What do honors students need?

So here's one person's definition of what an honors student should be:

a highly motivated, academically talented, intrinsically motivated, advanced, and curious student who has broad interests, a passion for learning, and excitement about ideas. The student should also be sufficiently different or unique from the institutional norm to need, indeed require, a different, more challenging curriculum and other learning opportunities to satisfy his or her drive to learn, know, and do. 

Obviously the definition is not necessarily descriptive, and certainly not universally so. Still, as the Platonic form of an honors student, it seems pretty good.

For Collo purposes, it's the second part of the definition I really like. I think the way to think about the curriculum in general and Collo in particular is to think about what needs the ideal honors student has and how we can best satisfy those needs. We need to identify needs that aren't being met through other courses and figure out if and how we can satisfy them through Collo. That's what it's there for.

This is really just another way of stating and maybe partially answering the Stockdale questions. Collo is here to help meet the needs of a unique population of students. That's the criteria by which we should measure assignments, requirements, classes, etc. We need to be clear about what needs we are addressing and how the requirements are attempting to do that.

June was for rumination, July is for action. It's time to start making the syllabus and thinking about the concrete particulars of the course. That means now is an excellent time to break the impressive streak of not commenting at all. Knowing is better than guessing and it would be great to know what needs you think Collo could satisfy. What's happened in the past that has met the criteria above? What's happened that clearly hasn't? Keep in mind that we're dealing with the ideal version of you. So pretend you are instantiating the Form of an honors student and think about what you want or need in this course that you are not or cannot get elsewhere.    

Putting the colloquy in colloquium

col·lo·qui·um  (k-lkw-m)

n. pl. col·lo·qui·ums or col·lo·qui·a (-kw-)

1. An informal meeting for the exchange of views.

2. An academic seminar on a broad field of study, usually led by a different lecturer at each meeting.

col·lo·quy  (kl-kw)

n. pl. col·lo·quies

1. A conversation, especially a formal one.

2. A written dialogue.

Dictionaries don't solve real problems and I instantly hate papers that begin with dictionary definitions. So with that understanding...

It would be nice if Collo were actually more of a colloquium, with a bit more colloquy. 

I'm not sure how to make that happen. In its current incarnation, the current events requirement seems to get closest to this, but I'm not sure it does a particularly good job of it. The informal round table discussions we had were fairly successful, I think, and we could do more of those, and in general, expand the discussions to a wider range of topics. Maybe we can redefine 'current events' as anything that currently interests you. But the logistics of doing that with 160 people are a problem. 

This is an area where moving things online seems to be a good solution, and in part we do that with the D2L discussion boards. I don't think they quite work, though. I take at least partial responsibility for that. I hate D2L. Passionately. That probably keeps me from trying harder to improve things on D2L. But more than that, I think the format is not particularly conducive to real engagement.  

So I like the idea of the discussion boards in theory. There exist plenty of vibrant online communities where really good discussions take place. I have no problem with online colloquy. But we need a better avenue for that. Suggestions welcome. It doesn't have to be one place or one thing. Everyone doesn't have to participate. Ideally these would be discussions initiated and led by you and driven by your interests, and hopefully we end up with pockets of good, engaging, ongoing discussions on a variety of issues and topics. 

For those who want more of Collo to be online, here's your chance. How do we make this happen? 

  

If you build it

One of the enduring Collo complaints is about the actual time spent in class. One way to deal with that is to make the classes better and more worthwhile. That's certainly something I've tried and will continue to try to do, at least in part by shifting the burden to you.

But there are two parts to this equation. The complaint, I think, is that you are required to attend classes that you find not worth your time to attend. In addition to making the classes themselves better, it might also be worth thinking about the attendance requirement. I would like to think that if we offer valuable classes, we don't also need to require attendance. Of course, there is the danger that you won't realize beforehand that a class is valuable and you'll not attend when you would have gotten something out of it.

The price of avoiding that, though, is a lot of folks in class who don't want (and maybe don't need) to be there. Having people there who are there entirely of their own volition tends to make the class better, I think. Apathy and resentment can be contagious and minimizing their presence in the classroom is important. Giving you more choices about the classes you attend was a step in that direction. Better classes would accomplish some of that, too. And maybe that's enough. Or maybe we need to pare down the requirement even more.

The big worry with not requiring attendance is that there will be classes where no one shows up at all, or that we have many classes where very few people show up. That's obviously not ideal. On the other hand, twisting arms to get people in the seats is also not ideal. What would be ideal is for you to come to classes as often as you would if they were required, only you come because you want to and not because you have to. I guess my hope is that if we get the classes right, we won't need the requirement.

All of this would depend upon trust and maybe a little faith, which is definitely not my strong suit. You'd have to trust me that the classes are designed with your wants and needs in mind and I'd have to trust you to recognize that and act on it. Maybe someone can play the role of Terence Mann and convince me that people will come.



  

The "selfie generation?"

There is a lot to like here (possibly behind a paywall now). If more universities are attempting to change curricula so that they better connect with students' lives, yea for them. But...

(1) "Selfie generation?" Really? I'm not a millennial and I'm pissed off for them. It seems pejorative and about a breath away from yelling at those kids to stay off your lawn. I also doubt that students today are any more "me-centric" than the generations before them were at 18 years old. Hell, I'm in my 30s and I'm blogging and tweeting, which on the narcissistic scale is somewhere just below looking at your reflection in every window you walk by.

(2) The article has a lot of non-millennials talking about what this generation wants and needs in a curriculum. Speaking for others is always fun, and guessing what others want is good sport, too, but maybe somebody should actually talk to students about what they want and need. There is surprisingly little of that here. The older I get the more I realize that I suck at guessing what students want. It's much easier to just ask. (Though, of course, they might not answer. Yes, I'm talking to you.)

(3) My guess (see, it's fun) is that the changes these universities are making are for the better, but mainly because they are taking the time to think about the curriculum at all and to make thoughtful changes. I'd guess it doesn't have much to do with some revelation that kids these days are so me-centric. Curricula get stale. They need to be rethought and revised from time to time. This needs to happen even if the next generation happens to be incredibly other-centric.

(4) On a less critical note, this seems absolutely right to me:

Some curricular experts note that students' professional preparation, academic training, and personal development need not be separated as much as they often are.

Part of what we're trying to do with Collo is help connect all of these dots. Easier said than done.

So I'm on board in general with rethinking the curriculum along the lines suggested here, but I doubt that this has much at all to do with the unique needs of this generation. These students need what all students need--a curriculum that makes sense and teachers who can teach it effectively.

Collo as caulk

I'm going against everything I said here and for the purposes of this post, talking about Collo as what happens inside the classroom. In looking over the evaluations again, there were a few particular classes that got consistent, positive feedback--the discussion about grad school, Dr. Koterbay's session on writing a creative thesis, and the current events round table discussions. Others classes got mixed feedback, but feedback on these classes was all positive.

So what went right in these classes? A slightly more arrogant version of myself might note that I am featured in most of them and call it a day. I doubt that's the real story, though. My guess is that these classes filled a gap. They covered things or offered something that you don't or can't get elsewhere. I know from teaching Foundations of Research that there are a lot of questions about doing a creative thesis. I also know that Dr. Wachs and I are not great at explaining it. So having Scott come in and talk about that filled a real gap. A lot of you are planning to go to graduate school of some sort and having a forum for discussing a range of issues associated with that filled a real gap. The current events discussion is trickier to fit into this. You can talk with others about current events any time. But these discussions brought together a slightly more diverse group and were at least loosely moderated, which is perhaps not something you get elsewhere.

In addition, these particular classes were fairly small and I think that makes a difference. For the most part, you don't have a need for someone to come lecture to you about anything for an hour. Even though we got the size down a bit, I think the numbers were still a barrier to the career services sessions being more effective. They ended up being lectures instead of discussions. The smaller classes, overall, seem to have gotten more positive feedback.

If this is right, then at least one thing we need to do to improve Collo is aim for smaller classes that satisfy a real need or fill some gap. Class size is its own logistical issue that we'll have to figure out when we get to the nuts and bolts of designing the course. But what kinds of classes would actually fill a need for you is something I need your help with. (That means at some point I need some actual suggestions.)

One idea is to have some classes that cover some really practical things or "life skills." We could have classes on financial literacy, buying a car/house, doing taxes, navigating health insurance, basic car maintenance, home maintenance, etc. Obviously we wouldn't cover all or these in a semester or a year, but we could do a few classes like this a year and not repeat the same ones every year. I have no idea if people would be interested in classes like this or not.

Other ideas? Would it be helpful to have more opportunities to talk about study abroad with folks from International programs? Would career focused sessions be more helpful if they were smaller? Are there other things we should be devoting some class time to? Other gaps we can fill?

Keeping time

I first read this article by Joel Marks years ago when I was just starting to teach. As a teaching assistant, I could implement exactly none of these ideas. By the time I got my own classes, I had forgotten most of what was in the article. I discovered it again after some of those first classes crashed and burned. I was never brave enough to fully implement this kind of scheme in a philosophy class, but I did adopt the use of self-reporting and some other elements of contract grading. I was reminded again of the article while thinking about Collo and I think the course might be well suited for something like this approach to grading.

There is a lot of interesting stuff in the article, but the part that interests me here is the strategy of determining grades based entirely on the number of hours spent on the class. I like that idea a lot. It works by having a variety of assignments and a number of hours that need to be spent on each to earn a particular grade. Students are in charge of keeping up with and reporting the hours they spend on the class. For Collo, I imagine this would work by establishing broad goals for the course and a certain number of hours you need to spend on each and in total to receive various grades.

I see a number of benefits here. One is that it is a way of implementing the menu approach I mentioned in a previous post. You could choose where to put your time and energy. You could go to more classes, work on a group project, do more service, go to more outside events, talk about those with others, etc. You would not all have to do the exact same thing and you could alter what you spend time on from semester to semester. Hopefully with more flexibility on how you spend your time, less of your time will be "wasted."

Another benefit is that it provides an easy way to spread things out over the entire semester instead of allowing you to ignore Collo until you can't ignore it any more and then scramble to meet all the requirements. We could divide the hours required for certain grades into weeks or quarters or some other subset of the semester and require at least some minimum number of hours throughout the course.

One challenge is figuring out exactly how many hours you should be spending on Collo. According to this document, "the rule of thumb" is that you should count on spending "an average of two hours per week for every hour spent in a reading or lecture class." I know that's a bit of a joke as a general standard, but for Collo, that would mean 3 hours/per week, or 45 hours/per semester. I really have no idea if that is a crazy number or not. What say you? Could an approach like this work? If so, how many hours is it reasonable to require you to spend on Collo related tasks (keeping in mind that I would like to expand the definition of "Collo related task.")?

 

Burden shifting

I've been mulling over Rebecca Schuman's "Confessions of a Grade Inflator" for a few days now. It's honest and insightful and I can relate to a lot of what she says. I don't, however, share her admiration for those professors with the "intestinal fortitude" to give out 'C's. Some of them, sure. But the mere willingness to make it difficult to get an 'A' is not by itself admirable, and the reason it isn't connects with another reason I sometimes tend towards grade inflation.

My worry with teachers who pride themselves on giving out 'C's is that they sometimes lack the self-awareness to realize that students aren't succeeding because they are not teaching effectively. Poor performance is automatically attributed to some failure on the student's part and never as a reflection of poor teaching. That is not admirable.

My own tendency is to take things in the opposite direction. I see disengaged students not doing well in a class and immediately think I must be doing something wrong, that I have somehow failed in the design or implementation of the course. This inclines me to give students a break on grades since I'm nagged by the feeling that it isn't their fault but mine.

Obviously the truth is likely to fall somewhere between these two extremes, but given my tendency towards the latter extreme, I have tried a lot of things over the years to mitigate its effects. I've settled on some version of contract grading as my favorite. The basic idea is to establish at the beginning of the course exactly what is required for attaining various grades and allow students to essentially choose the grade they want and then proceed down the path to attaining that grade. Most assignments are graded pass/fail and, if done right, no student should ever have any doubt about exactly where she stands and what grade she will get. All of this goes a long way towards eliminating the kinds of complaints that often lead to grade inflation.

It has a lot of other benefits as well, not least of which is that it gives some power back to students. To some extent I've already implemented something like this approach in Collo. Grades are spelled out clearly, assignments are basically pass/fail and there are a variety of ways to achieve the various grades. While I think this has in general been an improvement, it doesn't quite work as well as I would like it to. One problem is that the "menu" that is currently available is too short. We need more options. I would actually be fine with a more genuine contract each semester where what you do for Collo is entirely up to you (subject to my approval, of course.) I'm skeptical that that can work, at least immediately. But we can get closer to that if we can expand the classes offered and the range of things you might do that count for some kind of Collo credit.

I also think this is the key to making Collo less repetitive. If you think Collo wastes your time--and many of you do think that--then figure out how to do something with it that isn't wasting your time. There's a good chance I'll be open to that. As a bonus, I get to shift the burden back to you--not just for grades, but the direction of the course itself. Nifty trick, that burden shifting.