"It's time to prioritize what students want and need over what we want to teach"

[Wahoo Redux]

We know----because we are smart people with advanced degrees who think and teach and research for a living----there is not a clear, easy dichotomy between good gen eds or bad gen eds.  We will lose some things and gain others by re-configuring and re-thinking how all this works.   

[marshwiggle]

We know----because we are smart people with advanced degrees who think and teach and research for a living----there is not a clear, easy dichotomy between good gen eds or bad gen eds.  We will lose some things and gain others by re-configuring and re-thinking how all this works.

Doesn't all of that "research" involve making claims based on evidence, rather than "Trust me; I know what I'm talking about and you don't"?

[spork]

I haven't pored through UVA's menus of courses to know what specific courses fulfill which particular gen ed requirements. But if a stated outcome of the gen ed requirements is (sticking with this as an example of an outcome) to be proficient at analyzing data in a quantitative manner, then individual instructors or departments don't get to impose wildly different ways of measuring that proficiency.

Hypothetical example: if Cultural Anthropology 101, Statistics 101, and Spanish 101 all are designated as fulfilling the "quantification" requirement, then proficiency at quantification has to be operationalized so that it can be determined what proportion of students in those three courses are hitting the quantification benchmark. Otherwise, as I said above, the whole exercise is meaningless and gen ed becomes nothing but "students are acquiring the skills they need because they're taking the courses we say they can take."

[ciao_yall]

I haven't pored through UVA's menus of courses to know what specific courses fulfill which particular gen ed requirements. But if a stated outcome of the gen ed requirements is (sticking with this as an example of an outcome) to be proficient at analyzing data in a quantitative manner, then individual instructors or departments don't get to impose wildly different ways of measuring that proficiency.

Hypothetical example: if Cultural Anthropology 101, Statistics 101, and Spanish 101 all are designated as fulfilling the "quantification" requirement, then proficiency at quantification has to be operationalized so that it can be determined what proportion of students in those three courses are hitting the quantification benchmark. Otherwise, as I said above, the whole exercise is meaningless and gen ed becomes nothing but "students are acquiring the skills they need because they're taking the courses we say they can take."

Each field though would operationalize "quantification" in different ways. And it would be very dependent on vocabulary. Which methods are generally accepted in different fields, and why?

[Caracal]

I haven't pored through UVA's menus of courses to know what specific courses fulfill which particular gen ed requirements. But if a stated outcome of the gen ed requirements is (sticking with this as an example of an outcome) to be proficient at analyzing data in a quantitative manner, then individual instructors or departments don't get to impose wildly different ways of measuring that proficiency.

First of all, I'm assuming that for a course to fulfill the requirement, they do have to demonstrate that they will be fulfilling the requirement in certain kind of rigorous ways. You can't just say, "there's a spreadsheet" and call it a day. I think that is what is different about the "literacy" from their "disciplines" categories. What fits as "literacy" is more narrowly defined.

But, while you can mandate certain kinds of standards , it wouldn't really be possible to have some set way of measuring proficiency unless you just want to make students all take the same course regardless of their interests. I did look at the courses and you could take Intro to coding, plenty of hard math courses, an intro to social statistics, mathematical statistics, various comp sci courses, a class on health research methods etc etc. This isn't designed to teach some particular set of skills, instead the point is to have students take a class involving certain kinds of mathematical, statistical or computational thinking. The point is rigor, not uniformity. It actually seems like a good idea, because it allows students to do something that would be relevant to their interests or studies. My work touches on social science statistics in various ways, it would have been useful for me to take a social statistics course in college, or learn how to use ARC GIS or any number of things.

[spork]

I haven't pored through UVA's menus of courses to know what specific courses fulfill which particular gen ed requirements. But if a stated outcome of the gen ed requirements is (sticking with this as an example of an outcome) to be proficient at analyzing data in a quantitative manner, then individual instructors or departments don't get to impose wildly different ways of measuring that proficiency.

Hypothetical example: if Cultural Anthropology 101, Statistics 101, and Spanish 101 all are designated as fulfilling the "quantification" requirement, then proficiency at quantification has to be operationalized so that it can be determined what proportion of students in those three courses are hitting the quantification benchmark. Otherwise, as I said above, the whole exercise is meaningless and gen ed becomes nothing but "students are acquiring the skills they need because they're taking the courses we say they can take."

Each field though would operationalize "quantification" in different ways. And it would be very dependent on vocabulary. Which methods are generally accepted in different fields, and why?

Maybe UVA is different, but for the universities I'm familiar with, allowing faculty in each department to define their own versions of a skill, literacy, or whatever, and also allowing them to define what constitutes proficiency in that skill or literacy, and allowing them to decide how to measure that proficiency, results in . . . garbage. Demonstrating that desired outcomes are being produced becomes the equivalent of "Students who take our decorating with coconuts courses are proficient in viticulture because coconuts and grapes are both plants and viticulture is listed as an SLO in all of our decorating with coconuts course syllabi."

[polly_mer]

I suspect, but will not state it as an absolute, that society will either turn away from "competency" based education or we will have two distinct paths to education----and at some point the "competency" style of education will be regarded as second rate.  Actually, if we factor in the current reputation of for-profit / employment based schools, we see this already.  "Competency" will be education for the people not smart enough for "real" college.  Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but knowing human nature, I bet this is the next stage of ed-evolution.

Again, I will point out that the options are not limited to competency-based education or liberal-arts education.  Engineering is not generally competency-based education in the WGU model, but it's very much not also liberal arts or like a dental hygienist specialized job training.

The same "not-proven-to-be effective" arguments hold true for bachelor's degrees that are pick-a-mix, checkbox classes taught by warm bodies in a liberal-arts-lite model.  Evidence in some books published over the past twenty years (and you can name them as well as I can) indicate that few students are getting a lot of out college and that's not a function of eliteness of institution; it's much more a function of who is invested in their own education and who is getting through college checking boxes to do the next thing, regardless of what those specific boxes are.  Otherwise, we couldn't continue have reports like the classics: https://www.businessinsider.com/question-that-harvard-students-get-wrong-2012-12 and https://www.learner.org/resources/series28.html

[Wahoo Redux]

The same "not-proven-to-be effective" arguments hold true for bachelor's degrees that are pick-a-mix, checkbox classes taught by warm bodies in a liberal-arts-lite model. 

Our conception of education in the western world is predicated upon mandatory primary and secondary schooling and the notion that everybody, no matter who they are, has access to higher ed in some form (we even try to educate felons in prison), so we are going to have a very wide pool of educators and students that we are low-balling and challenging whatever we do whenever possible.

What do we expect?  It's not going to be perfect, and sometimes it's not even going to be as good as it should be.  And someone, somewhere, is going to be able to poke holes in it because that is what we do in this culture.

If we as a culture really are concerned with the efficacy of high ed we would pour defense department dollars into our schools----I don't even both imagining what I could do with room and time to actually personalize curriculum and mentor my students and help them learn at their own paces.  There is no point in even thinking about that, however, since it is not going to happen.   

At the same time, we could do something about "warm bodies."  Repeatedly pointing out that filling classrooms with "warm bodies" is not the best strategy in education doesn't do very much----yes, we agree.  Let's give those "warm bodies" FT jobs.

If we as a culture really had doubts as deep as the ones you express then we would have eliminated the gen ed model long ago, probably would have eliminated college itself long ago.  Simple fact is we have not.  There will always be studies and opinions criticizing what we do----its part of western thought.  We love to tear our clothes and ululate, "for God's sake, won't some one think of the children!"  Find me any government or private program that doesn't have an army of critics.

In the bigger picture, Polly, you and Spork seem awfully embittered, a little defensive (probably for private reasons regarding your own education), and not very objective, and you are simply wrong. 

This is the reason I am starting to lose interest in the debate.  We could post pro/con blog posts all day on the subject and frankly it doesn't matter----neither of us will convince the other and, for the moment at least, the gen eds are here to stay.  Plenty of peeps, like me, who see the value in them.

[ciao_yall]

The same "not-proven-to-be effective" arguments hold true for bachelor's degrees that are pick-a-mix, checkbox classes taught by warm bodies in a liberal-arts-lite model. 

Our conception of education in the western world is predicated upon mandatory primary and secondary schooling and the notion that everybody, no matter who they are, has access to higher ed in some form (we even try to educate felons in prison), so we are going to have a very wide pool of educators and students that we are low-balling and challenging whatever we do whenever possible.

As was one of the closing speakers at the fancy schmancy Community College Trustees conference this year.

https://www.congress.acct.org/keynote-speaker

What do we expect?  It's not going to be perfect, and sometimes it's not even going to be as good as it should be.  And someone, somewhere, is going to be able to poke holes in it because that is what we do in this culture.

If we as a culture really are concerned with the efficacy of high ed we would pour defense department dollars into our schools----I don't even both imagining what I could do with room and time to actually personalize curriculum and mentor my students and help them learn at their own paces.  There is no point in even thinking about that, however, since it is not going to happen.   

And rich people wouldn't be anxiously buying their kids' ways into Harvard, Stanford and USC.

At the same time, we could do something about "warm bodies."  Repeatedly pointing out that filling classrooms with "warm bodies" is not the best strategy in education doesn't do very much----yes, we agree.  Let's give those "warm bodies" FT jobs.

Amen.

If we as a culture really had doubts as deep as the ones you express then we would have eliminated the gen ed model long ago, probably would have eliminated college itself long ago.  Simple fact is we have not.  There will always be studies and opinions criticizing what we do----its part of western thought.  We love to tear our clothes and ululate, "for God's sake, won't some one think of the children!"  Find me any government or private program that doesn't have an army of critics.

And all the college marketing programs wouldn't be all about creating deep thinkers, blah blah blah.

[Caracal]

I suspect, but will not state it as an absolute, that society will either turn away from "competency" based education or we will have two distinct paths to education----and at some point the "competency" style of education will be regarded as second rate.  Actually, if we factor in the current reputation of for-profit / employment based schools, we see this already.  "Competency" will be education for the people not smart enough for "real" college.  Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but knowing human nature, I bet this is the next stage of ed-evolution.

Again, I will point out that the options are not limited to competency-based education or liberal-arts education.  Engineering is not generally competency-based education in the WGU model, but it's very much not also liberal arts or like a dental hygienist specialized job training.

The same "not-proven-to-be effective" arguments hold true for bachelor's degrees that are pick-a-mix, checkbox classes taught by warm bodies in a liberal-arts-lite model.  Evidence in some books published over the past twenty years (and you can name them as well as I can) indicate that few students are getting a lot of out college and that's not a function of eliteness of institution; it's much more a function of who is invested in their own education and who is getting through college checking boxes to do the next thing, regardless of what those specific boxes are.  Otherwise, we couldn't continue have reports like the classics: https://www.businessinsider.com/question-that-harvard-students-get-wrong-2012-12 and https://www.learner.org/resources/series28.html

I get more and more confused about what you are talking about. I'm not sure why the business insider thing is supposed to tell us something.  The only thing that kept me from the wrong answer was that I checked my answer and realized ten cents was wrong. I guess in some point in elementary school I learned to check my answer? But really the question is just one of these many examples where people imagine a question is obvious and don't take their time. I'm not really sure what college classes are supposed to teach you how not to do that.

[spork]

[. . .]

In the bigger picture, Polly, you and Spork seem awfully embittered, a little defensive (probably for private reasons regarding your own education), and not very objective, and you are simply wrong. 

[. . .]

I can't speak for Polly, but I am not bitter, nor do I feel defensive about my own education. It's facilitated my comfortable life in the global 1%. I am, however, worried about the future of my career in the higher education industry, since my comfortable life stems from that career, and I have twenty-five years to go until retirement. Although it's all about me, me, me, my situation is greatly affected by how other people perceive the value of the product that the industry supplies, regardless of whether I think those perceptions are correct or incorrect. Right now a lot of people are questioning the value of an increasingly expensive product that doesn't seem to deliver what it promises. So a lot of the discussion here reminds me of Tower Records right before Napster. Something is going to come along that the great unwashed masses are going to regard as a better value, and poof! A chunk of the industry will disappear, and most likely that chunk will include the kind of university I work at, which broadcasts hoo-ha about its general education curriculum far and wide. Not only is there an absence of evidence to back up the message, but the message doesn't even register with people in the market. They want to hear about something else.

[polly_mer]

As someone who works in the Defense sector, I'm terrified by wasting resources on educational practices we know are so far from perfect that we're eating our own seed corn and patting ourselves on the back for doing so.

It doesn't matter how many people liked their college box-checking course if they can't actually apply any of the lessons they were supposed to have learned in school like writing the damn equation set for:

X + Y =1.10
X =1.00 + Y

or doing the guess and check equivalent to those equations.

Failing to apply the basic knowledge when confronted with a situation out in the wild indicates one has failed at critical thinking.  Period.  Whether one wants to attribute that failure to not checking the work or something else, the fact remains that college educated people fail all the time at the critical thinking that matters.

The video I linked is one where people continue to fail at applying basic knowledge that should have been acquired during the mandatory elementary schooling.  The following decades of science education research indicate how little people actually learn in formal schooling, which also undermines the notion that more formal schooling is the way to fix people not knowing stuff out in the world.

If the goal really is a larger fraction of people able to do things out in the world by virtue of excellent critical thinking skills, then more college in the current model is not going to achieve that goal.

[polly_mer]

For example, the formal education assumption behind:

You just acknowledged you can do an algebraic proof better than you can a compound sentence, Polly.  And frankly, I sometimes get lost in your diction.  With all due respect (as a guy who wishes he had paid more attention in algebra), maybe you should have taken more literature and journalism.

I passed all my college-required writing requirements with A's: two semesters of freshman comp and a semester of technical writing.

I passed all my writing-intensive required humanities requirements with A's: the total comes up to 5 philosophy classes, some of which were required and some were for fun.

I passed all my writing-intensive social science requirements with A's.

I'll grant you that spending a year as a journalism intern 25+ years ago may have helped a lot with my writing process based on targeted feedback.

Now?  I can tell exactly which posts I spent three hours and 8-10 drafts doing versus one 10-15 minute draft to organize a couple ideas with a second read for spelling.  One more undergraduate class decades ago would not help this current writing nearly as much as a good editor or taking every post as seriously as I do my professional writing where a failure in communication will have significant consequences.

[Wahoo Redux]

For example, the formal education assumption behind:

You just acknowledged you can do an algebraic proof better than you can a compound sentence, Polly.  And frankly, I sometimes get lost in your diction.  With all due respect (as a guy who wishes he had paid more attention in algebra), maybe you should have taken more literature and journalism.

I passed all my college-required writing requirements with A's: two semesters of freshman comp and a semester of technical writing.

I passed all my writing-intensive required humanities requirements with A's: the total comes up to 5 philosophy classes, some of which were required and some were for fun.

I passed all my writing-intensive social science requirements with A's.

I'll grant you that spending a year as a journalism intern 25+ years ago may have helped a lot with my writing process based on targeted feedback.

Now?  I can tell exactly which posts I spent three hours and 8-10 drafts doing versus one 10-15 minute draft to organize a couple ideas with a second read for spelling.  One more undergraduate class decades ago would not help this current writing nearly as much as a good editor or taking every post as seriously as I do my professional writing where a failure in communication will have significant consequences.

You posted the compound sentence remark, not me.  I was just responding to it.

I fail to see how your X = 1.00 + Y / Harvard debacle proves anything in particular.  I assume that most people are shown the error, understand it, and then shrug.  In other words: big deal. 

I've posted it before and I'll post it again with a little expansion: there was a time I could have done that math; that time is gone and I've forgotten it all; it has not hampered my life or career in the least; now I use critical thinking skills everyday as a teacher, writer, researcher, journalist, and musician; I've never met the genius who has ALL the critical thinking skills at their finger tips (maybe these people exist but I doubt it----most "brilliant" people have only a very small window of genius) so failure at one tiny bit of random math indicates nothing.  Period.

Education, particularly college, should get your brain ready to learn these sorts things when you must.

I suspect each and every Harvardian who failed the .05 cent test the first time can do their little formula backwards and sideways now.

[spork]

[. . .]

I fail to see how your X = 1.00 + Y / Harvard debacle proves anything in particular.  I assume that most people are shown the error, understand it, and then shrug.  In other words: big deal. 

It demonstrates that, as Polly said, more formal education of the type that produces failures at basic (really, really basic) problem-solving abilities among Harvard graduates is extremely unlikely to significantly and cost effectively improve those abilities across the general population.

[. . .]

failure at one tiny bit of random math indicates nothing.  Period.

Education, particularly college, should get your brain ready to learn these sorts things when you must.

Someone who doesn't know how to analyze basic problems like the ones depicted, using techniques presented in elementary school, won't know when they must learn these sorts of things -- whether the "when" is in college or afterward. They don't know what they don't know, or when. As Daniel Willingham says about "critical thinking" (previous term in quotes because it is a sloppy, meaningless short hand that cognitive scientists never themselves use in reference to how the mind operates): "it's not the difficulty of thinking successfully, it's deciding to think in the first place."

I suspect each and every Harvardian who failed the .05 cent test the first time can do their little formula backwards and sideways now.

I highly doubt it, given that the method is taught in elementary school algebra, and a large portion of the U.S. population tops out in numeracy, scientific comprehension, etc. at the elementary school level (or below).