A couple of days ago, Inside Higher Ed rolled out a blurb about the latest episode of “The Pulse,” a monthly podcast hosted by Rodney B. Murray, executive director of academic technology at the University of the Sciences. “The Pulse” is an über nerd podcast that usually focuses on ‘e-learning’ and class design. This month’s podcast strayed a bit from its typical topics, having more of a psychological theme due to its guest/interviewee.
Murray interviewed Victor Yocco, a design researcher and author of a recently published book (Design for the Mind: Seven Psychological Principles of Persuasive Design). Their conversation largely covered Yocco’s interests in how to improve higher education using–yes, just as I teased–psychological findings and innovative techniques.
I remember two points standing out two me during the 25-minute long podcast, both of which have come up in class.
The first was about college professors not knowing how to teach. Or rather, about how most professors having not been taught how to teach college students efficiently and effectively. Rather, most professors at most universities are trusted to rely upon their own instincts and idiosyncrasies to educate their students. Yocco talked about his experiences in instituting skill-based (meaning, everyone could start out at different levels of ability but end up in the same place systematically) seminars on teaching at universities/colleges for faculty.
It only takes one semester with a droning cardboard cutout of a professor to see why such training programs make so much sense. Just because someone has six degrees from MIT doesn’t mean they know anything about transferring information pleasantly and intelligently to students. But we’ve exhausted this topic.
The second point Yocco spoke about was the importance of faculty knowing how to use technology properly and helpfully in the classroom. He made a clear distinction between fad/showpiece technology (e.g., aggressively slinging a sack of iPads at students, commanding them and their professors to LEARN!) and proven helpful technological practices and devices. Yocco and Murray bonded over the stubborn resistance of professors to learning new (and usually better) ways of doing things with technology, as they usually deem such things to be merely trendy and superfluous. Yocco brought up that actually having a fellow faculty member teaching his or her peers (as opposed to an outside speaker) about these new educational platforms fights this resistance significantly.
Seems logical. Seems relatively inexpensive. Will most universities go for it? Probably not.
What else is knew?
-Alex
It not well known by the general public, including parents who send their children to some of the most expensive colleges in the US, that the more prestigious the institution on the research/teaching continuum, the less importance faculty place on teaching well. Until very recently, almost all doctoral training focused on research, not teaching. This is beginning to change, in part because jobs in these institutions are far less plentiful than once was the case, so new Ph.D.’s are finding it beneficial to have documented training in higher education pedagogy and a statement of teaching philosophy to attach to applications for college jobs. As you probably have already, the growth area in higher education in the US today is in community colleges, where research is much less prized than being an effective teacher who can get students through and out of college successfully. Also even for the higher priced institutions, parents are beginning to be concerned about paying so much money and having their children mostly taught by graduate students — the brilliant graduate students of famous professors, but still, often not that interested in sound teaching practices themselves. As higher education is faced with more and more accountability for retention and graduation rates at the Federal and state levels, one positive side effect, I think, is a greater focus on helping faculty to become more effective teachers.
Thanks!