This land is your land

In part this post is just a quasi-official, on the record, symbolic passing of the torch. I really do want Collo to be yours and I really do want it to work. I remember saying when I interviewed for this position that my nightmare was for one of you to ask what the point of Collo was and for me to not have an answer. I believe one way to make it relevant, useful and less redundant is to give some power and control of the course to you. I'm happy to play the Pete Seeger role. I can strum G,C, and D and call out the verses, but you have to sing. So there's that.

The other point of the post is to say to Midways and FPAs, this class is your class too. I think it sometimes happens that UHS folks dominate these discussions (note: not a criticism, still love you all). But it's your class, too, and you may have different ideas/wants/needs for the class. Midways, you tend to be older and don't need to be treated like freshmen, but you are also new to the university and to the program, so you also don't need to be treated like you've been here for two years. You have less time together as a cohort than those in other programs. You likely have other unique needs. If there is something that you think would be helpful or beneficial for you, let me know. Same thing for FPAs. What can we do in Collo that would be beneficial to you in particular?

Part of the goal of Collo is to bring everyone from all of our programs (minus HIDs) together, but that doesn't mean we can't also tailor some things to better suit your individual and collective wants and needs. I can't do that if I don't know what those are, though.

Program of Study

The program of study came up today and that got me thinking about it. It isn't going anywhere and most of you seem to agree that it is an important exercise (at least early in your academic career), even if you don't appreciate it at the time. But it seems to me the format of the program of study could be improved. The bold, italics, underline, and sometimes combinations of those gets confusing, at least to me. It seems to me there ought to be a template we use that has things broken down by semester with the appropriate boxes to check for gen. ed. requirements, intensives, major requirements, minor requirements, etc. Surely such a thing is possible. I'm happy to attempt to make one, but if anyone wants to take that on and get some collo credit for it, that would be great.

Grading Collo

Some thoughts on grading:

1. Grading is a challenge in Collo because, unlike other classes, there isn't really any content to test you on or to master. Additionally, there are few "deliverables." There are some--e.g., the program of study--but others are somewhat artificial and that tends to not work out well.

2. On the one hand, I want to trust you to do what you should be doing. On other hand, there has to be some kind of accountability.

3. I still like this idea, but I don't really know if it would work in Collo.

4. One thing it would allow for is dividing things up so that grades are dispersed throughout the semester. This, I think, is one of the biggest problems with Collo grading. When the majority of the grade is based on things due at the end of the term, many wait until the end of the term to do anything. That's a problem. We need the grades to encourage doing Collo related things throughout the semester.

5. Basing the grade on time spent also reinforces that what's important is what you're *doing,* not the thing you're producing that actually gets a grade. I like that.

6. I also like the flexibility. Within some parameters, you could spend your time how you want. If you get involved in a project that takes a lot of time, that would offset the time you have to spend doing other things for Collo. If you teach a class (more on peer teaching to come), the time you spend preparing would count.

7. Even if this works in principle, I'm still not sure how to make it work in practice. In particular, I'm not sure how to satisfy (2).

8. Also, how many hours should you spend on Collo? Per week? Per semester? This would be good to know anyway, however the grading works out.

9. I'm open to any and all ideas here. I don't like grading to be mysterious and I don't want it to be meaningless. Outside of that, I'm open to trying almost anything.

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.