Semantics

A recent article expounding the virtues of a life-sized maze--complete with photo and description of the maze--was captioned by a reference to a labyrinth.  That represents both sloppy journalism and sloppy thinking, a confusion of two things with some common characteristics but very different functions

The recent public press about grade inflation (which essentially means an increasing percentage of the "higher" letter grades) suggests that the increase in grades must mean a lowering of standards.  Perhaps it does.  But before I am willing to argue whether standards are slipping, I would like to see us stop conflating student ability (which is represented by various measures whose scores or results are normally distributed, thus, the ubiquitous normal curve) with student performance against a clear and measurable set of standards.

If the standards are clear for a course and most students are able by the end of the semester to reach those standards, does that necessarily mean the course standards are too low?  Could it mean, in fact, that the instructor is among the best and able to take a range of students with varying abilities and get most of them to the standard by the end of the course?

Our thinking about the goals and objectives of education is not just semantics. Sometimes it's confusion or conflation or both.

Whining trumps change far too often

My patron saint may very well be Our Lady of Perpetual Planning.  I adjust, update, edit, tweak and otherwise "improve" my course materials (syllabus, course calendar, daily plans, teaching notes, resources...pretty much everything) before every semester and right up to the day before classes start.  Classes start tomorrow, so you can pretty well guess what I'm doing.

Incorporating change into our lives is hard, especially if the change involves a learning curve or a risk.  Some of the changes I want to make in my course plan are risky, in the sense that the outcome isn't knowable.  What if the change isn't better?  How will I grade it?  Is the potential outcome worth the effort?  What if the students don't understand the assignment?  Just how hard is this going to be...for me?

As I head back to make those last and final changes (really, they'll be the last ones...absolutely, positively), I'll be going with the encouragement of trusted muses:

• "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." -- Andre Gide
• "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."  -- Helen Keller
• "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover." -- Mark Twain
• "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."  -- T.S. Eliot

Okay, I'm ready now.

Learning can be painful for the instructor

In the final stretch of the academic semester, the interest always builds.  Not in the content of the course, however, but in The Grade and what it will take to get The Grade by the end of the semester.  It's perilously close to the end of my first semester to teach innovation and creativity.  I am not happy with the method I established at the beginning of the semester for determining grades and neither is a subset of my students.

In courses I've taught before, I have a reasonably robust method of assessing student learning.  I've clarified the expectations, developed rubrics (where they are of benefit), and created assignments that measure progress toward course objectives...more or less.  Because I'm never completely happy with whatever process is in place to determine The Grade.

In the innovation and creativity course, my logic at the beginning of the semester was to assess completion (rather than quality) of assignments in the majority of the homework or in-class work.  Thus, there have been frequent, short assignments with low point value (10-20 points), so that students could be candid or creative or selectively omit assignments.  The total number of points earned (at least in some portions of the course) was left to the student.  The unintended consequences were a record-keeping challenge for me and a fallacy of composition for students.

I ended up monitoring submission and/or completion of numerous assignments with low point value for 35 students; some of the students chose not to complete early assignments (due to the low point value) and are now unhappy with The Grade.  The goal of allowing students freedom to be expressive, take risks, and manage their level of interaction has worked very well for some, well enough for most, and extremely poorly for the rest.

The easy solution is to limit the number of assignments and provide more structure relative to the content.  But since the easy solution seems to defeat the purpose of the course, I have more thinking to do about how to determine The Grade when I teach this course again.  And I intend to solicit as much input as I can get from my current students...particularly the unhappy ones.  At this point, I'll take any suggestions I can get.

I can work with anyone....except her

I've written before about grades and the unintended consequences of placing too much emphasis on GPA.  At our career center (I shudder even to write this), students are instructed to place GPA at the top of their resume.  Little wonder, then, that grades loom large here.  And yet, employers continue to take a much broader view of potential candidates, as illustrated by CNN's recent Top 10 reasons employers want to hire you, where good cultural fit (described as being able to adapt) and ability to work with others are two of the 10.

The course I'm currently teaching has, by design, both individual work and teamwork as part of a student's grade.  The biggest complaint about the teamwork is that they lose control over the quality of the work; thus, teamwork may cause their grade to suffer.  The most popular solution offered by the students?  Don't make us work in teams.  And, if you're going to force us to work in teams, don't make us work with people we don't like or who aren't as smart as we are.

I've been incredulous listening to students explain how The Real World doesn't work this way, that they will be able to control their own destiny when they get a job, and that I simply do not understand how unfair it is to have others negatively impact ones work.  My internal response is roughly, "O, really? You seriously think my reputation is not affected by the professors you label as uncaring and incompetent?  By the anonymous feedback provided through teacher evaluations?  By committee meetings--and members--that often drain my last ounce of creativity and interest?"  My external response is a sigh.  I wonder whether it's possible to develop a thirst and drag them to water.

Since one of the teams in my class decided to "fire" a member this week--for communication and performance differences which seem insurmountable to them and are, in fact, the very issues they will encounter in every company, job, and working relationship--I am highly motivated to seize this learning opportunity, both for myself and for my students.

This debate in The Chronicle of Higher Education exemplifies the difference of opinion among educators about what we should teach and why--which, of course, raises the question of how.  And that brings us full circle to assessing whether students are learning what they need to know.  So, one of the assignments for my class next week will be to read the article and the responses.  Then they have to weigh in...in writing...for a grade.  It's a place to start.

To B or not to B

With a very small margin for error, I think I can recite every course in which I earned a B in my undergraduate and graduate degrees.  Some were lack of diligence (as in I just didn't do quite enough work and/or study, in the inevitable trade-offs most students make), some were genuinely my best effort, and some were a complete surprise, where I thought I'd nailed an A until I discovered the reality.  Many years later, I can honestly say that none of the B grades were a threat to my career or a limitation on my quality of life.

Each semester, the joy of electronic communication (aka email) allows students to petition for various grade-enhancing indulgences, without the discomfort or inconvenience of an office visit and eye contact.  Some of the requests are charming, some are amusing, some contain more than a modicum of entitlement--they came to class regularly, they turned in all their assignments, they tried really hard, they deserve an A.  I think it's the entitlement, more than anything else, that troubles me.

Doing the minimum (which, in my mind, includes turning in assignments and coming to class) does not guarantee an A, a grade intended to differentiate the top 10%.  In fact, doing the minimum would (in a perfect world) garner an average grade.  On some level, most students know this.  What they often worry about, however, is losing GPA-contingent scholarship money or dropping off some variation of the Dean's List.  Somehow, both the students and the academic community have lost sight of the real goal, which should be learning.  But that opens an entirely different discourse about how (and why) we use the methods we use to assess learning.

The little lies we tell

The topic was ethics...and how good people persuade themselves (and others) that certain actions aren't really wrong.  A compelling speaker who looks like one of us and has spent time in prison for her own fraudulent activities.  A well-written article about the very specific ways people in a variety of business settings rationalize their own behavior.  A class discussion (one of the rare moments when students actively participate) about the speaker, the article, our own stories.  And it still happened.  Students benefited from a grading mistake (mine), remained silent, and were hurt or dismayed when another student told me about my mistake.  

I read recently (and I can't remember where...one of the down sides of constant consumption) that we all tend to overestimate our abilities, our skill level, even our attractiveness.  The one reported exception was people who are depressed--they tend to be the realists.  So I wonder how much those little lies we tell ourselves pave the way for the rationalizations that lead to dishonesty. 

From Bhopal to Enron to my classroom, the difference is in magnitude.  People are hurt when we fail to hold our actions--and those of others--up for rigorous scrutiny.  My last manager--who is now the CEO of the company--is a very wise man who was (probably still is) fond of saying "Bad news does not get better with age."  Truth, no matter how painful, is far less damaging than the little lies we tell ourselves and others.

I don't have any answers today, but I sure do have a lot to think about.

Black belts

Students want to get it right, think it all hinges on a grade, and feel tremendous pressure (some of which is inflicted by professors, parents, and peers) to perform. Today, we talked about competitive rivalry and competitive dynamics, added some Sun Tzu on the Art of War (which you can download here), and dabbled in six sigma vis a vis Deming's Total Quality Management. It's a lot to absorb.

And, yet, when I tell them about martial arts and how a black belt entitles you to start over, right beside the white-belted beginner, the disbelief is almost palpable. It's no wonder so many of our businesses are overly focused on short-term results. It's woven into the very fabric of our educational system.

Textbooks, grades, and learning, oh my

When I logged on to post this blog today, I found a blog link sent by a student (who took a class with me and works in my department). In the Comments section, there's a professional and respectful exchange about grading--and challenging students to strive for excellence.

I've had this same discussion with a trusted colleague or two over lunch and I'm pleased that students want to participate in the dialog. Grading is one of the hardest parts of teaching, at least for me, especially when seeking a balance between individual excellence and the ability to collaborate.

And now the topic I intended for today: The Textbook Decision. I've opted not to use one for the fall semester. I've learned more than a few things from my students, including the fact that they generally don't read their textbooks and resent having to pay for something they don't use. It's a bit circular. Next post, I'll explain what I mean and why I've chosen to forgo requiring a textbook.