Why Didn't You Tell Me?
Speaker:
Danielle Clevenger
Date
of Speech: 01/24/2020
Title:
"Why Didn't You Tell Me?"
Event:
2020 AAC&U Annual Meeting
When I got to college I quickly discovered to 4.0 two degrees I only needed to attend most classes on exam day, having extensively prepared by briefly reading the chapter the night before. I was very successful, learned a little, and was bored a lot. However, all of this changed when a mentor started just taking me with him to things. I got to go to faculty meetings, sit with the gen ed council, attend workshops in the faculty development center, and I was amazed. Did you know Gen Eds have a purpose other than making students mad? Or that acing a multiple choice test doesn't necessarily mean you learned the material? I felt like I was getting a behind the scenes look into a massive production, and I was completely captivated. I was surprised to learn faculty, staff, and administrators already knew all about what can make or break someone's college experience.
After absorbing all of this for a while, I began to form an adamant and enduring belief that all students needed this information. That knowing all of these things was vital to their ability to make informed choices that would shape the rest of their lives.
I started asking why students were not regularly included in all of these conversations, and I got answers like "well not all students are like you" or "students don't take these things seriously" and "students are always just looking for the easy way out". It was then that I began to see this overlooked crack in the ivory tower--the exclusion and infantilization of students in regards to teaching and learning. On one hand we expect students to be grown-ups. We expect them to be engaged and think critically, except for when we want them to obediently adhere to a system that is seldom aligned and most certainly isn't transparent. And when they start to question or resist the system, we brand them as lazy or irresponsible.
I think faculty, staff, and administrators alike believe that if students became teaching and learning literate and were given a respected seat at the table, the system would either cease to be rigorous or come under legitimate demands for accountability for its shortcomings. And so, because of our arrogance, our selfishness, and our fear, we make them vulnerable. Instead of enabling them to face the challenges and prejudices we know they will face, we choose to make yet another rule, form yet another committee, and hold yet another meeting to figure out how we can best pull, push, threaten, and bribe them to the finish line.
However, I am absolutely convinced when we purposefully educate students on teaching and learning, and I don't just mean study tips and tricks, that all of our goals will be easier to reach. I'd like to briefly share with you a few notable experiences that have made me so sure of this.
I'd like you to meet Avra, Adam, Wyatt, Nico, and Aksel. This picture was taken right after they had finished teaching a 160 person 300-level lecture a lesson they designed themselves using the principles of backwards design and incorporating active learning strategies. What's even better is this was an assessment they had chosen for themselves as part of a learning community they had formed.
Before the learning community, all these students had in common is taking the same Philosophy 101 course. By the end of the semester they kept telling me how sad they were and how they wanted to do more philosophy but taking another course didn't fit with their plans. It was at this point I suggested forming a learning community. At the first meeting I handed them some excerpts from Fink's Creating significant learning experiences which they read collaboratively. Afterwards, I set them to creating their learning outcomes for the community. This is what they came up with...
By the end of this semester we want to be able to:
- Construct and communicate strong arguments that are sensitive to evidence from multiple perspectives on an issue.
- Formulate and receive (well) constructive criticism.
- Display our comprehension of new ideas presented in readings and media by being able to concisely summarize the author's philosophical arguments.
- Enjoy and appreciate collaborative philosophy that builds off of one another's ideas.
They are now on their third iteration of the community, which they have expanded to include others. I could talk about them a lot more, but I want to be able to share a few other experiences with you.
Now I'd like you to meet Natalie, Lauren, Taylor, Katherine, and Catrina. They were part of The Sophia Project, which was a student designed and lead co-curricular activity aimed at bringing the principles of teaching and learning to all students.
Side note, this project was born out of my frustration that no one would let me design and vet a course on teaching and learning for first year students. Here is the mission statement they wrote for the project:
Our goal is to empower students to embrace their passion and potential on a deeper level by exciting curiosity, encouraging exposure to new ideas, and sparking engagement in a contemporary world.
They spent hours distilling what it was we truly wanted for students, and the whole curriculum was transparently designed around these goals.
Finally, I'd like to tell you about one more project called Teaching and Learning Companions or TLC for short. For any other Dr. Who fans out there, you'll remember the doctor is always better when they have a companion. The TLC program takes undergraduate students enrolls them in an intensive pedagogy course, which is designed to prepare them to give pedagogical feedback to instructors. Once they've completed the course they are then employed doing exactly that. They observe and work with the instructor to problem solve, try new pedagogical strategies, and create innovative assessments and assignments.
One of the things that has been the most interesting to me working on this project are the "I wishes" that come out over the course of the semester. Here are some from the most recent iteration:
- One of the things that I wish I had known before coming into school was the impact that small classrooms can have. There have been some moments this year where I've questioned the educational value of a large lecture (mostly because my large lectures have poor teaching) and I'm not sure that I would have picked such a big school if I had known that.
- I wish I knew earlier that I wasn't obtaining any of the benefits we discussed when talking about active learning and it could have motivated me to find learning opportunities on my own.
- I wish I knew examples of good teaching, so that I didn't think that standing and reading from the lecture slides was good teaching.
However, my favorite revelation from the course is always:
- I never really knew how hard it is to teach. Some of the literature we have read this semester has opened my eyes to the amount of work it takes to create and execute effective lesson plans and learning activities.
- I will always make sure to talk in class from now on.
One of the students from the recent iteration of the TLC program said something in discussion one day that I think is profound. She said, "When I'm in a good class I look around and I think 'wow everyone in this class is so smart' but when I'm in classes that are taught badly its like 'wow everyone in this class is so stupid'".
I'd like us to very humbly and honestly ask ourselves if we are building environments that make us wonder why everyone around us is so stupid, or if we are building environments that, when we take a step back, make us go "wow, I am surrounded by such smart people".
Helping students to become teaching and learning literate and then respecting what they have to say is necessary for creating the latter kind of environment in our universities and colleges. If we really are serious about solving some of the challenges we have been talking about these past few days, we must stop looking at students as mere objects in the system, and we will need to embrace attitudes and policies that empower them to stand and work with us. The good news is our students are bright, bold, and big hearted, and when we learn to work with them, we will be so much stronger than we are without them.