Recently I have been assessing what you have learned from the first term. And from the perspective of course content, this is a view of individual accomplishment that I uncovered. It is in a sense part of what I learned.
There are those who are or have been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. This translates into students who have some solid knowledge about general and specific things and are keen learners.
There are those at the other end who are, now were, without much that was on offer for acquisition, or who may, in my estimation, be unsuitable for further study. It was like the lights were out and no one was home.
Slightly above these are those where the lights were on and there was apparently no one home; for these, I gave the benefit of the doubt. They could learn, I thought, or did but I couldn't measure it somehow. So, on provision of good performance in the second term, they could earn credit for the first term. They could continue, but a burden of proof lies on them. I will be assessing them especially, and carefully.
Next there are those who convinced me that they were capable of tracking and learning, and they had some level of knowledge about the subject and understood what the skills were that were required, if unable to demonstrate them. The lights were on and someone was home.
Take each of these categories and see if the shoe fits. You will note that only one of the categories is entirely complimentary. But that is the category that is the fundamental value that guides the course and makes what content is available. To be in concert with the subject, the content, that is the alignment you want. Now, I do not expect all to get into this alignment. After all, that wouldn't be American. We value diversity and each can decide how best to get through life and school challenges.
What else did I learn? I had my preconceptions confirmed. There would be difficulties for students to handle a wide open door of what to learn, plus part of the delivery of the course would take clear perception or reframing to accept and follow. What this means is that logging onto the learning server and doing lessons is essentially no different from attending class and remaining mentally awake for the given time period. The only difference is that with the former, you had to show you were at least a little bit awake. In the latter, in most classes, especially lecture classes, you can sleep while appearing to be awake. And I learned my students preferred this for a number of reasons, the main one being "because that is what we are used to."
I remain unconvinced that any of the students I have seen at this university really learns from this method.
I also learned that better mousetraps need to be built for the unmotivated, because they will do anything, and give any number of excuses, not to do the course and follow what is tacitly clear in any class or school in today's Europe. The first term had many words on the course site and resource area about all of this, but it boils down to: Do your own course work on time. In this one injunction, all is said and all judgments can be made about accomplishment.
Of course I also learned that because I would not teach how to use technology for learning, some would not use it, or would have difficulties. The rationale for not scaffolding the technology skills for this course ahead of time, or during it, still holds true. Students can and should learn this elsewhere, or on their own. We need not take away from the core content to learn how to read online, or write an essay and submit it electronically. We also, today, need not show students how to click on a link.
Those technical skills aside, and not part of the course, does not relieve me of the responsibility of helping students learn what is good and bad electronic information, what is important and what is not as important when they read or view an artifact. So these will be a part of the next term's work.
My students would make adequate lawyers. They look carefully for the loopholes in the law. That is fine, and my learning is to be very careful and specific about what the course requirements are. This emphasis on requirements comes as a result of a difference in values. Those bright-eyed and busy-tailed do not need to be told and reminded about what is due, or what you should learn. However, the vast majority need to know how to get through this experience with the least amount of difficulty, and the least amount of work. The university system breeds this norm. It is a fact of life for me and my students.
Part of being clearer must be to concept check every important point and assignment. The tacit for me must become the clearly known and understood for the student. Although it is impossible to meet this expectation, more effort on my part is required. And so it shall be. If students will hold me to the letter of the law as they understand it, then the law must be mutually understood. We must find the language that will convey for us both what is to be done, when, what is important, etc.
So each lesson, plus some material from last term, will be reviewed (AE), revised (BE). This means repetition for some. Unfortunate, but that is the price of making students attend class. We could move much faster using the knowledge base that is the Web and course site, but as we have learned, that also has its problems. So, more classes, more repetition. The optional class, by the way, is not optional content. But if you know or can do it already, you don't have to come. Get it elsewhere, or via the course documentation.
Thus, the course will be more directive. Total, or almost, freedom comes with responsibility. But to handle the freedom and the responsibility takes a level of knowledge, skills, and maturity most of the students I know do not have. So, I will "tell them what to do," within limits, because that is what they have pleaded for again and again. First this and then that. And so, the course will evolve more in concert with what students appear to need, although much of it should be available right from the get go for the better than average student.
Two serious problems I have noticed with some students. And I need to address this because it is not from the hopeless that I have heard these things. There is some aversion to reading and text. And there is an I've-already-made-up-my-mind, or similar, attitude. Embracing either of these spells doom for the culture studies student. Two skills are required.
One, text is the primary medium used for the preservation of what we know, and what happened before. Texts talk with us, not only to us. And a community of the knowing have the real keys to what the stories say and mean--meaning is the result of conversing with the text and trying to become a member of the community. The skill is reading and asking questions of the text.
Two, any area or subject of human society is an appropriate object of inquiry. Some will be interesting to some, other subjects won't interest. But that doesn't mean what you are not interested in is not important to someone, or for some understanding. Close the door prematurely on anything and you have become a smaller, more isolated person, and not a candidate for success in cultural studies. The skill is to hold off judgment until you have sufficient information and knowledge. For beginning students, this means holding off judgment. For those who have visited America, or have talked with someone who has, this is no excuse. Make no judgment, yet.
What is information and what is knowledge? This is where term two starts.
28.02.2005
