That is the realization I had today. I have just had a great discussion with a colleague about “real assessment” and new ideas blossomed for us as we discussed changing up a brief student survey that we do with CBL classes. We are going to ask students more directly about their relationship with the community partner site, instead of just asking them to “rate” the partner site. It seems like a simple change, but it is a profound difference which will move us a step forward on our journey toward transformational partnerships.
Then I read this interview in Inside Higher Ed. I was amazed by the sophistication of the student’s understanding, but I really shouldn’t have been so amazed. I know the wisdom is out there; I struggle with how to get at it. And Lucretia Witte explains it so simply:
More than anything, I would encourage professors to involve students in their own learning experience. Ask your students to take a pre-course survey one week before class starts. How do they learn best? What aspect of the course topic interests them most? What kind of assignments do they like? Is there any skill or aspect of the course that they feel apprehensive about? Best case, this allows professors to set the bar high for personal investment in the course, allows them to tailor the course to the students’ interests, sends a message that the professor genuinely cares about the students’ experience, and takes the first step in establishing that invaluable dialogue.
We will all be lucky if Ms. Witte joins us as a colleague in education, which she says she intends to do. In the mean time, I am grateful for this insight, and for the encouragement from a student to keep heading down the road toward greater student engagement in learning.
While I agree with the concept, the details (at least in that quote) are what are going to trip people up and leave them battered and bitter.
Say you give that survey a week out, what then? Are most professors able to change their course in any meaningful way based on this information? That’s not the way things work for most people. And if they try to do it in the week they have before the class they are probably going to fail and they’ll never do it again.
This time line might work if, in designing the course, the professor had build in alternate assessments/assignments, a variety of choices based on learning styles etc. That’s a pretty big if and quite a bit of prep work.
Of course, if they could improvise and do things on the fly . . . but that’s the opposite of the structure that’s been imposed and reinforced for quite some time. Most will follow the syllabus come hell or high water.
Dear Tom,
Well, if there is one thing I hate, it is bitter batter…
If we understand student learning to be the goal in the class, and we know that each person comes in with their own set of assumptions, experiences, learning preferences, etc., doesn’t it strike you as odd that we don’t do anything to find out about them, and don’t try to make any adjustments to the learning situation we are creating ?(And that is what a class is: a situation for learning; a time set aside and a commitment made to prepare for that time in particular ways, with the goal of learning something new.) I am not interested in “But we have always done it that way!” I am interested in what works.
But I will also say that I am interested in what is work-able! It isn’t feasible or even preferable to make a separate lesson plan for each student for each topic. Instead, what I think happens is that you open a dialogue with each student, and you make clear that you are there to mentor each student in how they can best participate in the class, and that this is going to be a continuing and ongoing project. I believe strongly that we need to give our students more opportunities to engage in metacognition, and more opportunities to take responsibility for what goes on in the classroom.
And I will “put my money where my mouth is!” I am going to do this next semester for comp theory. Stay tuned.
I think I’m agreeing strongly with the concept but saying that the execution (at least as advocated by Witte) falls short in a way that will scar those who attempt it. A week isn’t enough time to do the kind of substantial rethinking that 99% of faculty would have to do. If you prefaced it with some sort of conceptual framework where they worked on how to restructure their syllabus and major lessons to take advantage of information gained in the survey that’s a whole different matter.
My point, which I may or may not be making, is that surface level knowledge of students is fine but without a deeper restructuring of the way most classes work, it has little value compared to what it could do.