What students take from our classes

Just reading a piece of science on the web (background microwave radiation) and then happened to glance at the comments section and was struck at how random the comments often appear to be. Leaving out the obvious spam ("Hi, I have a large collection of meteorites I'd like to sell") there are those who debate the implications of the finding (fine!) and then there are those who just go off on wild tangents -- "well, that proves there is/isn't a god", that "it explains why it rains so much", or "is the Earth conscious"?

And it occurred to me that the comment section of online columns, news reports etc., give me a bit of insight into what my students are actually thinking as I lecture -- that what I think I'm talking about and what is actually going through their brains at any given moment are probably largely unrelated. That while I'm lecturing, what they are taking in as initial input is then filtered through a kind of free association with the stuff already in there, and what they consequently take away from my lectures probably has very little overlap with the objectives listed on my lesson plan. Given what I see on their exam answers, I've always known that what I said and what they recall may not correspond all that well, but I've never really been able to open their heads and see the squirrel's nest of random associations that leads them from what I said to what they got. Unmoderated comment sections give us a Kind of view inside what the average citizen is thinking...well, I use the term 'thinking' somewhat loosely.

One thing that might help: actually telling our students what the lesson objective is for today. A lot of teachers seem to feel this should be "teacher-only" secret information. Which is bizarre. As my mentor used to regularly say to me, students can hit any target they're shown and that holds still for them. If their is a point to today's class, probably best to tell them that at the outset, but certainly by the conclusion of the class.

Teaching Excellence

Only slightly off topic of student assessment is the question of how one evaluates good teaching. Just as with student assessment, defining one's objectives and how to measure progress toward those goals is in fact a highly political activity. Why this learning objective and not that one; why is this particular standard considered inadequate, satisfactory, or excellent; why this group's (students? peers? parents? administrators? stakeholders? taxpayers?) perceptions of quality rather than some others? Do we measure excellent teaching against student expectation, student learning, student engagement, student enjoyment, student self-fulfillment; or by employer needs and expectations, graduate employment figures, graduate life chances; by political socialization or active citizenship; critical thinking or ideological conformity; or societal arts and culture, inventiveness, entrepreneurialism, the reproduction or elimination of poverty and injustice... You get the idea.

I'm very pleased to have "Excellence for what? Policy Development and the Discourse of the Purpose of Higher Education," appear as a chapter in the just-released Routledge collection, Global Perspectives on Teaching Excellence. The collection is basically a reaction to recent legislation in the UK that attempted to measure and mandate teaching excellence in higher education. My wife and I wrote a critique using my discourse analysis model of the purpose of higher education applied to the new legislation to suggest that the government's definition of 'excellence' might be somewhat problematic from the perspective of students and learning.

Defining Learning/Assessment Objectives

Bob Parson (University of Ottawa) said:

In my continuing quest to refine, define and sublime learning outcomes, objectives and competencies I would like to share a new challenge. All of the above require clarity (both parties should be able to agree on what that goal or outcome is) and be able to be assessed. I thought of one that fit both those requirements but…

In the department of “That sounds simple, yes I agree, and of course, I’ll get right to it!”, I would like to offer an example of how the warm reception of an agreed-upon outcome/objective can be misleading:

“At the end of this lecture/course/event the student will be able to… get their ducks in a row"

This is a very common expression. We use it all the time: it can be agreed-upon as an outcome or objective because it sounds reasonable, constructive, observable and easy. But, have you ever thought of how difficult it would be to actually get ducks in a row? How would you do it? Who do you know that can talk “duck”? and if they did would the ducks pay any attention to them? I don’t think so.

If you had treats they might come to you, but in a row? Are you kidding me? (Perhaps polite Canadian ducks might line up but I wouldn’t bet my B+ on it.)

Is this an impossible goal that we keep striving for?

Perhaps this is a complete misunderstanding on my part, a trick question. Perhaps it is very easy to get all the ducks in a row. They would have to be immobilized (as in tranquilized or shot) but I never considered that as an option when contemplating the task: sounds pretty nasty even if it does get me the B+.

For an “A” I think you have to herd cats, but that’s another story.

Beware the simple-looking objective my friends.

As I often say “Every job is easy!... until I have to do it.”

To which I might add:

If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, probably a duck. If they produce six duck-like ducks in a row (i.e., multiple data points) then pretty sure that's an 'A'. So I don't have a problem with students getting their ducks in a row.

It's what grade to give the student who turns in a goose that I have a heard time with. Is that an original, better-than-asked-for duck...or did that student miss the target completely?

[Which is why, when multiple markers weigh in on the same paper, a small percentage of papers get an F from some instructors, an A+ from others. Doesn't mean marking is completely and randomly arbitrary; just means one interpreted objective literally and sees answer as off topic, while the other saw paper as thinking outside the box.... (In Alberta provincial exams, such a paper goes to a special committee to decide which of the two markers is correct in this instance.)]