In the previous post, I mentioned that the seminar was given a two day introduction to library research skills, including on-line bibliographic databases and effective search techniques.
The students had two reactions to this introduction. First, they found the information presented to be very useful and appreciated the effort of Charlotte Jones to make this available to them. Second, there was a strong consensus that the presentation could have been accomplished effectively with less class time. 13 of the 14 students stated that they could have grasped the material in less time than the two class sessions we spent on it. A key part of the presentation was an excellent powerpoint presentation. Several students suggested, and most of the others concurred, that the powerpoint could have been distributed in advance, a much shorter formal presentation could have been given and then time would have been available for questions.
Perhaps we could use the time saved to discuss aspects of the students’ research projects, that we didn’t have a chance to this go round.
Live and learn.
There were a lot of things that worked really well in the first year seminar and I plan to blog about them over the next month or so. For now, though, I want to mention some things that went wrong, before I forget about them.
One of the things I really underestimated was the students’ understanding of what constitutes a college-level research paper. I received several of what John Bean characterizes as “all about” papers, paper which included an abundance of material about a topic, but which lacked anything resembling a point. Even the papers built around a thesis ofter came across as rather superficial. I found this surprising and disappointing since in general the students did quite excellent work in the course. I expected the research paper to be an opportunity for the students to explore a topic of particular interest in more detail than were were able to do more generally in the course.
Over the course of the seminar, I presented many of the things students should know about writing a research paper:
* We talked about scholarship as a conversation between competing arguments on a question, and how to construct scholarly arguments.
* We spent a couple of class sessions exploring on-line databases and search techniques, with the help of our excellent reference librarian, Charlotte Jones.
* I modelled the process economists go through as they conduct research.
Despite all this, many students failed to grasp what I was looking for in a research paper. It was as if they didn’t make the connection between the activities mentioned above, which were spread out over the term, and the research paper assignment which was due in two drafts over the last month. I clearly didn’t do a good job of making the connection explicit.
In retrospect, perhaps the outcome shouldn’t have been surprising. I’ve never taught a course exclusively to first year students before and in those courses I have taught with first years I’ve never assigned anything as extensive as a research paper. This experience has given me new appreciation for what my colleagues in the English Department confront in the Freshman Composition class. Next year, I’ll build more explicit scaffolding into the assignment.
Recently, Gene Roche remarked that one thing he admired about my blog was my willingness to document the mistakes I make in my teaching. But isn’t making mistakes the best way to learn? After all, if one is unwilling to risk making mistakes, one’s learning must be inhibited. Think of the students that have something to contribute to a class discussion, but are unwilling to speak it, fearing they could be wrong. As a consequence, the class doesn’t reach the correct conclusion, or at a minimum takes longer to get there. (By contrast, if they are wrong, there is no harm, no foul to the process of learning.) Potential social gain, but little potential social cost.
But does “school” as it currently exists promote risk taking? I suspect not. I know that mistakes are not encouraged. Mistakes are looked at as failures, rather than potential stepping stones towards the truth. (Is this outcome a result of the industrial model of school?) When a student makes a mistake, their grade is reduced. And grades are the currency of the realm.
Of course, professional practice, however imperfectly, understands the need to make mistakes. Certainly, that’s the way that knowledge progresses. Could it be that school doesn’t provide a good model for real world practice?
I guess that’s all I’m trying to accomplish when I blog about my mistakes: to provide a model of good learning practice, one that corresponds to the real world.
Intermediate Macroeconomics, one of our core gatekeeping courses, taught as a seminar to 40 students. Impending disaster? Trainwreck waiting to happen? Perhaps. But, I prefer to think of it as a possible answer to a question I’ve been mulling over for a number of years. I do a good job in intermediate macro, but it’s time for a facelift of sorts. The problem has been that with all the creative things I’ve been doing in my other courses, I haven’t found the time to prep a new macro course. It’s been easy to just fall back on the old lecture notes. It is a good course, after all.
One thing in particular that I’ve wanted to try is a new experimental text by Kevin Hoover, of Duke University. (Disclosure: Kevin is an old friend from college.) The book combines theory and analysis of real world data in each chapter. But I have never been able to find the time to read the text before the semester started..
I’ve decided to take the plunge and adopt the book. What I plan to do this coming semester is teach the course as a workshop to decipher the text. At a minimum, that should make the students read the text, something they’ve gotten away from in recent years. I will tell them upfront, I’m not going to lecture on this stuff, because I haven’t read the text yet! My plan is to have the students collectively tell me what each chapter says, and I will respond to any questions they come up with.
One thing they should appreciate is that the book is available for free in pdf format. And if this experiment bombs, at least I will be prepared to teach the course next year in a more traditional way, using the book.
Postscript to Ponder: What sorts of digital tools can best support this type of course?
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