pulpit of administrative speaking to address goals for seeing enhancement in learning. Marybeth told me in an e-mail exchange that Kimbrough has spoken and written on learning and I'm glad to hear it. But we need to over-communicate on the importance of learning gains. Every year, the Higher Education Research Institute surveys incoming freshmen from across the country. One key question they ask is "why did you come to college?" Here's their summary for Fall 2011:















The thing that strikes me about this is not the data over time but the the questions. Are these really the things we expect out of higher education? (And do 60% of students really put general education as a key goal?) There is a key component of the college experience that involves emerging adults coming into their own, moving out of their safe environments, and learning who they can be and the vast amounts they can accomplish. One of the things I love about teaching is being able to track the growth of a student from the point of arrival to the verge of commencing forth. That a story we have to focus on because at the end of the day it's the measure of our stewardship as educators.

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