Comments on: But you ARE the professor…

By: eli

eli — Thu, 06 May 2010 06:05:48 +0000

I have no idea about the long term effect on the professor… it’s pretty obvious what he hoped to accomplish to me: to “break down the authority structure.” Which I think was a goal in itself. But what he later thought, we’re not told. The guy is probably still living and we could track him down and ask, I suppose!

By: Michael Bishop

Michael Bishop — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:50:39 +0000

I agree that student participation in pedagogy can have big benefits in some circumstances. I’m even glad that people are experimenting with ideas that don’t seem broadly applicable to me, like that Duke professor.

Based on that story, I’m not really sure what the young professor hoped to accomplish. Did he later find ways to achieve his goals? Did his goals change?

By: eli

eli — Wed, 05 May 2010 11:07:56 +0000

You raise a bunch of interesting points. It seems to me that the best argument for student participation in pedagogy is that, in my limited experience with it, you just learn more that way, and you’re more interested in what your peers are saying, and more committed to the social group of the classroom (all of these of course go together). Of course, these aren’t considerations that will sway all students, but I think teachers who are trying alternative pedagogies could often be better at explaining these kinds of possible benefits in advance.

Incidentally, about impressing one’s peers, I was just reading this article about grading being outsourced to students, and the teacher claims that for her limited small-scale case, students actually worked harder when they were being evaluated by their peers than by their professor.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/03/grading

By: Michael Bishop

Michael Bishop — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:05:40 +0000

Interesting stuff. I’m sure that mere habit is one reason students did not respond in the way the professor hoped, but I’m sure that, as you suggest, other forces are at play as well. Students want to impress each other, so one would need to consider how to influence this aspect of student culture. Students want to impress authority figures to the extent that they may actually prefer their be an authority. Students want grades and recommendations, so a professor must credibly promise that the desired behavior will be rewarded, or at least not punished.

Perhaps it would be revealing to consider a distinct, and more common, conflict between professors desires and students behavior. Professors want their students to study hard, but the extent to which they do varies dramatically (and apparently has fallen since 1961.) See my recent post: http://permut.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/declining-standards-in-higher-education/