Jeesh. Do these college guys ever stop to ask themselves whether what they are doing is good enough? Why not blame both kids and high schools for everything – in public!
I am referring to this absurd Commentary in Education Week this week in which a college professor not only tells bored students to like it or lump it but chastises those of us trying to make HS work more engaging:
In adjusting curriculum and pedagogy to student interest, educators may raise certain secondary school results but, ironically, stunt students in preparation for the next level of their education. In telling them, “You think the material is pointless and musty, but we’ll find ways to stimulate you,” high school educators fail to teach them the essential skill of exerting oneself even when bored, even when the material has no direct bearing upon one’s future.
Perhaps they believe that if revised curricula can engage high school juniors, they will build enough momentum to reach college with the pluck to keep focused in spite of their ennui. I presume the opposite. Students will have learned a different lesson when they go to college: If they’re not interested in a course, there’s something wrong with it, and they needn’t bother.
If educators wish to keep students in high school and in college, they must plant a better attitude in the former, while recognizing the intransigence of the curriculum in the latter. Boredom is not always something to be avoided. It is to be accepted and worked through.
I dare this Professor to sit in on college courses all day and consider if the boredom is tolerable, especially if one has to get up and do it all over the next day. Not once does this author muse over whether college teaching might sometimes be atrocious or that some kinds of boredom are inevitable but other kinds solely a function of bad teaching.
Indeed, the teacher ironically damns himself and other colleagues when he complains –
I teach freshman comp, so trust me, it’s hard to find any academic material students are eager to write about…Often, too, they face a U.S. history and civics requirement covering events and texts 200 years old and thoroughly alien to their job ambitions and leisure activities. And these aren’t the only tedious courses. In addition, most of them take lecture classes, in which the teacher is often talking from a stage to 300 students—their least-favored format. Sadly, all too often, students respond to these conditions in college just as they did in high school—drifting away and submitting shabby work.
There is of course no excuse for such prattle. The situation was so dire at MIT – a 50% absence rate in some lecture courses – that they revamped the curriculum. On the other hand, watch one of the greatest teachers ever, from MIT – and listen to what he says about bad teachers at the end. (I wonder what our cranky prof would respond to this?)
Most of the better college teachers make a concerted effort to make their classes interesting. I had the privilege of being a TA for Michael Sandel, the justly-famous Harvard Government Professor, in his course Justice where he keeps 700 kids spell-bound in Sanders Theater by not only posing endlessly fascinating case studies but demanding that – even in a crowd of 700 – that kids form small groups to hash out the ethics and political philosophy of the cases. And Eric Mazur, of course, has for over a decade been doing ‘peer instruction‘ with learning response ‘clickers‘ to both rave reviews and better results than his colleagues in conventionally-taught classes.
And, though the complaining professor refers to the College Study of Engagement, he neglects to mention a key finding: “Courses that emphasize applying material, making judgments about value of information and arguments, and synthesizing material into more complex interpretations and relationships are highly related to educational and personal gains.”
In fact in discussing his exhaustive study of what the best college teachers do, Ken Bain noted this about the best teachers:
You must have great insight into what it means to learn in your field, and you must have an equally deep insight into how people learn and all the personal and social forces that can both interfere with and support that learning…. Another major factor is the development of the ability to ask important and intriguing questions that will engage our students. We spend too much time pinning our hopes on our machines, hoping that computers or iPads or something magical will help engage our students. They won’t. Students will become engaged only when they see the questions and problems as important, intriguing, or just beautiful. We can learn to use the arts—from poetry to film to music—to help raise the question, but we have to understand those questions and their connection with the questions that may already be on the minds of our students.
I trust he is not representative of teachers at Emory. I would love to see the student feedback from this cranky guy’s course – even if he dismisses it out of hand as coming from philistines…
PS: some great student feedback: http://gettingsmart.com/2013/08/ordering-a-teacher-suggestions-from-students-part-1/
13 Responses
I think there is a kernel of truth to both camps. We must work hard to engage students. Learning how to focus attention though- for mindful learning is something that a student must learn. Both the teacher and the student are responsible. It’s not a one sided issue. Teachers are not to entertain. Students are not on their own. It’s a little of both I’m afraid. And focusing on teachers too much in our accountability efforts has moved the pendulum too far to the camp that teachers must do a “song and dance”. It’ll swing back eventually.
No one mentioned song and dance; no one wants frivolity or mere fun. The position expressed in the Commentary is truly anti-learner. The kernel of truth is that sometimes we must do what is uninteresting to succeed but if you read the full Commentary it is un-nuanced and unreflective. I have met numerous people in higher ed like this guy – unrepentant learner bashers, unable to be self-critical or to admit that perhaps their teaching might be a whole lot better. There is, in fact, no need for the pendulum swing since, in general, student feedback is totally ignored by teachers, alas.
Wow- I did not get that from your blog. Maybe if I read the original document I would agree with you. When I say “song and dance”, I’m exaggerating a bit. This is just not what I have seen in my experience. I stick by what I said. I have met many, many professors. I have never met an “anti-learner”. They do feel the need to try to engage students. They also feel the need for students to arrive prepared to focus and to work hard to engage with them. You need both sides. My “song and dance” comment is appropriate when you only have one side. You’d have to do a song and dance if the student is not doing what they need to do to be a participant in the learning process. And that would still not work. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this matter I guess.
Clearly you have not met some of the people I have met. In front of 200 people a Chem Prof at MIT said that he neither had time to give feedback to all his students nor felt the need to – his quest was to identify 20 or so potential grad students. or the Prof who said in a large workshop that he wasn’t paid enough to figure out how his students thought – that was their challenge anyway, to figure out the course. I could go on, believe me….
No, clearly I have not met those 2 people you cite. You are claiming that this is clearly a huge problem and yet you use anecdotal evidence? I am not saying that every single teacher and professor is engaging. I am saying that I have not seen teachers nor professors who are “anti-learner” as you labeled. Even the ones you cite- I don’t know that they are either despite not wanting to give feedback. They may be amazing professors. I cannot tell from your limited example. For instance, maybe that Chem professor grew tired of students knocking on his door asking for help when they hadn’t even opened the book yet? Maybe that prof at the workshop you cited was trying to improve how much students bring to the table and his message came out more harsh? What do they do in the classroom? I know there are some bad professors and teachers. I think, in general, that they are not “anti-learner” as you claim and that you go too far thinking it should be all up to the teacher (vs. the student making an effort).
What I do assert is that it is NOT the job of professors to lead the students and “figure out how they think” on an individual level. It is up to the students to know how they learn and to teach themselves with their professor as a model and guide. They need balance as well though. They need to teach in a way that is accessible by students. They need to provide options for study outside the classroom (materials, resources, etc).
As for K-12 teachers- younger minds need more facilitation but we do need to change the way we put the teachers as responsible for the learning. If we held the students more responsible for their own learning, I think we’d see an improvement in motivation and learning. Having said that though, we need teachers in k-12 to approach teaching in different ways to help facilitate learning. It’s both- the student and the teacher.
We disagree. As usual 🙂
The National Study on Student Engagement is far more damning and not anecdotal. I really wonder why you and others keep defending the indefensible. I have many times met higher ed faculty who resent being in workshops related to teaching. I told my last host for one of these that I would not return to her campus if the palpable hostility would continue. (I have never had such a reaction in K-12, even after 30 years at this, including inner-city schools with a tough staff.) The teaching and learning centers lack of impact on many college campus is so bad that they only attract a handful of people to work with because there is such a stigma to admitting your teaching might be better. Not an anecdote: I attended 2 meetings of the directors of t and l centers who endlessly lamented that their colleagues won’t work with them.
You have tirelessly resisted any blame for teachers in all your comments, as if they can do no wrong. I find that an unhelpful stance, frankly, if the situation is to improve.
It is professors like this that make our jobs in K-12 institutions tougher. We work hard to create a learner-driven environment in lower and middle school only to be met with concerns from upper school stakeholders that we may not be preparing students for the realities of college. Until we see a greater shift in the style of teaching on university campuses to one that seeks to engage learners with relevant content and varied skill development, I fear we will continue to struggle uphill a bit. Perhaps one day soon, professors like this one will be pushed out of educating by the shifting tide….then, all we’ll need to push against are the admissions directors who still overvalue standardized test scores.
That’s our challenge, and we accept it! These guys make it tougher, for sure, but I suspect he is not in the majority.
Grant, I enjoyed this article. Thank you!
Hi Grant. I’m a big fan of your blog and I agree with you 100% on this post. However, I just want to make a point about Prof. Lewin’s physics class.
As anyone who has watched Lewin’s physics lectures on YouTube knows that he is full of energy. He clearly loves physics, and he also loves sharing it with his students. His demonstrations were thrilling. His board work was impeccable. Lewin worked hard to make it look effortless — he ran through each lecture 3 times before presenting it to students.
So what happened result as the semester progressed? Attendance at his physics lectures fell 40% by the end of the term and an average of 10% of students failed Mechanics and 14% failed E&M. The same statistics as the less entertaining professors who taught the courses in previous years. MIT had hoped Lewin’s showmanship would inspire students to do all the heavy lifting needed to learn physics outside of class.
If you look past his enthusiasm and his displays of physics awesomeness, Lewin was pseudoteaching. It looks like good teaching, but he was the one doing all the talking. It looks like the students are learning, but they were just sitting there watching. It’s like trying to learn to play piano or play a sport by watching your teacher or coach. It doesn’t work well.
So what did MIT do after Lewin’s show-stopping lectures failed to change declining attendance and large failure rates? They created interactive learning spaces like TEAL (Technology Enhanced Active Learning). From the New York Times article “At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard”:
“Instead of blackboards, the walls are covered with white boards and huge display screens. Circulating with a team of teaching assistants, the professor makes brief presentations of general principles and engages the students as they work out related concepts in small groups.
“Teachers and students conduct experiments together. The room buzzes. Conferring with tablemates, calling out questions and jumping up to write formulas on the white boards are all encouraged.”
And guess what? Attendance is up, scores are up, and failure rates are down. (And as you noted, Eric Mazur’s peer instruction, which also uses active learning techniques, has similar results.)
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On a related note, many teachers feel that pseudoteaching is a powerful and valuable lens for critically examining teaching. In fact, over 30 teachers have blogged about their own pseudoteaching stories. I’ve collected them all here: http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/pseudoteaching/ Check them out!
Thanks for this important update, Frank. I am well aware of TEAL, having had a very brief hand in its development: a few folks at MIT are big fans of UbD and that’s why I was invited to speak there. But your point is important – entertainment is not the aim; engagement in the work is the aim. That’s why I think Mazur is the key source of MIT’s shift – he consulted to them.
PS: I added a link to your pseudo-teaching page to my blog last month on teacher blind spots – thanks!
Come see us at the Charter; that quote from Ken Bain drives us every day. Thank you for leading me to this insight.
woah, michael sandel? now i’m really impressed.
great educator on moral philosophy and that sort of issue. just a shame his book on it isn’t quite as interesting as his lectures