Jonathan Zimmerman: A Little Shame Goes a Long Way
[Jonathan Zimmerman is a professor of history and education at New York University. He is the author, most recently, of Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory (Yale University Press).]
Shame on us!
The cat is finally out of the bag about what our students are learning, and it isn't pretty. It's more like a dog, or maybe a pig. A warthog, even.
I'm talking about the much-discussed Academically Adrift by my New York University colleague Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia, which demonstrates that nearly half of college undergraduates don't significantly improve their reasoning or writing skills over the first two years of college. After four years, subsequent analysis showed, more than one-third of all students showed no significant gains in these skills.
And yes, we should all be ashamed about that. But shame can be good, if it gets us to do the right thing. And in this case, I think it can.
The authors based their conclusions on the Collegiate Learning Assessment, an essay-only test designed to measure higher-level thinking and expression. One sample question presents a set of documents about an airplane that recently crashed and asks students to advise an imaginary executive about whether his company should purchase that type of plane. Another provides data about a city mayor's crime-reduction program, instructing students to counsel the mayor on how to respond to criticisms of the program....
Read entire article at CHE
Shame on us!
The cat is finally out of the bag about what our students are learning, and it isn't pretty. It's more like a dog, or maybe a pig. A warthog, even.
I'm talking about the much-discussed Academically Adrift by my New York University colleague Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia, which demonstrates that nearly half of college undergraduates don't significantly improve their reasoning or writing skills over the first two years of college. After four years, subsequent analysis showed, more than one-third of all students showed no significant gains in these skills.
And yes, we should all be ashamed about that. But shame can be good, if it gets us to do the right thing. And in this case, I think it can.
The authors based their conclusions on the Collegiate Learning Assessment, an essay-only test designed to measure higher-level thinking and expression. One sample question presents a set of documents about an airplane that recently crashed and asks students to advise an imaginary executive about whether his company should purchase that type of plane. Another provides data about a city mayor's crime-reduction program, instructing students to counsel the mayor on how to respond to criticisms of the program....