My musings this week begin with a pretty simple observation: graduate classes are incredibly different than upper division undergraduate classes, which are in turn different than intro classes, which are finally different than high school classes. (Incidentally, I don’t think high school is really much different than any previous education, right down to first grade.) The reasons for this are no doubt complex, and so I’ll list a few likely components: student motivation, student skill, teacher motivation, teacher skill. All play a part, I think, though certainly not to the same degree (I suspect student motivation to be the biggest factor, and coupled with student skill it would make the social experience of grad classes into a rather ideal form of collaborative learning). But this week’s readings made me wonder if there might be two other issues at work. First, Brooke’s discussion of underlife made me reconsider my grad experience. For the most part, I think, grad students have less of an urge to defy the “grad student” role. He writes, “the self is formed in the distance one takes from the roles one is assigned” (724), and lists the four most common types of underlife stances taken by students (which by the way is a great encapsulation of the behaviors I see in my classes all the time). Certainly grad students do play information games in an attempt to demonstrate that we are more than just students, but I think the stances we take are much closer to the role the institution assigns. No doubt we complain about instructors or assignments on occasion, but I’ve more often heard praise. In fact, the most common conversation I’ve heard is students discussing which instructor could most help their research. So I suppose grad students are much more comfortable with a very contained underlife that doesn’t so much subvert as supplement our student role, which I think largely creates an atmosphere where success is valued. (That said, it may also mean that instructors who wish to disrupt the students’ acceptance of the role may actually face a much tougher time doing so.)
The other thing I’d bring up is that grad school (at least the two I’ve experienced) in an environment that contains far smaller power differentials. One factor seems to me to essentially undermine all attempts to create a classroom community: grades. No matter how much instructors try to get students to “participate in the conversation” or engage in collaborative learning that creates knowledge, the class will almost always end up being reduced to a letter on a transcript. And frankly, this isn’t really the case in grad school. I’ve heard of a few B’s being handed out, and maybe a C to students who are being quietly asked to leave, but I’d guess that most classes result in 90% or more A’s. So with the letter essentially taken out of the equation, what remains? I think it’s learning. Students who care only about the grade might be happy to take a class that taught them nothing but ended with an A, but without the letter grade the only reason we’re doing all these readings and writing all these papers is because we believe they’ll help us. (And to those worried about a glut of ignorant TCR Ph.D.s, I’d suggest the TTU online model, where selectivity is largely handled in admission rather than in weed-out classes seems to do the trick. Plus, there’s that whole dissertation and defense process.)
So the big question is if we could replicate the graduate school experience in lower level classes. I’d suggest that while it may not be entirely possible, we could get a lot closer by getting rid of many presumed-necessary features of education.
What an interesting question, Steve. I'm on a terrible Internet connection right now in Honduras, so it's too much trouble for me to look up grade distributions for TCR Grad classes. I'll bet there are tons of A's (though I doubt 90%)
ReplyDeleteFrom my tutoring and a little teaching in the undergrad level, I've seen so many students who are only interested in passing the class. They act as though they are still in high school.
I wonder if undergrad honors programs are the places where you could push this kind of egalitarian approach? It seems to me that such an approach requires motivation to be completely or almost completely intrinsic. In grad school, that motivation is often based on the student's research. He or she owns this idea and this research. Can we give undergrads this same type of ownership? Certainly not in comp classes. Or am I wrong?
Great post, Steve. Since my project for this course deals with some of the larger framework related to process and product, I think your post provides some great food for thought about differences. I think that certainly the motivation factor is different in that a substantially smaller proportion of undergrads approach assignments as opportunities for personal growth but rather see them as goals toward a diploma. I think the latitude that grad school professors give students reflects the process rather than the product in that they often reward failures of product if students are engaging with the material in a way that shows the students’ are struggling to understand very complex and abstract ideas (than can be implemented in myriad ways at the practical level). So the grading schema in grad school is a tighter curve. And most of the grad school students I’ve met can reflect on a B and pinpoint a lot better why they made that grade (and beat themselves up about it) in more productive ways. Successful grad students are obviously much more adept at maneuvering through assignments and balancing work-life issues toward a goal of a relatively-specialized credential. Just look at how we describe our relationships with professors; grad school students want to “study with” professors rather than “make a grade for” them. And you have a great point about any PhD program’s necessity for a small acceptance rate.
ReplyDeleteIt looks to me like “weed-out courses” don’t quite function for undergrads in the same way that they did. Undergrad degrees are must less elitist, and rather than send them home, universities want to remediate them, make sure they’re going to class, probe their failures (and see their failures as a failure of the system rather than a failure of the individual). Is this patriarchal? I think so. But that critique will have to wait for another post.
Dan brought up the point I was going to make. Our college's undergrad Honors program is much more similar to grad school. The classes are small and held seminar-style. The instructors DO give out C's (and probably lower) grades, but only rarely. The Honors students that I have seen in class do have an intrinsic motivation.
ReplyDeleteNow that I say that, though, I think about some exceptions. Especially with Honors students, who often arrive at college after years of nose-to-the-grindstone work in primary and secondary ed, the temptation to break from the "good student" role is strong in their first year of college. Several don't make it past the first semester.
I think the key to grad school is the self-selective way students choose to enter it. I think it is much more akin to how undergrad must have been before a B.S. was a common ("expected") degree. Since students aren't *required* to have a grad degree, only those that really want to learn (well, and some who want promotions in their jobs) choose to go to grad school. It makes for a different class personality, I think.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou are spot on regarding the differing perceptions of various students at various levels. The utopian answer would demand that we try to impose a 'graduate' philosophy on, or into, freshman students. However, a system based on true learning motivation would shrink class size, and ultimately, the Bursar's revenue stream nationwide. Higher education has become a highly prioritized business straight from Huxley's Brave New World. To produce a volume of paying students requires cookie-cutter molds and protocols, an assembly line to cart them in and spit them out.
On a separate note: While typing, it just dawned on me that our fearless leader must not have too much faith in our motivation if a self-proclaimed, guilt-provoking email went out to encourage participation beyond the grading due date??????? Hummmm? ;)