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

[Caracal]

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.

Poly, I vaguely recognize that equation set, but I can't remember how to do that problem. All I did was guess and check "1 dollar and 10 cents, oh no wait that would be .90, oh wait so 5 cents and 1.05, oh yeah ok. I bet I learned all the math I needed to do that before 5th grade, as did all those Harvard kids who got the question wrong. The things that kept me from getting it wrong were
1. My general suspicion about why someone would be asking some question that seems obvious, and my assumption that probably the point is to point out some kind of stupid error people make.
2. A general sense of my own fallibility around things like this.
These things might have something to do with my education in the sense that I've learned to think about context, and have learned that sometimes my initial ideas are wrong, but it also seems like a silly gotcha question. It is basically the mathematical equivalent of an optical illusion.c

[Wahoo Redux]

[. . .]

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).

So...the problem is really not a math equation.  The problem is much bigger.  If we boil down this concern that you and Polly share it would sound something like this: since our educational system is failing at basic skill-sets, we should see a great deal of business, medical, artistic, and personal failure in America, correct?  Not only that, but we are screwed for the future?

Perhaps I am overstating, but that's the whole problem in a nutshell.

But...seems to me a great many of these educated people are doing a great many things...but wait, they would do just as well without an education, right?

Any idea how many CEOs have college degrees?

[Antiphon1]

So...the problem is really not a math equation.  The problem is much bigger.  If we boil down this concern that you and Polly share it would sound something like this: since our educational system is failing at basic skill-sets, we should see a great deal of business, medical, artistic, and personal failure in America, correct?  Not only that, but we are screwed for the future?

Perhaps I am overstating, but that's the whole problem in a nutshell.

But...seems to me a great many of these educated people are doing a great many things...but wait, they would do just as well without an education, right?

Any idea how many CEOs have college degrees?

No.  But I'd wager the number of non-degree holding CEOs is pretty small. 

You may have grasped the crux of the logical conundrum, though.  Gainfully employed PhD holding people arguing the wastefulness of higher education reeks of hypocrisy. The unstated message is not that education is wasteful but that education not done to my higher standards is useless.

I happen to agree with the need for improving both educational inputs and outputs.  We can always do better. Neither denying people an education nor condemning the system trying to educate those people is the answer.  We need to work on our content and delivery systems.  So what?  But let's not reduce this argument to its most ridiculous point.  None of us would be where we are with out our imperfect educations.  That's the point of attaining an education is to being able to recognize when we need to reeducate ourselves. 

[polly_mer]

So...the problem is really not a math equation.  The problem is much bigger.  If we boil down this concern that you and Polly share it would sound something like this: since our educational system is failing at basic skill-sets, we should see a great deal of business, medical, artistic, and personal failure in America, correct?  Not only that, but we are screwed for the future?

Perhaps I am overstating, but that's the whole problem in a nutshell.

Not quite, but a good start.  The next piece is wasting time/energy/resources trying to get everyone to have the very good, broad education while neglecting the depth that we need in certain areas that never before existed in human history.  We can't fast-forward certain types of education due to how much background people need to know and we need more people who have those specific experiences in a specific order.  Waiting to start that depth until one's mid twenties when we have evidence from around the world that people of average intelligence can start on that path in their mid-teens means we're behind the curve.

We can't have everyone be a doctor/engineer/computer expert, but we need more than we have, so we can't let people who could do the work drop off the path as early as we're currently doing.  That algebra is year 1 on a 10-15 year journey.  The point isn't that everyone needs algebra so much as if almost no one even gets that first step, we're screwed.

We're also screwed if people get off the path because their time, energy, and good will is being squandered with more breadth when they are ready for more depth.  The calls in many areas to just skip college because it's not worth it will not be successfully countered by the breadth argument.  We could, however, make inroads by letting more people specialize as early as other countries do.

But...seems to me a great many of these educated people are doing a great many things...but wait, they would do just as well without an education, right?

No.  That's not the conclusion.  The conclusion is we need to stop conflating style (someone is in a classroom for N years so they are educated) with substance (people who are of average intelligence who get an education suited to their interests can do good things; people who are of above average intelligence backed by good social capital who are supported in their early years can do great things).

One can sharpen one's critical thinking skills through a good education, but it's entirely possible to spend a lot of time in a classroom, pass every test, and still be unable to apply any of that material outside of the classroom.  After all, Trump and W Bush both have college degrees from elite institutions as well as high school diplomas from elite institutions.  A college degree is not the same as an education.

The syllogism that is false and drives me nuts is:

* Bright enough people with social capital get good-to-great jobs
* Some bright enough people with social capital get college degrees.
* Therefore, college degrees make people bright and employable.

Any idea how many CEOs have college degrees?

Some of the most famous CEOs who started their own businesses are famous for having dropped out of elite institutions like Bill Gates (access to computers as a teenager at a time when computers were research machines) and Mark Zuckerberg (good enough network he could just get the capital necessary to start his business). 

Again, the people who have good social capital and excellent K-12 educations tend to do well in their lives in ways that aren't correlated with college degrees, although many people will have college degrees.  These are the people who will be OK even without a college degree, but do great things when they opt for a college study suited to their interests and talents.

People who are bright enough and driven enough tend to do acceptably well within their communities.  Those folks tend to not end up in overall high-powered jobs, but they are our community leaders regardless of their formal education.

It's a good damn thing for society that we have enough people who can do well without college degrees since only 30% of the US adult population has them and many of the degrees that people have aren't worth the paper on which they are written.  That's not a knock against studying any field.  That's acknowledging the reality that an ever-increasing percentage of our college-going population start college performing lower than ninth graders in excellent K-12 school systems and thus, four years later, have only made it up to slightly lower than where the students from excellent K-12 school systems started college. 

An excellent education is like having a great toolbox.  You can get by with a pair of pliers that is also your hammer and your screwdriver, but it's easier to actually have the right tools for the job.   There's evidence that people who take their own education seriously develop a pretty good toolbox, even if they sometimes are using their pliers as a socket wrench because they didn't get to the point of learning about socket wrenches.  There's also evidence that merely showing people a hammer repeatedly over the years doesn't mean they won't take their pliers and wallop the hell out of the nail while wailing at great length how hard driving a freakin' nail is.

[tuxthepenguin]

Are there stats on what proportion of schools require gen ed in the US and what the trends are?

I don't think such stats would be helpful. "Gen ed" can mean speech and composition classes, which provide skills needed for any job, or art history, which provides no job skills. These discussions, as I've seen them, are primarily focused on elimination of humanities requirements, which in many universities would allow students to finish a semester earlier.

Doesn't it depend on how the stats are presented, and whether they are transparent or obfuscating?

You'd need to report by type of class and how many classes for it to be meaningful. Even then you'd have a composition class under "humanities" if it's taught by an English department, so I don't know that there are any stats you'd ever hope to find that can identify the "no job skills" classes, which is the argument against "general education" requirements.

I am not sure that any one has attempted to get stats on this stuff anyway, so it's probably a moot point.

I'm skeptical about dividng up the "job skills" classes from the "no job skills" classes even in principle. After all, we often have organizational skills, time keeping skills, critical thinking skills, presentation skills, and more generalizable skills in all classes. (There's also the important skill of being able to look like you know about a topic when you have spent very little time on it.) On the other hand, a class that might looks like a "job skills" class like "Critical Thinking" may turn out to have rather little generalizability to the work world.

I agree with you. I'm strongly against dropping gen ed humanities requirements just because they don't offer any direct job skills. On the other hand, I'm disappointed that you won't get very far if you argue that all gen ed courses should incorporate training of some skills that help the students. My proposal wasn't exactly the skills you've listed, but I've argued that some such training should be a part of all of those classes. For example, incorporating advanced spreadsheet usage into a history class if that's something the professor can do. I understand that faculty in those departments want to teach "pure" classes. I also understand that they want to continue to be paid.

[marshwiggle]

I'm strongly against dropping gen ed humanities requirements just because they don't offer any direct job skills. On the other hand, I'm disappointed that you won't get very far if you argue that all gen ed courses should incorporate training of some skills that help the students. My proposal wasn't exactly the skills you've listed, but I've argued that some such training should be a part of all of those classes. For example, incorporating advanced spreadsheet usage into a history class if that's something the professor can do. I understand that faculty in those departments want to teach "pure" classes. I also understand that they want to continue to be paid.

A couple of decades ago I started having fewer experiments in labs and having more lab exercises to teach specific skills. I have two lab exercises on using spreadsheets; one for doing basic calculations and some statistical analysis, and one on graphing. Surprise, surprise; students from other disciplines have told me afterwards how they now do all their labs in their own disciplines using spreadsheets, and wouldn't dream of doing it otherwise. I also started having exercises in how to do library research (run by our library), and on writing (run by our Writing Centre). So they do less "subject" content but learn more skills that will benefit no matter what they do.

I honestly think that if some of these courses that claim to teach "soft skills" would actually incorporate some explicit instruction  in tools, techniques, etc. rather than simply expecting students to learn it by osmosis then students would have more satisfaction that they had, in fact, learned something which may be useful in the future.

[downer]

For years it has been recommended by various experts that gen ed should be more explicit about skills teaching. I first saw it in the First Year Experience recommendations, and then it spread.

I've done it, and it can help for students who did not learn much in high school or middle school.

But basically it is remedial work. There are very few gen ed skills that are distinctive to higher ed that students should not have learned a long time earlier.

These days I'm not inclined to teach remedial skills. Someone else can teach that stuff.

[ciao_yall]

I'm strongly against dropping gen ed humanities requirements just because they don't offer any direct job skills. On the other hand, I'm disappointed that you won't get very far if you argue that all gen ed courses should incorporate training of some skills that help the students. My proposal wasn't exactly the skills you've listed, but I've argued that some such training should be a part of all of those classes. For example, incorporating advanced spreadsheet usage into a history class if that's something the professor can do. I understand that faculty in those departments want to teach "pure" classes. I also understand that they want to continue to be paid.

A couple of decades ago I started having fewer experiments in labs and having more lab exercises to teach specific skills. I have two lab exercises on using spreadsheets; one for doing basic calculations and some statistical analysis, and one on graphing. Surprise, surprise; students from other disciplines have told me afterwards how they now do all their labs in their own disciplines using spreadsheets, and wouldn't dream of doing it otherwise. I also started having exercises in how to do library research (run by our library), and on writing (run by our Writing Centre). So they do less "subject" content but learn more skills that will benefit no matter what they do.

I honestly think that if some of these courses that claim to teach "soft skills" would actually incorporate some explicit instruction  in tools, techniques, etc. rather than simply expecting students to learn it by osmosis then students would have more satisfaction that they had, in fact, learned something which may be useful in the future.

What you are talking about here is teaching skills in a contextualized way.

For example, in history, they are learning research, writing, considering alternative points of view, and evaluating potential outcomes against reality. Now how do you teach those "skills" without an interesting context - in this case, history. Or literature, or gender studies, or any other "humanities gen ed" topic? I suppose you could just put it all on an online quiz and have students search for random factoids, write a grammatically correct robo-graded essay, and so forth. Would you really be teaching those "skills?"

[ciao_yall]

Any idea how many CEOs have college degrees?

Some of the most famous CEOs who started their own businesses are famous for having dropped out of elite institutions like Bill Gates (access to computers as a teenager at a time when computers were research machines) and Mark Zuckerberg (good enough network he could just get the capital necessary to start his business). 

Again, the people who have good social capital and excellent K-12 educations...

...which stem from having rich parents and friends of their rich parents who can mentor, guide, and fund them along the way.

And at the right time hire people with Master's degrees like Steve Ballmer and Sheryl Sandberg to really run the operation and build it for long-term success.

[Caracal]

Any idea how many CEOs have college degrees?

Some of the most famous CEOs who started their own businesses are famous for having dropped out of elite institutions like Bill Gates (access to computers as a teenager at a time when computers were research machines) and Mark Zuckerberg (good enough network he could just get the capital necessary to start his business). 

Again, the people who have good social capital and excellent K-12 educations...

...which stem from having rich parents and friends of their rich parents who can mentor, guide, and fund them along the way.

Formal education of any sort is never "necessary" to learn things and it never has been. Frederick Douglass never had any formalized schooling at all. He just managed to teach himself to read and educated himself from there. Lincoln had enough schooling to be literate and the rest he picked up in law libraries and through a pretty robust print culture. I'm sure there are plenty of brilliant kids out there teaching themselves calculus on the internet because they think its interesting. Formal education is just about providing a social context to learn stuff and apply that knowledge.

[marshwiggle]

A couple of decades ago I started having fewer experiments in labs and having more lab exercises to teach specific skills. I have two lab exercises on using spreadsheets; one for doing basic calculations and some statistical analysis, and one on graphing. Surprise, surprise; students from other disciplines have told me afterwards how they now do all their labs in their own disciplines using spreadsheets, and wouldn't dream of doing it otherwise. I also started having exercises in how to do library research (run by our library), and on writing (run by our Writing Centre). So they do less "subject" content but learn more skills that will benefit no matter what they do.

I honestly think that if some of these courses that claim to teach "soft skills" would actually incorporate some explicit instruction  in tools, techniques, etc. rather than simply expecting students to learn it by osmosis then students would have more satisfaction that they had, in fact, learned something which may be useful in the future.

What you are talking about here is teaching skills in a contextualized way.

For example, in history, they are learning research, writing, considering alternative points of view, and evaluating potential outcomes against reality. Now how do you teach those "skills" without an interesting context - in this case, history. Or literature, or gender studies, or any other "humanities gen ed" topic?

The problem is that the context often overwhelms the skill. For instance "considering alternative points of view" is going to be judged according to the ideological bent of the subject, which students will know and automatically adopt. Do you honestly think that gender studies and physical education/kinesiology, etc. will have the exact same standards and expectations evaluating "considering alternative points of view" in a discussion of men's and women's sports?

There's a reason debating clubs often debate kind of nonsensical topics; it's so that students develop the skills rather than just arguing their own viewpoints. The valuable skill is not having students being able to argue their own positions; it's having them able to recognize the implicit and explicit assumptions in their own cases that, if shown to be incorrect, mean that they are wrong and need to change their own viewpoint.

I suppose you could just put it all on an online quiz and have students search for random factoids, write a grammatically correct robo-graded essay, and so forth. Would you really be teaching those "skills?"

Anyone who thinks an important "skill" can be developed and/or assessed in this way has no idea what an important skill is.

[spork]

[. . .]

For example, in history, they are learning research, writing, considering alternative points of view, and evaluating potential outcomes against reality.

[. . .]

Maybe in an ideal world. But for many undergraduates, "history" means completing a gen ed requirement consisting of sitting in a lecture hall with 100-300 other students, taking a few Scantron tests, and maybe writing a term paper the night before it is due that will only ever be read by an adjunct or a GTA. Not very cost effective in terms of learning skills or content.

[Wahoo Redux]

Any idea how many CEOs have college degrees?

Some of the most famous CEOs who started their own businesses are famous for having dropped out of elite institutions like Bill Gates (access to computers as a teenager at a time when computers were research machines) and Mark Zuckerberg (good enough network he could just get the capital necessary to start his business). 

Again, the people who have good social capital and excellent K-12 educations...

...which stem from having rich parents and friends of their rich parents who can mentor, guide, and fund them along the way.

Formal education of any sort is never "necessary" to learn things and it never has been. Frederick Douglass never had any formalized schooling at all. He just managed to teach himself to read and educated himself from there. Lincoln had enough schooling to be literate and the rest he picked up in law libraries and through a pretty robust print culture. I'm sure there are plenty of brilliant kids out there teaching themselves calculus on the internet because they think its interesting. Formal education is just about providing a social context to learn stuff and apply that knowledge.

Sometimes we get off on dumb divergences.  This one is my fault.

Of course one does not NEED formal education to do anything if one is brilliant and motivated enough. 

And Zuckerberg and Gates are virtually always the example of this (even though the both dropped out of the premiere institution of higher learning in the world where their initial ideas were fostered by training and exposure----don't forget that).

But again, if we go with the sheer facts, the number of formally educated people who have gone on to the top spots in virtually any industry or discipline presents a pretty good argument that, while not perfect, education is at least doing something right.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious socioeconomic dynamics----we all know them----and now I am pointing out another dynamic, the educational one.

Dismiss if you will.

Quote from: ciao_yall on Today at 07:14:17 AM

[. . .]

For example, in history, they are learning research, writing, considering alternative points of view, and evaluating potential outcomes against reality.

[. . .]


Maybe in an ideal world. But for many undergraduates, "history" means completing a gen ed requirement consisting of sitting in a lecture hall with 100-300 other students, taking a few Scantron tests, and maybe writing a term paper the night before it is due that will only ever be read by an adjunct or a GTA. Not very cost effective in terms of learning skills or content.

We can only do so much with what is given to us.

According to Polly, it is too much. 

[Caracal]

\

But again, if we go with the sheer facts, the number of formally educated people who have gone on to the top spots in virtually any industry or discipline presents a pretty good argument that, while not perfect, education is at least doing something right.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious socioeconomic dynamics----we all know them----and now I am pointing out another dynamic, the educational one.

Dismiss if you will.

Oh, I agree with you, I just am struck by the way polly, Spork and Marshwiggle all have these oddly idealized views of education. We keep hearing about the things students aren't learning in college as if the point is to beam information into their brains. It is possible to be very well educated and never go to college, it is possible to go to college and not learn much. None of which means there aren't ways to do things. better, I'm just not sure why the takeaway from all of this is that nobody needs to know anything about history.

[marshwiggle]

Oh, I agree with you, I just am struck by the way polly, Spork and Marshwiggle all have these oddly idealized views of education. We keep hearing about the things students aren't learning in college as if the point is to beam information into their brains. It is possible to be very well educated and never go to college, it is possible to go to college and not learn much. None of which means there aren't ways to do things. better, I'm just not sure why the takeaway from all of this is that nobody needs to know anything about history.

This is a straw man argument. No-one has said that no-one needs to know anything about any specific subject. Rather the reverse; if you're going to make the case that "because there is value in [X], education should include [X]". Spork used the example of dental hygienist to indicate that there an endless number of things one could study, all resulting in some potential benefit. How do you decide what NOT to include if that is the criterion? As long as there is a finite limit to the number of courses a person has to take, then there has to be a decision as to what belongs and what doesn't. I don't argue for my own discipline being included, because I don't feel it's useful to those only doing it because they are forced to, but some here seem to feel that no matter how apathetic or even hostile some students are, "their" discipline is worth forcing people through.