Thinking in class

[pendell]

This report from good education (http://www.good.is/post/was-a-professor-fired-for-requiring-students-to-think/). So a new professor at Utah Valley University attempted to use the Socratic method of teaching in his class. This is a process by which the answers simply aren't given out. Instead, the teachers asked questions and forms discussion groups so that the students can arrive at the answer themselves, through critical thinking and research.

Problem: He wasn't teaching to the test. The students felt he was wasting their time by not simply giving them the answers which they could then regurgitate back in a multiple-choice exam, get their grades from the diploma mill, and get on with their lives.

So they gave him negative course evaluations,and now he doesn't work there anymore.

Has anyone had experience with this? If you're a student, what do you expect from your prof? If a teacher, how do you get students to actually *think*, rather than simply parrot back the answers?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Shadow of the Sun]

This is something that really annoys me.

There seems to be a level of entitlement among many college/university students- "I am paying money into this, and, as such, should get the degree as a default no matter what I do here."

It frustrates me. I like lecturers like that, friendly and thought provoking. Quite often I'll have 15 minute discussions with lecturers following the class.

[Mercenary Pen]

Not been through university myself, but I'm of the opinion that multiple choice questions should not ever be part of examinations at that level- I'd prefer to stand by the professor in this case.

I've seen too many classes even below university level which have devolved into learning exam technique, with teachers spending time teaching students to use specific words in answering the exam questions they'll likely be set, mention particular factors, etc. rather than actually taking the time to teach more of their subject- and whilst there might be some merit in that, I don't think there's really a need for students to be poring over the marking schemes to previous exam papers as much as we were doing.

[Tonal Architect]

I've actually dropped out of college once due to teachers requiring me to overly quote estabilished and traditional scholars, instead of giving me the credit for independent thought. If I came to a conclusion by myself, and some other long since decomposed scholar got there first, I was to give him credit for getting there first, no matter how much work I put into an idea, rather than receive credit for being his equal, in the very least.

This guy? I'd take him on any day. Bring it on, I want to think for myself. My colleagues? Most of them were simply after a degree, and they'd memorize anything in order to get one. Thinking for themselves was not one of the things they'd be willing to do.

*sigh* I wish that universities were once again the home of the few, the home of the brave, and the home of dashing and innovative thinkers. They feel more like a technical college these days.

[Dienekes]

Honestly I can see myself being annoyed by this or loving it, depending on how he graded. If he only asked open ended question without giving answers and then gave the normal mid-term and final tests requiring correct answers, then yes I would be reasonably annoyed that I was being graded for something I have never learned.

If the entire class was argument and so forth, then more power too him.

Also, who gives multiple choice in college? I don't think I had one when I went.

[Raddish]

The problem I see is that he wouldn't actually be teaching them how to answer the tests they get at the end. An open ended discussion is great for independant thought but if the tests that come at the end of the course are after a certain answer then isn't it entirely possible that the students simply don't know it?

Admittedly I know nothing of the usual way a university exam works so if I am wrong with this I will go over there and sulk.

[Douglas]

Even for tests looking for specific answers, a properly done Socratic Method lesson should work just fine. All you have to do is craft the questions in the lesson so that they lead the students through a thought process that results in the answer. Done right, this should result in students who not only know the answer but also understand and remember it far better than if it were just handed to them.

For an example, I remember an article about someone who used the Socratic Method in an experiment to teach really young kids - 1st graders, I think, somewhere around 5 to 7 years old - about binary numbers and binary math, a subject normally considered way beyond their level. It worked, and by the end of one session the entire class understood the principles of it and, I think, was able to demonstrate mathematical problem solving in binary.

[Tirian]

Problem: He wasn't teaching to the test.

This wasn't a high school course. He is in charge of the curriculum and grading criteria, so there was evidently no test for him to teach to. According to his side of the story, his students' complaint was that it was too much effort to search for knowledge instead of merely swallowing the pre-chewed facts presented in a lecture. Frankly, I find that to be a highly biased viewpoint coming from someone who has reason to be disgruntled with his students, seeing as how they were a factor in his being denied tenure.

I think the Socratic Method can be poorly used, and given that this guy got uniform bad course evaluations I have a sense that he was lazy about it. To me, I'm not going to graduate school so that I can be exposed to the best ideas from the table I'm sitting at. While creativity and developing insight is an important part of the process, the professor is obligated to bring a holistic balance to the discussion and provide some of the answers that have been developed by the best thinkers across the history of the field. If he doesn't do that, then he's building a lovely incubator and filling it with unfertilized eggs. I don't want to dismiss Socrates, but we've learned a lot about academic development since THE Academy.

[Haruki-kun]

My problem is the exact opposite. I'm an art student and I'm being given "the answers" too much, and learning too little. Grades are useless, I need a portfolio.

[Kneenibble]

I've actually dropped out of college once due to teachers requiring me to overly quote estabilished and traditional scholars, instead of giving me the credit for independent thought. If I came to a conclusion by myself, and some other long since decomposed scholar got there first, I was to give him credit for getting there first, no matter how much work I put into an idea, rather than receive credit for being his equal, in the very least.

But that's different. Academic writing is not a monologue: you have to acknowledge and engage with the Great Discourse. If you tried to publish an article on a thesis that you awesomely got to by yourself, but which had already been published by somebody else and thoroughly digested over twenty years within the discourse, you'd get a rejection letter if not a plagiarism suit. Snuggling up to the Decomposed Ones does not reduce your capability for innovation, only for delusions of grandeur.

Anyways --
There were two kinds of courses I had during my degree that required regurgitation: physics and ancient languages. & rightly so. As for the rest, the complaint doesn't resonate with me at all. My humanities courses were across the board engaging, discussion-based, and open-ended. Sometimes to be honest I craved a boring lecture where I could shut up and just take notes.

[grimbold]

This wasn't a high school course. He is in charge of the curriculum and grading criteria, so there was evidently no test for him to teach to. According to his side of the story, his students' complaint was that it was too much effort to search for knowledge instead of merely swallowing the pre-chewed facts presented in a lecture. Frankly, I find that to be a highly biased viewpoint coming from someone who has reason to be disgruntled with his students, seeing as how they were a factor in his being denied tenure.

I think the Socratic Method can be poorly used, and given that this guy got uniform bad course evaluations I have a sense that he was lazy about it. To me, I'm not going to graduate school so that I can be exposed to the best ideas from the table I'm sitting at. While creativity and developing insight is an important part of the process, the professor is obligated to bring a holistic balance to the discussion and provide some of the answers that have been developed by the best thinkers across the history of the field. If he doesn't do that, then he's building a lovely incubator and filling it with unfertilized eggs. I don't want to dismiss Socrates, but we've learned a lot about academic development since THE Academy.

I have to agree with Tirian. I have engaged in courses with the Socratic method used at some points and I found them highly engaging and fun. However I feel that at the same time certain things HAVE to be memorized (important dates, equations etc) In some classes like philosophy the socratic method works great and i feel that if it had been done properly this teacher would have had no problems

[Lillith]

It kind of depends what the subject is and how you are going to be graded. If you need to fill in a test with standard answers then not getting the answers straight from the teacher is going to be very risky since you don't know how much freedom in your answers going to get.

Secondly in a subject like history it's all guesswork as soon as you're going for other then historical facts. It's pretty much reproducing the knowledge of what happened, but motives, thoughts and feelings, unless documented by people, is lost to the ages so you can debate all you want, a resolute answer will be impossible.

That said, I think getting a degree is not only about reproducing knowledge, one should also be able to learn new skills and think for themselves. This won't be possible by all subjects, but in the ones that can I would stimulate it. Thinking for yourself is kind of a big thing once you get out in the real world.

[Savannah]

I tend to sympathize with the students. I had a teacher who tried something similar, and I learned nothing from that class (and am really pissed I had to pay for it) because of the way he did it. Making students think is all well and good, but if the teacher does not give them a solid foundation to begin with to draw on when asking them questions, there is no way to come up with reasonable answers. Yes, students need to learn to think for themselves, but the teacher also has an obligation to teach, not just ask open ended questions and watch the students struggle. Now, it's possible that this professor was actually good at what he did, but if he was consistently getting bad class evaluations to the point of being denied tenure, I'm inclined to suspect not.

[MonkeyBusiness]

.... Academic writing is not a monologue: you have to acknowledge and engage with the Great Discourse.

Exactly! We trust the discourse of students is scintillating; but it is by necessity limited. Not because students are dumb ... but because the accumulated experience of other Great Minds is so vast.

Anne Fadiman once wrote a hilarious (but wise) essay on plagiarism, in which she is quite playful with footnotes. It's called "Nothing New Under the Sun" and is in her collection Ex Libris. I highly recommend it, if only for a laugh. But it also shows how our ideas are enriched by those around us, whether those ideas come from the hallowed tomes of long-dead scholars, or (as Fadiman tells us) from the random musings of one's spouse doing his back exercises in the middle of the livingroom. The interconnection of ideas does not diminish original thought; but failing to seek out those connections can.

:smallbiggrin:

[thubby]

the socratic method is a way to learn, not teach.
it depends on already having a strong foundation in a subject to arrive at new information.
a student, basically by definition, lacks such a foundation.

employers are stupid to think that you can teach experience. where the idea that you should know everything coming into a job came from, i have no idea, but it's a backwards idea that every bit of history says will never happen.

[Keld Denar]

I studied engineering in college. We had some classes that used something similar to the socratic method. These were our design classes. There is no right or wrong answer in a design class. There is a best solution, judged amongst the other solutions, assuming everyone's math worked out correctly, but there were no wrong solutions. The best solutions had the lowest cost, or the highest strength, or used the least amount of material (lightest weight), or some other circumstances.

Our other classes, the ones we learned about the tools, that method would not work well. Sometimes you have to stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm glad they didn't expect us to invent calculus in small groups to derive the basic motion equation p = p0 + vt + 1/2at^2. I want to know it, and how to apply it, and its various derivatives, but I don't need to come up with it myself. Some things you have to bite the bullet and just memorize. Think of how hard it would be to discuss literature if each small group had to develope their own language first. That kinda stuff is vital in order to get to the level where the socratic method is effective.

[Lady Moreta]

Not been through university myself, but I'm of the opinion that multiple choice questions should not ever be part of examinations at that level- I'd prefer to stand by the professor in this case.

I'm inclined to agree with you, I never had multiple choice questions on any test or exam at uni. Short answer, long answer and essays by the truckload, but not multiple choice.


Honestly I can see myself being annoyed by this or loving it, depending on how he graded. If he only asked open ended question without giving answers and then gave the normal mid-term and final tests requiring correct answers, then yes I would be reasonably annoyed that I was being graded for something I have never learned.

I agree with this. I wouldn't have any problem with a socractic method at uni, and a lot of my classes were roughly based on this, especially at higher levels when we would spend a lot of time sitting in class and discussing as well as having the lecturer up the front teaching... but there needs to be a balance. If I was being taught by that method, I would expect that from that, I would get out of it what I needed to pass the test. And if the method wasn't going to provide that, then I would expect the lecturer to provide it in some other form of teaching. Then again, that's what our tutorials were for. Lectures, the lecturer stood and well, lectured... tutorials were our small groups (not run by the lecturer usually) and they were the places we sat and discussed.

On the other hand, from second year on, in the course I was doing we got given large chunks of the exam beforehand anyway. We were given the essay questions earlier so we could do the research and even plan the essay we were going to write first. Apparently, some students would write their exam essays before the exam, memorise them and then just write them out when they got there. Our lecturers wanted us to prove that we could write critically, not that we could remember a whole bunch of facts.

[Tonal Architect]

But that's different. Academic writing is not a monologue: you have to acknowledge and engage with the Great Discourse. If you tried to publish an article on a thesis that you awesomely got to by yourself, but which had already been published by somebody else and thoroughly digested over twenty years within the discourse, you'd get a rejection letter if not a plagiarism suit. Snuggling up to the Decomposed Ones does not reduce your capability for innovation, only for delusions of grandeur.

Maybe so, but letter of rejection and plagiarism suit or not, a negative reaction from a given institution, which will only reinforce its own policy on the subject, seems far from a good standard against which to check how valid my stance is.

I agree with you that academic activity should not configure itself as a monologue, although my experiences with it depict it as exactly that: that students are expected not to think and simply absorb the "dogma" handed to them, to the point of being actively discouraged from developing ideas of their own.

While the wonders of peer review are sure a joy to have around, I see no reason not to give credit where it's due; should a person come up with certain ideas by herself, I see no point in enforcing the current policy of near ancestral worship ("one should not only reference, but also should pay reverence" is a common aphorism here) the academy seems so attached to. Directing students to further their original ideas by pointing out that someone had already reached that milestone, and that there's already more build upon that is fine, reinventing the wheel seems like an exercise in futility. Smothering creativity by going to lengths to impose authorship structures, even in regards to basic concepts, seems to stress that the pursuit of knowledge is actually secondary to the social practices regarding attributing that knowledge to someone, especially considering how far the academy can go to enforce this. Maybe this would explain why certain teachers bickered so much over who got quoted the most that month.

[Traab]

Could have been worse. In my electrical course work, every single test was taking with course books and notebooks open. Every single test. Basically, you know what I got from the two years I spent there? The knowledge that they wasted two years of my life when I could have just cut them a 10k check and gotten a laser printer diploma and a pile of books. "Oh wow! You mean 95% of your class graduates with an A+ average? Thats amazing! Well, amazingly bad since they get to copy directly out of the book. Makes me wonder how mind numbingly stupid the 5% that dont get an A+ are." Didnt help that in two years our teacher changed 9 times.

[Douglas]

Could have been worse. In my electrical course work, every single test was taking with course books and notebooks open. Every single test. Basically, you know what I got from the two years I spent there? The knowledge that they wasted two years of my life when I could have just cut them a 10k check and gotten a laser printer diploma and a pile of books. "Oh wow! You mean 95% of your class graduates with an A+ average? Thats amazing! Well, amazingly bad since they get to copy directly out of the book. Makes me wonder how mind numbingly stupid the 5% that dont get an A+ are." Didnt help that in two years our teacher changed 9 times.
The problem there isn't with the open books/notes policy, it's with tests apparently not being designed with it in mind. Full access to books and notes is in my opinion the best way to run tests, but to do it properly you have to make tests that take more than regurgitation of facts to do well. If looking something up and copying verbatim is enough to pass the test then the test is bad. A good test will require you to A) know things and B) use and apply the things you know. Having books and notes on hand helps with A but not B. B is by far the more important skill to keep, so removing A as an obstacle specifically to allow greater focus on testing B is a good thing. The problem comes in when someone forgets the "focus on B" part.

[Traab]

The problem there isn't with the open books/notes policy, it's with tests apparently not being designed with it in mind. Full access to books and notes is in my opinion the best way to run tests, but to do it properly you have to make tests that take more than regurgitation of facts to do well. If looking something up and copying verbatim is enough to pass the test then the test is bad. A good test will require you to A) know things and B) use and apply the things you know. Having books and notes on hand helps with A but not B. B is by far the more important skill to keep, so removing A as an obstacle specifically to allow greater focus on testing B is a good thing. The problem comes in when someone forgets the "focus on B" part.

We had a small handful of tests with math, the only value the books had then was if you somehow forgot how ohms law worked. But id say 95% of the tests were fact regurgitation, with questions copied word for word from the summary at the back of each book. Like I said, it was pointless in the extreme. Towards the end, a friend started bringing his portable dvd player with enough jacks for 4 headphones and we would waste the class time watching movies. The teacher didnt care, and we still passed every test with a 100, and remembered just as much as when we paid attention.

Like I said, they could have turned a better profit by just being up front about it. "Look, pay us 10k and we will supply you with the full selection of books, (there were a LOT) your diploma, and you can go home now." I learned 10x as much electrical knowledge working for three months for an alarm tech. All of it practical. I learned ohms law, and how to read my electrical code book in 2 years of "school", and nothing much of practical value. By the end of three months I could build from scratch an alarm system with over 100 devices, program the entire thing, install a central vac system, and do basic house voltage remodeling, (shush, dont call the inspectors on me) and I was able to do it well enough to be left alone while my boss went to other jobs. (Again, dont tell the inspectors)

[AsteriskAmp]

I've had a number of teachers teach through a hybridization of the Socratic method, and well applied I think it works. The issue is that there are subjects in which you shouldn't be asked to reach an answer but a conclusion and the teacher has to give you an answer (physics, math and economics spring to mind). While you certainly can't reach physics formulas through reasoning, and most certainly not in a classroom (since most come from empirical testing) you can conclude where each part of it came from, either through reasoning or dimensional analysis.

My current math teacher imparts knowledge through conclusion reaching on our part during class time, and then at the end of the hour gives the formula sheets which have brief theoretical explanations on each of those. It has happened that during introductory classes people start actually managing to deduce or prove some of the formulas merely by trying to solve the examples or doing reverse engineering on them. The results are positive, in relation to the rest of the year which is taught math by another teacher, my class has overall higher results while taking the exact same tests. It also helps the tests are developed not on algorithm management but actual problem solving.

[Knaight]

We had a small handful of tests with math, the only value the books had then was if you somehow forgot how ohms law worked. But id say 95% of the tests were fact regurgitation, with questions copied word for word from the summary at the back of each book. Like I said, it was pointless in the extreme. Towards the end, a friend started bringing his portable dvd player with enough jacks for 4 headphones and we would waste the class time watching movies. The teacher didnt care, and we still passed every test with a 100, and remembered just as much as when we paid attention.
That's just awful. Some degree of open notes - for instance, standardized formula packets - are usually a good idea, but the capacity to apply the knowledege is what must be tested, not just its presence in either book or student.

[Lady Moreta]

That's just awful. Some degree of open notes - for instance, standardized formula packets - are usually a good idea, but the capacity to apply the knowledege is what must be tested, not just its presence in either book or student.

Exactly :smallsmile: One of my Classics exams at uni was open-book and that was the exact reason given. Our text book was simply a collection of various period-specific quotes from different people about the way ancient Greeks etc made war. We were told that they wanted to know we could write critical essays and answer questions - not memorise chunks of writings.

We were also given the essay questions in advance and told we could make notes, bookmark our textbook to find the info we needed... it was fantastic. The first essay-based exam where I've really been able to focus on writing a good essay and not spend half the time stressing about whether I remembered the info properly.

[Drascin]

Honestly, I kind of understand the students - yeah, I'd have loved the classes themselves, but if then later everyone fails because the other teachers who are making the exams don't give a crap about what he's doing and keep using the same "regurgitate answer exactly as the book says it" tests, well, that's not good. As the teacher himself says, we're in a test-based society - and sad as it is, in such a test-based society nobody really cares all that much about what you know, just which "success documents" you can present.

I know I have had some of my own grades lowered for trying to think on my own instead of repeating exactly what the teacher said. And when everything everyone cares about is not what you know, but what grades you get, well. Not a lot of incentive. "You just help me and give me the answers for passing the test minefield, man, I'll actually learn on my own out of here" is an attitude I've seen in many, many university students towards classes.

[GrlumpTheElder]

Has anyone had experience with this? If you're a student, what do you expect from your prof? If a teacher, how do you get students to actually *think*, rather than simply parrot back the answers?



We have a lecturer like this for my course. It is the anatomy module, so you expect to be taught just that, anatomy. Instead, we've been taught learning strategies, how to make a concept map, and the practical are discussion developing concept ideas loosely related to the relevant anatomy.

I believe that complaints have been made by my fellow class mates, unfortunately the lecturer is head of school, so pretty much runs the show in the department...

[Tyndmyr]

This report from good education (http://www.good.is/post/was-a-professor-fired-for-requiring-students-to-think/). So a new professor at Utah Valley University attempted to use the Socratic method of teaching in his class. This is a process by which the answers simply aren't given out. Instead, the teachers asked questions and forms discussion groups so that the students can arrive at the answer themselves, through critical thinking and research.

Good on them for kicking him out. The Socratic method is basically a debate tactic/quiz method. It's used in law school, sure...but it's basically a way of using classes as tests instead of teaching. And at the primary education level, people are not ready for law school level challenges for the most part. I'd have been upset too.

Now, it's possible I'm reading too much into the use of that phrase, and it may have been used incorrectly, but primary education is basically about stuffing people full of all the basics. Secondary education is the accepted place to broaden horizons and really learn how to learn.

I can see arguments for changing the whole system, as the current one IS problematic, but arbitrarily changing one portion likely means more difficulty for the students as they're not prepared for what lies ahead.

[pendell]

Now, it's possible I'm reading too much into the use of that phrase, and it may have been used incorrectly, but primary education is basically about stuffing people full of all the basics. Secondary education is the accepted place to broaden horizons and really learn how to learn.


I would agree, but I was under the impression that primary education took place in primary school, i.e. 1st-6th grade. If University isn't a place for secondary education, what is?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Yora]

Problem: He wasn't teaching to the test. The students felt he was wasting their time by not simply giving them the answers which they could then regurgitate back in a multiple-choice exam, get their grades from the diploma mill, and get on with their lives.
Professors at our university have been complaining about this for years.

Since I was in cultural studies, it wasn't a problem for us, but we often had lectures and seminars by professors from other departments and they are pretty annoyed. Their students don't want to learn anything, they want their degree.

Since there are virtually no tests in cultural studies and those there are require you to understand the backgrounds and connections instead of the facts, it's quite different for us.

However I know from the business people, that many employers really don't care that much for degrees. What they need is people with skill. A walking encyclopedia is useless for them.

[Tyndmyr]

I would agree, but I was under the impression that primary education took place in primary school, i.e. 1st-6th grade. If University isn't a place for secondary education, what is?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Apologies, I somehow missed the fact that this was at a university. Given that, and the nature of the field(business), his teaching method is reasonable. You don't run a business by tossing out memorized answers.

It seems the problem is in student expectations. Me, I loved classes like that. I can BS my way through most things, and tossing around different theories is fun. That said, there's no guarantee that this method is the only reason for that negative feedback.

The teamwork is pretty unpopular, though. There's almost invariably unequal contributions to the team. That getting negative evals doesn't surprise me at all.

There's also the possibility that he wanted them to arrive at conclusions that supported his worldview. The article isn't in enough depth to say for sure, but it's a flaw I've often noted at college. I'd be interested to see what the college's side of this is, though.