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One page discussion paper (below)
In response to what appears as a reduction in student capability, colleges and universities all to often accommodate a corresponding reduction in the quality of education. We accept less from freshman, and demand less as freshman matriculate. No complete understanding about the process involved in watering down curriculums has been available. In fact most funded research in educational theory ignore this issue. Programs, sometimes involving four semesters of pre college level course work, have come into existence. Developmental mathematics now occupies a significant role in colleges and universities. The sense may be that human beings just do not take well to mathematics, and thus that the outcomes we see are just part of the expected world. Educational practice has some jewels, but there is much that is just wrong, in our opinion. Current practice may have developed because the system seeks justification for what it is doing rather than an understanding that there is a crisis created by educational practice. It is not the limitations of the human being, but the self-imposed viewpoint by the educational community. But the problem is greater in scope than simply the question of what might one teacher or professor do. The problem in the classroom is deepened by a specific social viewpoint. There is much that might be researched regarding the conjecture of acquired learning disability. We may only conjecture based on experience. In my experience, students exposed to a challenging pedagogy will form two groups; those who see the point to self directed study and those who do not see this point. Those who do not see the point will take action to influence the administration in making what this group sees as corrective action. The idea that the system is not right is one that is very hard to manage. The outcome for the class may depend on which of the two viewpoints are supported by school administration. The pressure will come more strongly from students who are not prepared to receive a standard instruction and see no personal option other than to drop the course or change how it is taught. These students would be best served through counseling and one-to-one work with a knowledgeable teacher. But such support is not generally available. The demand pedagogy we have developed could provide a web based social network in which students first learn how to be self directed, and then are provided the tools to share what is learned. This technology and this pedagogy is currently outside of the teaching paradigm, but is not so far removed that a campus wide adoption might be made. A first attempt was made in the spring of 2010 at Norwich University. The target curriculum was an introduction to information systems designed as a freshman elective. If the counseling is reinforcing the idea that the work is too hard and that mathematics, or any other curriculum, is unlearnable, then the student is poorly served. |