huffingtonpost: "A new study provides disturbing answers to questions about how much students actually learn in college – for many, not much – and has inflamed a debate about the value of an American higher education.
The research of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.
11 comments:
The article seems to want to blame the college president for the decline of rigor in the higher education expectation but it seems teacher should be more to blame and then the president for not being more involved in how each department and their teachers are functioning. For example, I have been in lecture style classes that feel much like the one girl's argument a corporation model. I had little interaction with the teach except for their lecturing and all questioning and counseling was done through her various T.A.s. In addition, the work was minimal, small readings and 2-page papers that were graded by T.A.s. That class was designed by the teacher and it was her system that was flawed, not necessarily the school presidents. In another lecture class I had the professor did admit to having a T.A., who helped with homework and photocopying, but he preferred being the person that dealt with the students. He had just as many students as the teach mentioned earlier but he handled them differently. So people can't behind the factor of size as the reason because clearly it can be done. Perhaps some of the trouble facing higher education are the teachers that are delivering it. The president should then be the next to blame for not enforcing more challenging programs from his faculty when the teacher fails to challenge them.
This article brings up a very good point. I have discussed with numerous peers that when it comes to academic classes, much of the work is not challenging or new. It definitely seems that there is a need for a change in order to continue stimulating student's minds in the classroom. There should be more of a push towards activities that will help, and if research shows that studying in groups is worse than studying alone, and activities that are not involved in greek life are more beneficial, the students should be more encouraged to participate in these different activities that will help them intellectually through their collegiate career.
I think it is a little hard for us to judge on this matter, because we are not a "typical" major. In the SOD, we are always directly in contact with our professors, plus, this is a much more 'hands on' major. I also don't agree with the fact that you're not learning much if you don't write long papers. I guess it depends on your major, but I'm not convinced that writing more necessarily makes you learn more. There are many other approaches to learning that can have a significant impact. However, in other classes that are not part of the SOD, I would have to agree with the fact that many of the classes "values research over good teaching". Last year when we had to take Critical History of the Arts, we had virtually no contact with the professor at all. Everything went through the T.A., who wasn't even a history major and readily admitted that she didn't know much about a lot of the things we were supposed to be learning. There definitely should be more control over cases such as that.
Tiffany is on the right track here. The SOD is not a typical learning environment. Much of our instruction is vocational in nature. This type of training, often hands on, is hard to balk on. Learning concrete skill sets is different than reading Plato.
When it comes to classes I've taken at other institutions of higher education and out of the SOD, I can see how this is applicable. I felt that my year at small liberal arts was not too productive. But I think a lot of that was my own fault. I wasn't engaged by the the traditional type of curriculum I was taking. When I wasn't personally invested in my education, I just skated through. And skating is pretty easy. You can't force students to care about learning. In a society where the pressure to have a college diploma is strong, many students go to college because they feel that they are supposed to, not because they want to. And that is a recipe for poor performance.
I can certainly say I agree; I didn't learn much in college. What I learned about theater I learned in my MA program, what I learned about technical theater I learned from free-lancing, what I will learn about my career will be here at CMU. Are we measuring learned knowledge against usefulness in a career? Perhaps the reason why we forget (I'd argue are learning it as we're going through college just not practicing, but how can you practice what you read in Jane Eyre?) is because we are not training to do something. Be interested to see how these results compare from the liberal arts to technical/career programs. I bet students are learning more than we think.
I agree with Tiffany. Writing papers doesn't necessarily make us learn more, but we aren't typical majors. Not all learning in college is about complex thinking and writing. Its kind of like the difference between being book smart and street smart.I agree with Matt that i dont think their research included career and tech programs. their research would have been different. You would think that they would include info like that before they made a big conclusion like that.
I know that i, personally have trouble learning or reading something if its a requirement that im not interested in or I dont find useful. I dont engage in those classes and therefore i dont learn in them
I thought it was interesting that the author commented on alternate agenda of the country in terms of the economic value of a diploma. He says, "...universities are being run more like corporations than educational institutions, with students viewed as consumers who come for a degree and move on." Because the reason most people want a degree is to eventually obtain a good job, they are more likely to go to a school that will give them a higher GPA, to get into the better grad school. So private universities and states too, in order to maintain their institution need to give their patrons what they want. America just has to ask itself if what it really wants is a higher education or a means to an end, a diploma for the job.
Also, its possible that freshman and sophomores don't all learn a such an exponential rate because the school has just accepted hundred of students from all over the country and needs some time to get everyone on the same page. Schools who are stricter about the ability level requirements of their incoming students can probably challenge them more confidentially. Challenging freshman who aren't ready may lead to a larger drop out rate.
To continue what Tiffany began about the focus of this article v. the teaching format in the SoD, that is certainly a factor: I have noticed myself being less engaged in large lecture classes. On the other hand, several non-SoD classes here are taught with class sizes smaller than 20 with direct interaction with the professor, and those I think are quite effective.
Perhaps the cause of this statistic is universities that require students to take many general ed classes in which they have no interest, just like they didn't in high school; the statistic does not include junior and senior years, when students take classes more pertinent to their major.
Lastly, I think that the extracurricular value in a change in environment from high school cannot be underestimated in considering how "much" students are learning.
You will only learn when you want to. My experience as a Grad Student at CMU does not support this article at all. It will attribute that to the nature of our school. CMU is a place where most of the students who are here WANT to be here. I have learned a great deal here in the semester plus that I have been here. Much from teachers, much for fellow grad students and much from my undergrad colleagues. It is perhaps because I am filling in all the missing knowledge gaps from my vocational life but I feel my time here all ready has been VERY educational. I feel that the undergrads that I work with now are miles ahead from where I was when I was in college the first time. It is because the students here go out of their way to learn. Learning is a life choice not something you are forces to do for four years.
to this day politicians and journalists fail to realize that their is no real way to measure knowledge. they believe that throwing a test in front of a student and seeing how well he scores is a way to measure how much knowledge they have learned or truly retain but it doesn't work that way. I believe you just cant put a test in front of someone and expect to have any idea how much they have really learned. it doesn't work that way.colleges would be a lot better off if they stopped spending money trying to tip their own hat and spent it on actually improving the quality of their education and thi9er facilities.
I think this article raises several good points, while not all aspects pertain to our program I think it shouldn't be taken lightly. In my non-drama classes (the ones similar to what I did in high school) I didn't really feel like I was working at a higher intellectual level, just more sophisticated. The main class I am citing with this is Interpretation and Argument. Even with this class we had to write more than 20 pages and often read 40 or more pages per week so this class is probably above average. Also, Carnegie Mellon by nature is a very selective school so I can't even imagine what classes would be like at other universities.
The other fact that I never realized is how universities put more emphasis into research than actual teaching which I feel could be a major issue, again I think we are somewhat exempt from that but outside of our program a lot of classes are taught by grads or PhD candidates when I think students should be learning from Professors.
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