Hi Nicholas,
You might have had the opportunity to enjoy one of the strategic management
sessions at AOM in DC this summer. The speaker discussed the fact that the
linear teaching and thinking of grade and high school is fine for
operational workers who perform tasks to instructions .. linear thinkers.
And, those are the workers that our high schools (not college prep) prepare.
But, his research demonstrated that mid-level management had to transcend
this form of thought and move on to at least the beginnings of critical
thinking .. analytic thinking. And, that strategic thinking had to include
the ever more complex conceptual thinking ... right outside the box to
suggest an ole cliche.
I have found similar research in a book called "Peak Learning" which talks
about the "stringers" who can do the task thinking or the lower grades and
the "groupers" who think conceptually and creatively.
You mention the students who were fine in the regular classrooms with their
task and text thinking. But, there are those that excel in college because
they are conceptual thinkers. Typically, they (we) didn't do all that well
back in the stringer oriented schools.
Conna Condon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas Twigg" <
ntwigg@i-55.com>
To: <
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2001 10:21 PM
Subject: Re: MG-ED-DV Digest - 12 Oct 2001 to 13 Oct 2001 (#2001-190)
>
> Hi all,
>
> One thing that I always seem to miss on these 'experiential' or
> 'critical thinking' discourses is the students views. It seems that most
> of the students that I run across have been taught since the first grade
> that they are to sit quietly, listen to the teacher, do what the teacher
> says, and regurgitate the information at regular intervals and get a
> grade at the end of the course. It saddens me, but I get asked all the
> time at University level, "Where is that in the book?" or "I didn't have
> that in my notes." Sometimes I answer that the answer is between the
> fourth and fifth lines in paragraph 3, page 267. I guess that I get the
> feeling that most students must be taught that I will be playing a
> different game than what they are used to at University. Multiple choice
> questions can be "discussed" in the margins of the test and multiple
> choice is only 30% of the grade anyway; the rest of the grade will be
> based on essay questions. Of couse I have never figured out how to do
> that on a scantron or with a testbank so I have to make up my own and
> yes, even read the students writing.
>
> Actually thinking about the basis of the statistical reasoning behind
> economics or finance. Reflecting on what could be said to diffuse a
> volatile situation at work or home. What was the social contract in
> place in 1776 when Adam Smith wrote about an inquiry into the wealth of
> nations? What social contract do we work under now? How many actually
> joined the military from college (voluntarily) in 1967 to serve and show
> honor to the country that they loved? How where they looked upon by the
> minority who protested the Vietnam war? Who was right? How nice it is to
> know that there is no more famine and genocide in Somalia? Why were we
> there in the first place? Which course is this anyway??
>
> University is no place for a textbook. Let textbooks stay in Jr. and
> Senior High school. Do we as professors have anything to "profess" if we
> must lecture out of a textbook, I think not. Yet, how many students
> lament the situation where the professor gives grades based on what the
> professor 'feels' that the student has 'learned'. Is there a way to
> quantify what a student has learned? If not, how do we get away with
> giving grades. And of course, which Administrators (or t&p boards)ignore
> the student evaluation of teachers?
>
> But, then again, which of us, when we were managers were willing to
> empower our people and accept the consequences if they failed miserably?
> Which ones of us were in such a senior position that we could let
> subordinates "fail" and not 'feel' the consequences ourselves?
>
> Thanks,
> Nick
>
> > Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 10:38:46 -0400
> > From: "Ruth H. Axelrod" <
raxelrod@gwu.edu>
> > Subject: Re: Experiental Education--LONG
> >
> > Esteban, David and Everyone Else Who is Participating in this
> > Fascinating Conversation--
> >
> > How do we know that students will learn what we think they need to know
> > through these methods? I remind you that research shows that the best
> > of students pick up something less than 16% of the material from the
> > best of lectures. I expect that the figure is about the same, or lower,
> > for reading texts. So, can we really say that they will learn less from
> > a self-selected, self-directed project even when we know that it will
> > not call for the full range of knowledge and skills that we feel we
> > should be transmitting?
> >
> > For me, the biggest issue is not my concern about the body of knowledge
> > but, rather, the emotional difficulty of letting go. To teach this way,
> > we have to stop seeing ourselves as content experts (directors) and
> > start acting as facilitators of learning (coaches), to give up control
> > and "trust the process", that is, trust that the process will provide
> > opportunities for the students to "discover" (with assistance) the basic
> > principles that we think they need to know. And that's as scary for us
> > as teachers as it is for the executives whom we advise to delegate,
> > engage in participative management and empower self-managing teams!
> >
> > Ruth
> >
> > Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 11:41:35 -0400
> > From: Karthik Namasivayam <
kun1@psu.edu>
> > Subject: Re: Experiental Education--LONG
> >
> > As a newly minted PhD, teaching an undergraduate course in human
resource
> > management, I find this discussion fascinating. I am a
> > manager-turned-academic, like many others who have participated in these
> > discussions. Teaching students to think for themselves and to learn how
to> learn is, I agree, the ultimate pedagogy. But how does one do it in an
> > institutional setting where the norm is far more directive and less
> > facilitating (Ruth)?? I am struggling with developing a classroom model
> > that will incorporate the principles of self-directed learning, and
> > critical thinking in academic settings that are predominantly different.
I> believe the dichotomy in pedagogical methods that I refer to are endemic
to> academia in general...
> >
> > Karthik
> >