In Academically Adrift (hereafter, AA), Arum and Roksa identify a phenomenon that I assume we all know all too well. George Kuh calls it the disengagement compact (AA, 5). Faculty and students strike a bargain - a rather expensive one. The bargain is one in which teachers agree to ask little of students while providing an entertaining simulation of teaching and good grades, and in which students agree to ask little of teachers while providing compliant behavior and a routine simulation of learning. The teacher is rewarded with time and good student evaluations and the student is rewarded with time and a good GPA.
Who among us would admit to striking such a bargain? Not I. But as Arum and Roksa point out, the bargain is not struck among individuals, nor is it struck in a vacuum. As teachers, we enter an educational system in which this bargain has already been struck collectively. In addition, the bargain is but one among a complex web of tacit agreements among students, faculty, administrators, parents, politicians and government agencies: parents want their children to live in a pleasant, safe environment while becoming more mature and independent; students want a socially engaging college experience; parents and students alike want a credential; professors want a regular, secure salary and time for research; administrators want measurable improvements in student (consumer) satisfaction; politicians want practical outcomes; government agencies want practical, technological innovation. None of the members privy to this agreement have undergraduate student learning as a priority (AA, 124-5).
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
A venue for scholarly work on ethics and education
The journal Ethics and Education might be a good venue for some of our readers to publish teaching-related scholarship. I don't recognize any philosophers on the editorial board, but it's a peer reviewed journal "which aims to stimulate discussion and debate around the ethical dimensions of education." It seems half ethics journal/half philosophy of education.
A selection of paper titles that caught my eye suggest the journal's orientation:
A selection of paper titles that caught my eye suggest the journal's orientation:
Thursday, February 24, 2011
FREE e-book on assessment in the humanities
The Teagle Foundation has just published a free anthology on assessment in the humanities. (The individual book chapters are available here.) It's tilted in the direction of the literary humanities, so it may be of limited use to philosophers. It also seems to rest on the obscurantist claim that assessment in the humanities is harder than in other disciplines because learning in the humanities is "complex, subtle, [and] seemingly ineffable." Bosh to that, but it contains some worthwhile articles, including the first article by Carol Geary Schneider, which does a nice job placing assessment within the recent history of academic humanities.
I do not know what to think anymore
This exam is worth 20% of their final grade. I simply do not know what to think. I have a 'no late work accepted' policy clearly stated in the syllabus so I am disinclined to offer extensions. Usually I give 0 points for work not turned in, but I could give then 50 points that would represent an F, but then what do I do with exams that were turned in that merit a failing grade? I have told students that I take improvement into account when determining final grades, but how is simply turning in a exam an improvement over not turning in an exam? I can drop these students from the class for not doing required work. Or, I can simply let them take their lumps and deal with the total points they have earned at the end of the semester and give them the grade they merit.
Any suggestions?
Ambiguity Across the Curriculum
(cross posted at A Ku Indeed)
After a Twitter tip (from Michael Cholbi), I read through “Teaching Ambiguity” – a piece over at Inside Higher Education. The subject of the piece is clear enough: penned by a Dean at the Savannah College of Arts and Sciences, it implores instructors to “teach ambiguity” (as opposed to simply facts and figures) as a way to impart critical thinking skills to students. As Eisinger puts it:
Why is it Dean-speak? Because it takes the appearance of a noble sounding clarion call for meaningful changes in pedagogy — “Let’s all teach about how complicated things are! Let’s teach about the challenging of basic assumptions! Ratchet up critical thinking!” — while asking for nothing substantive in order to assure that this gets done. How many instructors out there do you think, if you asked them, would say “I don’t teach critical thinking in my courses”? Zero. So the call to “Teach ambiguity! Add it to your syllabi!” is in practice meaningless when it is stated in this milquetoast driven way. Everyone will say “I already do that”. It sounds good, though – good enough to get Higher Ed to publish it.
Why is it insulting? When it comes to certain key foundational learning outcomes — critical thinking comes to mind as the most obvious — there is often the assumption (which I alluded to in the above) that everyone does that. After all, everyone teaching at the university has a PhD, and how can you get a PhD if you don’t have critical thinking skills? So, the implicit argument will go, everyone can — and does — teach it. Maybe they need to tweak what they do a bit to make it more apparent, but it’s already there.
But is it true? No. Of course, as Academically Adrift points out, the empirical data does not bear this out with respect to the different disciplines. Many disciplines simply do a poor job of “teaching ambiguity.” Now clearly I’m not saying that people in all disciplines don’t use critical thinking. Of course they do. But that doesn’t mean that (a) they can teach it well and/or (b) that it plays a prominent role in what they do in the classroom.
Some disciplines — philosophy for instance — have critical thinking as a foundation. That’s what philosophers do. They challenge assumptions and tear things apart. That doesn’t mean we’re smarter than everyone else, but it does mean that we concentrate as a discipline on the techniques of critical thinking and on the pedagogical methods through which you can effectively teach it. Essentially, saying that everyone can and should do it in their classrooms, and that this will be effective, is really just saying that everyone should teach philosophically in their classes when they are not all prepared to do so.
Let’s face it: it’s difficult to teach philosophically when you’re not trained in philosophy. Hell, it’s difficult to teach philosophically even when you are trained in philosophy. This reminds me, in a way, of the belief that any teacher can “inject ethics in the classroom”. Apparently, there’s a belief that since we’re all good people (reasonably speaking), we can all teach students ethics. I know lots of people who seem to believe that. Nice words, but it just ain’t true, at least not true on the level at which it would need to be true for it to be seen as the basis for making good educational policy decisions (where "learning ethics" is a sought out educational outcome). Some people are simply trained to do it, some are not. That's a fact.
So how about a “radical” thought here: instead of assuming that we can just legislate “ambiguity across the curriculum” into existence by asking everyone to tweak their syllabi, how about we actually make riskier speeches about the need to make the Humanities more central to what we expect students to master and then get our curricula or our hiring decisions to match those goals?
After a Twitter tip (from Michael Cholbi), I read through “Teaching Ambiguity” – a piece over at Inside Higher Education. The subject of the piece is clear enough: penned by a Dean at the Savannah College of Arts and Sciences, it implores instructors to “teach ambiguity” (as opposed to simply facts and figures) as a way to impart critical thinking skills to students. As Eisinger puts it:
On the face of it, this sounds all well and good. But at the same time, it strikes me as a whole lot of meaningless Dean-speak and, frankly, insulting to the disciplines that actually do “teach ambiguity” as an essential part of what they do every day.
This request is not an arbitrary one. To the contrary, it germinates from a belief that the liberal arts and sciences, and the students who take such courses, often thrive by appreciating complex questions that do not have easy answers. Precisely because students can retrieve facts instantaneously at their finger tips, I am asking faculty to revise their syllabuses to discuss and, yes, teach, ambiguity.
Why is it Dean-speak? Because it takes the appearance of a noble sounding clarion call for meaningful changes in pedagogy — “Let’s all teach about how complicated things are! Let’s teach about the challenging of basic assumptions! Ratchet up critical thinking!” — while asking for nothing substantive in order to assure that this gets done. How many instructors out there do you think, if you asked them, would say “I don’t teach critical thinking in my courses”? Zero. So the call to “Teach ambiguity! Add it to your syllabi!” is in practice meaningless when it is stated in this milquetoast driven way. Everyone will say “I already do that”. It sounds good, though – good enough to get Higher Ed to publish it.
Why is it insulting? When it comes to certain key foundational learning outcomes — critical thinking comes to mind as the most obvious — there is often the assumption (which I alluded to in the above) that everyone does that. After all, everyone teaching at the university has a PhD, and how can you get a PhD if you don’t have critical thinking skills? So, the implicit argument will go, everyone can — and does — teach it. Maybe they need to tweak what they do a bit to make it more apparent, but it’s already there.
But is it true? No. Of course, as Academically Adrift points out, the empirical data does not bear this out with respect to the different disciplines. Many disciplines simply do a poor job of “teaching ambiguity.” Now clearly I’m not saying that people in all disciplines don’t use critical thinking. Of course they do. But that doesn’t mean that (a) they can teach it well and/or (b) that it plays a prominent role in what they do in the classroom.
Some disciplines — philosophy for instance — have critical thinking as a foundation. That’s what philosophers do. They challenge assumptions and tear things apart. That doesn’t mean we’re smarter than everyone else, but it does mean that we concentrate as a discipline on the techniques of critical thinking and on the pedagogical methods through which you can effectively teach it. Essentially, saying that everyone can and should do it in their classrooms, and that this will be effective, is really just saying that everyone should teach philosophically in their classes when they are not all prepared to do so.
Let’s face it: it’s difficult to teach philosophically when you’re not trained in philosophy. Hell, it’s difficult to teach philosophically even when you are trained in philosophy. This reminds me, in a way, of the belief that any teacher can “inject ethics in the classroom”. Apparently, there’s a belief that since we’re all good people (reasonably speaking), we can all teach students ethics. I know lots of people who seem to believe that. Nice words, but it just ain’t true, at least not true on the level at which it would need to be true for it to be seen as the basis for making good educational policy decisions (where "learning ethics" is a sought out educational outcome). Some people are simply trained to do it, some are not. That's a fact.
So how about a “radical” thought here: instead of assuming that we can just legislate “ambiguity across the curriculum” into existence by asking everyone to tweak their syllabi, how about we actually make riskier speeches about the need to make the Humanities more central to what we expect students to master and then get our curricula or our hiring decisions to match those goals?
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
"It's what's in your cart that counts"
I'm really looking forward to our Academically Adrift reading group next week. I came across this nice analogy from Michael Leddy at Orange Crate Art:
Of course some students don’t expect a return on their college investment in the form of learning. Their aim is to acquire a credential. When I talk about these matters with my students, I make an analogy to shopping at the supermarket. If the point is merely to get a receipt and get out, it makes perfect sense to grab something, anything, and head to the shortest line. No waiting on Register Four! But having something to show for your effort is another matter. And if everyone has a receipt, it’s what’s in your cart — or what you take away from your education — that counts.Aso, here's a good interview with Richard Arum, the book's co-author, from Minnesota Public Radio.
Next week we're adrift
A reminder: Our online discussion group of the buzzworthy 'Academically Adrift' is scheduled to start on Monday the 28th. We hope all our readers join the discussion. Here are some sources for the book:
Amazon, U. Chicago Press (Note: there are HTML and Google previews of the book at the Chicago site.)
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