John's Reading Notes 4

The author of Learner Centered Teaching makes some great points concerning relinquishing control  the structure and functioning of college level courses. If students are given decision making powers in relation to the course content, functioning, and evaluation, they put more stock in the course and will likely feel more personal responsibility for learning the material and skills at the center of the class (27). The students have the most at stake in each class and ultimately, make the decision to learn or not (27), so it makes sense that they should have power in directing the course. This is also is reflected in the Gross readings for today where she suggests that students should be given a "cafeteria" of options for assignment completion (91). The author of the Learner-Centered Teaching did seem to temper the puppies and rainbows portrayal of this method at the end of the article when stating "As long as grades are used as gatekeepers to subsequent educational experiences...teachers must not lose control of the major components of the assessment process" (44). The author also states that instructors need to stay in control of the design, structure, of activities and assignments (44). I must say this was somewhat of a let down. Having read the rest of the chapter, I was pretty excited to give my students a say in how they wanted the course to be conducted, but reading the end made the rest of the chapter seem like window dressing to a certain extent. Almost as if the students can have in put so long as it is not related to the real meat of the course. I do think that there is a point that the instructor as the expert needs to do step up as the defacto leader of the course, but this article does call attention to aspects of the class that could benefit under student control. What I would like to discuss with the class whether or not we think that we could implement a learner-centered approach as first time instructors who may not have as good of an idea of how a semester long class should proceed. For tenured faculty who have a proven track record students may be able to buy into the concept of greater control of the class and see it as cool new method being applied by a respected educator. Do you think a learner-centered approach will be as well received coming from a new or young faculty member? Would relying on student input too much make us look disorganized?

Another question that came up in the readings for me was the issue of inclusion of students from diverse and multicultural backgrounds. In both Lang (192) and Gross (66) both warn about treating students from a particular background or culture as a representative or spokesperson for their culture. While I do not think this is the way students should be treated, when there is someone who has had experiences that differ from the majority of the class, I feel it benefits the class as a whole to invite their comment. One might ask a police officer or veteran enrolled in a class their perspective related to a given course topic. Understanding that race and cultural differences often are more sensitive topics of conversation, I would like to discuss how to elicit or encourage the participation of people in class who may have a unique perspective on a topic. Furthermore, should these considerations be primarily made concerning personal characteristics beyond the person's control, or should we as instructors generally avoid attempting to elicit comments from students in unique circumstances?

Here are my course objectives

Completing the requirements of this course will enable you to…

¨      Identify social psychological principles.

¨      Critically analyze research in the area of social psychology.

¨      Evaluate non-scientific claims about how people behave.

¨      Synthesize information from multiple academic and non-academic sources.

¨      Apply social psychological principles to life beyond this course.