The more I study the psychology of learning, the more I realize how much schooling has missed the mark. I have yet to figure out why so little investment is made in the minds of students and why simple changes haven't been made to better the school system tenfold. The main obstacle is cost, but I really think the benefits would outweigh the cost in time. Not to mention the fact that I don't think these changes would be terribly costly and that fact that I currently pay for the education I'm receiving (and I pay significantly less than the average student attending a university).
The main problem I see is that the primary focus at the university level is no longer developing the minds of students and aiming to make true the statement higher education but rather simply earning money and prestige (and, of course, the prestige is only to make more money).
With the focus off of my learning, the University of Arizona (and I suspect other institutions of higher learning) has settled for an ineffective system.
For now, I have three examples. I am sure I could add many more to my list with further study on developmental and educational psychology.
Massed learning is much less effective than distributed learning. When a concept is taught over a period of time, the level of acquisition is much higher. I was thinking of the pre-sessions (a semester worth of credit taught in three weeks) and summer/winter sessions (one month and three weeks, respectively). I was thinking of my class on Monday nights in which for three hours we are lectured on one week worth of material. I was thinking of how information is dumped on us through lecture or through text book (only hitting two of the four most common learning styles) in a short amount of time.
The information is recalled (and then for most students I assume forgotten shortly after) on exams. Today in one of my classes, we were told the class results of our most recent exam. Out of 120 students, 100 received a score of B or higher (with some receiving a score of over 100% due to the extra credit points available). 14 students received a C grade, and only 6 received D's and E's (we don't have F's at my school).
This is great news! We are understanding the material; both the professor and the students are doing their jobs, playing their roles well. But this was my professor's response: "So apparently next time I need to write a more difficult exam." That didn't sit well with me. It made me think of the normal curve that forces people into a distribution. (The curve that professors and instructors use when they say they "curved the test" is not the correct use of this distribution. If your professors really used a curve, they would force exam scores into the normal distribution by finding the mean and placing a equal number of students above and below. For example, if the mean exam score is a 50%, that becomes the new C and the same number of scores are placed in the A and B section as are in the D and E section. However, if your class did well on the exam and the mean score is an 85%, that becomes the new C and the rest of the scores are distributed as described above.) Essentially, I felt like my professor was expecting us to fail. Though the reality is that in a class of 120 there will be E students no matter how effective the teacher is, her response to our class-wide success was to make sure it doesn't happen again. It may be idealistic and unattainable, so maybe it's the optimist in me that thinks the goal of the professor should be a top heavy distribution where most of the students are performing excellently. It should not be her indication that she needs to amp up the difficulty of her exams.
The grading system for exams is what seems to frustrate students most. The day after a test, how many people in your classes ask the professor when the class will get the graded tests back? We want to know how we did, what we can do differently to score better next time. Feedback is only effective if received promptly. Receiving feedback 1-2 weeks after taking an exam or writing a paper is likely to have less effect on the performance of the student. We feel proud or disappointed when the teacher hands us an A or a C or a D test or paper, but our brains don't link the feedback to our performance as closely as we would if we received grades more immediately and more frequently. In most of my classes, my grade is solely based on a couple of exams. This is the only feedback I get for the semester.
Teachers already have the tools (D2L or Blackboard) to institute online quizzes, to give immediate feedback, and to post grades quickly. Most of my instructors and professors also have TAs helping them with the grading. Based on what feedback (positive reinforcement or punishment, in Skinner's words) does to behavior, returning tests and posting grades should be a more urgent and important task.
You probably have homework to get to, so I will wrap this up, even though sometimes I feel like I have four and a half semesters of complaints. Since the beginning of the semester, the instructor in my I/O Psychology class (a class that teaches about psychology in the workplace) has referred to the students as customers and as colleagues at different times during class, usually in order to use workplace lingo and to demonstrate or reinforce the concepts of the course. Today, she talked about the University as a business with an aim to be profitable financially. Thinking about university as a business and myself as a customer makes absolutely no sense to me. Imagine if you were seeking a product and you walked into a place of business looking to purchase such thing. The clerk says, "Sure, you have come to exactly the right place! We have just that thing. So we are going to take the money you are about to pay for said thing, we are going to hire you (without pay, of course), and we are going to help you make this product yourself. And in the end, you will walk away with said product!" This is why universities cannot be viewed as an organization whose aim is to be profitable. Whether or not they actually make a profit is not the issue; I understand full well that professors need to be paid and facilities need to be maintained. Go ahead and be profitable, but don't seek profit as goal number one as if you are an industry. If you are an industry, students are the products, the clientele, and the coworkers (subordinates, but still), and this makes no sense.
You are an organization that provides higher levels of learning. Since this higher learning, the way you do it, costs money, some students are willing to invest in their education and reputation in order to pay the cost for you to provide them with education. What say you start making it worth the investment?
These are things I write on my course evaluations every year, but similar to the aforementioned issue of delayed and infrequent feedback, you only receive this feedback twice a year, once after each semester. So here is my feedback, University of Arizona. I give you an F. Even though there are no F's in universities.
No comments:
Post a Comment