Target Practice

I think we would all agree that our country is confronting a series of challenges in key areas such as the economy, health care, education, the environment, and national security.  How we handle these challenges will determine whether the United States continues its global leadership role or whether we are eclipsed by other great powers on this globe.  Regardless of your priorities, as we look to secure our future, education has to be a key part of any solution.  But at this moment in time, education and especially schools of education are under attack.

The basis for the attack is that often in K-12 education, our students are not performing up to their potential and no one would argue with that assessment.  The blame for this lack of performance or lack of progress is placed on the shoulders of our teachers and further blamed on the education they have received.  The solutions suggest that a stint with Teach for America or an experience with a museum could provide the same or a greater level of expertise than pursuing a graduate degree in education. The threat is clear— if schools of education don’t change, students will be encouraged to go elsewhere to pursue their graduate education. 

I happen to think that Teach for America is a terrific program and I love visiting museums and always find them to be a valuable learning experience.  There is no question that such programs can enhance teaching techniques and content knowledge.  But what about pedagogy?  What about the learning process? What about a more in depth understanding of the students we are educating? What about the need for a strong liberal arts and sciences background?  No one argues about the need for significant hands on experience for teachers but hands on cannot substitute for the proper educational foundation. Where is there any concrete evidence that teacher education has caused a lack of student performance? 

Clearly student performance is impacted by teaching quality and I’m not sure that that the prevalent K-12 structure sufficiently recognizes merit and the quality of teaching.  Yearly increases, step increases, and lane changes are almost totally tied to quantity of teaching and quantity of credits taken rather than the impact of the teacher. We have an obligation on the K-12 level and in higher education to give merit a more prominent place in the educational equation.  But we also all have an obligation, and that includes our public officials, to recognize that school funding, the student’s family,  the economic status of that family, the educational attainment of the family members, and discrimination all have significantly impacted student learning.  And does anyone think that alternative paths to certification will remedy these issues?

I wholeheartedly support outcomes assessment and efforts to measure the learning that has taken place.  I wholeheartedly support a continuous review of teacher education programs to also assess their effectiveness.  We can do a better job in providing K-12 education and in providing teacher education.  Change is necessary but so is an understanding of all the issues.  Looking for a target, looking for a simple solution to complex issues, won’t solve our problems.  You need to see the issues clearly and completely before significant progress can be made.  As educators we have an obligation to help make that happen.

Headline News

The Sunday September 26, 2010 edition of Newsday had the following front page headline, “ L[ong] I[sland] Colleges Change Course - Major Push for Jobs - How Schools Have Reshaped their Mission.”  This headline which covered the entire first page also had a background of a graduation cap and tassel.  The focus of the article was how colleges “have been shaking up curricula, adding job-friendly courses and majors- all meant to ensure that graduates don’t end up jobless….”  The subtext of the article, summarized well in a quote from a local college administrator, was the determination “to provide a relevant education to all students,” which certainly suggests what has been happening up to now has not been relevant.

We all want our graduates to end up with the jobs of their choice but have we been the cause of joblessness among college graduates because of a lack of relevancy?  I don’t think so.  I spent most of the 1980’s serving as the Dean of Hofstra’s Business School and I also spent a year serving as Interim Dean of the Hofstra School of Education.  In business and in education, we had a whole array of programs that were relevant and designed to help students successfully prepare for careers ranging from accounting to marketing; from administration to teaching.  We have even more such programs today. In the arts and sciences, the majors were equally relevant then and today, including areas such as computer science, communication, engineering, math, music, and writing/English.  My major was economics which prepared you well not only for graduate school but also for careers in finance and business in general. We can certainly do more but is the relevance of our education the real issue?

Higher education is not and should not be focused only on a first job but on a lifetime. We strive to educate critical thinkers.  Remember, even those majors considered most “relevant” may not be the area where our graduates ultimately end up working.  Critical thinking, therefore, is key in adjusting  to changes, including a changing world. We also strive to educate an informed public.  We strive to continuously strengthen the foundations of our society.  We strive to promote understanding and respect.  Is that not relevant?

If you are constrained by an economy struggling to recover from a major recession and having trouble doing so, job opportunities will be a real issue.  As the economy recovers, and we know this won’t be immediate, job opportunities will increase accordingly. We all have a responsibility to continuously enhance the education we provide and we can certainly do much more.  But what is most relevant for our overall jobs picture is the economy and the need for further economic stimulation.  As we look to be relevant, we shouldn’t underestimate the relevance of our national leaders in resolving a difficult situation.

A Grating Exam

Anytime a semester ends, there are always multiple conversations about final examinations.  And final exams come in all sizes and shapes.  Not surprising, faculty focus their attention on the quality of the student work be it in response to short or multiple choice questions or in response to essay or term paper assignments.  Students tend to talk about whether an exam was “fair”: in other words did it cover the materials that the students were responsible for.  After that, the students tend to focus on whether the exam was clear or confusing and whether it was easy or hard.  Certainly there are extremes in all these categories but for the most part, faculty view the students’ work to be reasonable and responsible and students view the examination to also be reasonable and responsible.

A few weeks ago, I received a call from a friend who is also dean of a professional school.  Quickly the conversation evolved into a discussion of final examinations.  But this conversation was very different.  Normally as noted above, discussions regarding a final examination tend to focus more on the quality of the students work, and the fairness of the exam.  But this dean was focused not just on fairness but rather on exam appropriateness.  The dean’s point was that a faculty member had given an “F” exam, one which did not in any way cover the key points of the course.  On this exam, according to the dean, the student could receive a 100% and you would still not have any concrete notion as to whether the student did or did not understand the critical course material or did or did not achieve the course learning goals.

In higher education, for the most part, exam development is the purview of the faculty member teaching the course.  Exams are sometimes (but only sometimes) included in the teaching portfolios presented by candidates for reappointment, tenure, and promotion.  Exams are sometimes created by groups of faculty where there are multiple sections of a course and a common final exam.  But these examples account for a minority of all the exams given.  Mostly likely the faculty member develops, administers, and grades the exam.  Overall this system works well, but we also know for certain that it doesn’t work perfectly.  And just as there are brilliant exams developed on a regular basis, there are also very flawed exams developed as well.

Outcomes assessment and using exams in part to determine whether learning goals have been accomplished should help minimize the flawed exam problem.  But this is not enough.  Many department chairs and deans review grade rosters on a regular basis.  If there is something out of the ordinary (grades seem extraordinarily high or low), the department chair typically just asks the faculty member.  Chairs and deans need to follow the same procedures with final exams (and perhaps exams in general).  We all recognize that chair and faculty classroom observations are a tried and true method of enhancing a faculty member‘s teaching excellence.  The same type of support can also be invaluable in facilitating the most meaningful examinations possible.  All of us want more “A” students; we should also make sure there are “A” examinations for our students.