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[canuckois]

I thought this "damning indictment of the American higher-education system" might interest a number of forumites.  The findings of the study itself are depressing, but probably don't come as much of a surprise to any of us. 

One quote from the article:

Among the most troubling findings from the postgraduate survey, Mr. Arum says, is that 30 percent of the recent graduates said that they read a newspaper "monthly or never," even online.

"How do you sustain a democratic society," Mr. Arum said, "when large numbers of the most educationally elite sector of your population are not seeing it as a normal part of their everyday experience to keep up with the world around them? We need higher education to take the institutional responsibility for educating people broadly to see this as a basic part of civic life."

That notion of institutional culture, Ms. Heiland says, is the basic lesson that the public should take from the book. "I don't want people to walk away blaming people," she said. "You can say, Oh, the problem is with the students because they don't study enough. The problem is with the faculty because their priorities are elsewhere. There's truth in all that. But for me, what's really powerful about the book is that it talks about the culture of higher education and talks about how the work of one player is related to the work of everyone else. We need to talk about higher education as a system."

Thoughts?

[mountainguy]

It's certainly sobering news, but my initial reaction to it was "well, duh." Two ideas from the study that I found thought-provoking:

1. The authors conspicuously avoid framing the gaps in student learning a crisis, because they note that the system is working the way its supposed to. Students want easy classes, administrators want to see steady FTEs, and faculty want to keep their jobs, so all have reason to resist change. This suggests to me that the problem is an attitudinal one caused by mismatched expectations amongst the various stakeholders.

2. A point that came up in the Insidehighered article about the book is that variations in student learning can vary widely within the same institution. Again, this doesn't come as any surprise to me--within my own academic college, it's obvious that certain departments have a more rigorous curriculum than others--but apparently it's groundbreaking to point out that those requirements might produce different results.

[fiona]

Teachers have always been blamed for students' not knowing enough.

What's new?

Socrates was blamed for teaching his students too much, making them question authority.

It's always convenient, and boring, to scapegoat teachers and students for the failings of society.

I can't even bring myself to read the article in reference, though younger people (who didn't know Socrates personally) may find it informative.

The Fiona, fogey

[mountainguy]

It's always convenient, and boring, to scapegoat teachers and students for the failings of society.

I can understand not wanting to read it, but the article(s) in question are much more nuanced than that. The authors makes it clear that the problem transcends more than just the fault of teachers or students.

[canuckois]

It's certainly sobering news, but my initial reaction to it was "well, duh." Two ideas from the study that I found thought-provoking:

1. The authors conspicuously avoid framing the gaps in student learning a crisis, because they note that the system is working the way its supposed to. Students want easy classes, administrators want to see steady FTEs, and faculty want to keep their jobs, so all have reason to resist change. This suggests to me that the problem is an attitudinal one caused by mismatched expectations amongst the various stakeholders.

This is a great point, MG.  For some, there may not be much of a "problem" at all, if everything is indeed working as desired.

And to the Fiona, I'll echo MG -- both the article and the book frame the issue in much more complex terms than simply "it's the fault of educators." 

[educator1]

The article blew my mind when it stated:
"Most students take few courses that demand intensive writing (defined here as 20 or more pages across the semester)"  and:
"Business and education majors at public four-year colleges in Texas are typically required to take only a small number of writing-intensive courses."

Almost all of the courses in my school  (business) require more writing than that. My students write more than that in my classes but complain that "writing reports in a statistics class is not normal". How can one succeed in a business environment without the ability to write a convincing report?
I regularly dismiss that comment but it now occurs to me that they could be correct! 

[polly_mer]

The article blew my mind when it stated:
"Most students take few courses that demand intensive writing (defined here as 20 or more pages across the semester)"   

I don't know that I've ever taught a class that required fewer than 20 written pages across the semester and that includes teaching math classes. 

What kind of classes are students taking that they aren't doing 20 written pages nearly every week?

[concordancia]

The article blew my mind when it stated:
"Most students take few courses that demand intensive writing (defined here as 20 or more pages across the semester)"   

I don't know that I've ever taught a class that required fewer than 20 written pages across the semester and that includes teaching math classes. 

What kind of classes are students taking that they aren't doing 20 written pages nearly every week?

Texas classes.

I doubt that my composition students write much more than 20 pages over the course of the semester. For most courses in my department, students write four or five exams and a three to five page paper - this fits our definition of writing intensive, which is determined at the university level by the percentage of the grade that is calculated on written material, including short answer tests.

[polly_mer]

The article blew my mind when it stated:
"Most students take few courses that demand intensive writing (defined here as 20 or more pages across the semester)"   

I don't know that I've ever taught a class that required fewer than 20 written pages across the semester and that includes teaching math classes. 

What kind of classes are students taking that they aren't doing 20 written pages nearly every week?

Texas classes.

I doubt that my composition students write much more than 20 pages over the course of the semester. For most courses in my department, students write four or five exams and a three to five page paper - this fits our definition of writing intensive, which is determined at the university level by the percentage of the grade that is calculated on written material, including short answer tests.

How is that writing intensive?  Dang, I took engineering and math classes from non-English speakers who made us write twenty and thirty page lab reports nearly weekly.

[fiona]

I've encountered students who never wrote anything except multiple choice tests in high school.

As usual, we're the good students who went to the schools that required writing. We're not the victims.

The Fiona

[scienceprof]

How is that writing intensive?  Dang, I took engineering and math classes from non-English speakers who made us write twenty and thirty page lab reports nearly weekly.

On a related note, the article on writing for business and education majors:
http://chronicle.com/article/Writing-Assignments-Are-Scarce/125984/
which was referred to and linked in the "Adrift" article states:

"The Chronicle's analysis ... included almost everything: not just courses in the major, but also freshman composition and most other general-education courses. (It did not look at syllabi for courses in mathematics and laboratory science, assuming that in most such cases there would not be any substantial writing assignments.)"

The section that I bolded just blows my mind, not because this article is unique, but because I see this perception repeatedly.  Where the heck do people get the idea that laboratory science is not writing intensive?  Many of my freshmen tell me they write more for my General Chemistry lab than they do for their Composition classes.

[unusedusername]

"The Chronicle's analysis ... included almost everything: not just courses in the major, but also freshman composition and most other general-education courses. (It did not look at syllabi for courses in mathematics and laboratory science, assuming that in most such cases there would not be any substantial writing assignments.)"

The section that I bolded just blows my mind, not because this article is unique, but because I see this perception repeatedly.  Where the heck do people get the idea that laboratory science is not writing intensive?  Many of my freshmen tell me they write more for my General Chemistry lab than they do for their Composition classes.

Whoever did the Chronicle's analysis was obviously not a science major.  In my sophomore classes, my students have to write about a dozen lab reports, each of which are about 6 pages long.  By the 20 page rule, that would count as almost 4 "writing intensive" classes.

[archman]

The article blew my mind when it stated:
"Most students take few courses that demand intensive writing (defined here as 20 or more pages across the semester)"   

I don't know that I've ever taught a class that required fewer than 20 written pages across the semester and that includes teaching math classes. 

What kind of classes are students taking that they aren't doing 20 written pages nearly every week?

Texas classes.

I doubt that my composition students write much more than 20 pages over the course of the semester. For most courses in my department, students write four or five exams and a three to five page paper - this fits our definition of writing intensive, which is determined at the university level by the percentage of the grade that is calculated on written material, including short answer tests.

Ditto. I’ve taught in Texas schools too. Writing was not valued nor wanted by the faculty in my STEM department. Most faculty view it like the plague and will foist it off on anyone they can find… typically hapless grad students.

I am now seeing that this viewpoint is also shared by many faculty in Georgia. I’m not really surprised.

[unoriginal]

How is that writing intensive?  Dang, I took engineering and math classes from non-English speakers who made us write twenty and thirty page lab reports nearly weekly.

On a related note, the article on writing for business and education majors:
http://chronicle.com/article/Writing-Assignments-Are-Scarce/125984/
which was referred to and linked in the "Adrift" article states:

"The Chronicle's analysis ... included almost everything: not just courses in the major, but also freshman composition and most other general-education courses. (It did not look at syllabi for courses in mathematics and laboratory science, assuming that in most such cases there would not be any substantial writing assignments.)"

The section that I bolded just blows my mind, not because this article is unique, but because I see this perception repeatedly.  Where the heck do people get the idea that laboratory science is not writing intensive?  Many of my freshmen tell me they write more for my General Chemistry lab than they do for their Composition classes.

Wow.  In my lab science course this semester, my students have already produced about 8-10 pages of writing (a research proposal).  As a draft.  Which I have made comments on and turned back to them.  We're in the middle of week 2.  I think they'll write about 20-30 more pages before the semester is through.   

[daniel_von_flanagan]

We decided at my institution not to participate in CLA, as it seemed too one-dimensional an instrument to us.  That said, I think overall these results are critical of institutions, not faculty, and the criticisms are ones with which many of us will agree.  It is critical - for example - of bogus rubrics like graduation rates, and suggests that students need to be better prepared, to face higher expectations, and to do more work.  - DvF