tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post5278216556479566097..comments2024-03-09T03:20:20.004-05:00Comments on Tenured Radical: A New Deal For Higher Education: Start With More Small Classes For EveryoneTenured Radicalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05703980598547163290noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-35536125290623497092010-11-05T11:38:29.016-05:002010-11-05T11:38:29.016-05:00Hello.. Firstly I would like to send greetings to ...Hello.. Firstly I would like to send greetings to all readers. After this, I recognize the content so interesting about this article. For me personally I liked all the information. I would like to know of cases like this more often. In my personal experience I might mention a book called Green Parks Costa Rica in this book that I mentioned have very interesting topics, and also you have much to do with the main theme of this article.Green Parkshttp://greenparkscr.com/Inicio.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-50339408719321418872010-10-11T03:20:21.351-05:002010-10-11T03:20:21.351-05:00It is very helpful guidelines for me, I expect you...It is very helpful guidelines for me, I expect you will share this type of tips in future carry onDissertation Writinghttp://www.dissertationswriting.co.uk/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-64964783375824591402010-08-26T05:30:28.712-05:002010-08-26T05:30:28.712-05:00Thanks for making the connection between care for ...Thanks for making the connection between care for student writing and small classes.Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologistsand social historians.Custom Term Papershttp://www.flashpapers.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-32810226464953918882010-05-09T11:44:16.100-05:002010-05-09T11:44:16.100-05:00Globalshiksha.com is an Educational portal please ...Globalshiksha.com is an Educational portal please visit www.globalshiksha for <a href="http://www.globalshiksha.com" rel="nofollow">education and career</a> guidance.Majelelo.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07467364462527408435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-7251233311436205222010-04-06T02:49:23.659-05:002010-04-06T02:49:23.659-05:00Hey,
This looks nice and excellent but I'm in...Hey,<br /><br />This looks nice and excellent but I'm interested in computer programming & I'm looking for some useful information about higher education in computer programming can you help me ?<br /><br />:(<br /><br /><a href="http://www.centennialcollege.ca" rel="nofollow">community colleges</a>Jamesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-43925472495134048042010-02-10T22:08:07.949-05:002010-02-10T22:08:07.949-05:00@ Anon 7:48AM: Are you at SUNY Purchase?@ Anon 7:48AM: Are you at SUNY Purchase?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-4335043624677137482010-02-10T14:13:43.366-05:002010-02-10T14:13:43.366-05:00This doesn't work for everything. Teaching 6 s...This doesn't work for everything. Teaching 6 students public speaking--which I have done--created a nice cozy atmosphere but never got the students over the main fear: speaking in front of a group of people. Sure there should be cap sizes--15-20 is ideal for public speaking and small group communication (so you have enough different groups to make projects interesting). And I enjoyed my classes of 20 more than my classes of 12, 10, 6. More of a balance of ideas and personalities. <br /><br />For the record: The speed up at my former school is moving from 4:4 to 5:5, cutting out all junior faculty along the way, leaving only adjuncts and tenured faculty.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-8806859053530210062010-02-10T07:48:54.172-05:002010-02-10T07:48:54.172-05:00At our teaching-focused state university campus, o...At our teaching-focused state university campus, our music school is the largest and most prestigious unit of the college. Since so much of our instruction is one-on-one or very small groups (studio lessons or chamber music, for example), we hear from administrators all the time how "expensive" it is to run the music program.<br /><br />In fact, based on credits generated, it would take FOUR T-T studio faculty to equal one faculty member teaching the kinds of ideal small classes you describe in this blog.<br /><br />In a tight budget climate, imagine how tempting it must be for our administrators to fire all the expensive T-T studio teachers and replace with adjunct-scale instruction! This certainly would bring the costs of instruction on a per-credit basis down to par with other units on campus. The fact that they don't is a testament to our school's commitment to quality above quantity (and our faculty union probably would have something to say about it, too).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-73895360958182498122010-02-07T10:25:24.889-05:002010-02-07T10:25:24.889-05:00I am totally on board with small classes in genera...I am totally on board with small classes in general--I loved them as a student myself--but my experience has been that student expectations/motivations are the real make or break ingredient, as others have suggested. At my large public university, students are accustomed to being listening passively to lectures in most fields. This is unfortunate as a structural element of the academic culture, but it's a fact. And it means that when they do get into small classes where they're expected to participate, it is a real struggle. No matter how much energy I put into creating comfortable, supportive classrooms, enthusiasm for the material, etc., many of them just don't know how to prepare or how to keep a discussion going by talking to each other. So unless you get lucky with enrollment and/or chemistry between students, small classes can be really really painful for all concerned.Ellienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-38378811656934259662010-02-07T00:27:18.172-05:002010-02-07T00:27:18.172-05:00As a T-T faculty member in the humanities at a fel...As a T-T faculty member in the humanities at a fellow NESCAC school I was nodding along to this. My smaller seminar classes are invariably a better experience for my students, and for me. But our dean is putting more and more pressure on our dept. to increase the size of our lecture-classes in order to "earn" the smaller seminars. This pressure is only going to increase, given the economic situation.<br /><br />One rather serious problem is that the incentive structure for schools like mine/Zenith means that I simply cannot spend my time helping students write. In order to get tenure I need to spend all of my time on research. I can't teach my way to tenure. This is too bad, and a sad commentary on how warped academia has become. So, I've decided the only way I have any chance at achieving tenure is to do the least possible teaching-wise in order to concentrate on writing the book and articles I need to keep my job. I am cheating my students now, but I hope to make it up to future students when I will finally be able to devote the time I think they deserve.<br /><br />If we made all of our classes smaller then *maybe* I could provide the level of support schools like mine/Zenith claim they give to their students. As it is now, those claims are impolite fictions. But we junior faculty are working 80-90 hours/week because we all know there are *literally hundreds* of PhDs willing to do almost anything to grasp the brass ring of a T-T job. We research and write like crazy, close our office doors, avoid campus, and as a result our students aren't getting the education our institutions advertise. The system has become irreparably corrupt.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-58626863360592986882010-02-06T22:01:03.947-05:002010-02-06T22:01:03.947-05:00As a former-faculty-turned-teaching center-person,...As a former-faculty-turned-teaching center-person, I'm obviously biased but I can't help but bridle at Historiann's comment, both with regard to remuneration and the ideas associated with such positions. It's certainly not the case (on either score) in our shop, and each of us is in the classroom each year, teaching in a fashion that might even pass muster with FT faculty. (I'm also reminded of TR's excellent, fair-minded post last year on resisting the temptation to instantly brand administrators as evil philistines.) More to the point of the original post, I've seen faculty lecturing to classes of six or even two -- the magic of a small class isn't a sure thing. This may reflect the fact that the large lecture remains the norm -- or that most graduate programs do little to prepare people for teaching. Institutional investment in small classes obviously signals a commitment to the quality of undergraduate education (and perhaps faculty satisfaction) -- so too might some reconfiguration of graduate programs.Chrisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-47908829545856888282010-02-06T18:04:55.444-05:002010-02-06T18:04:55.444-05:00Doctor Pion:
Welcome to Tenured Radical. And 3-3...Doctor Pion:<br /><br />Welcome to Tenured Radical. And 3-3 *is* a speedup if you have been paid the same salary for teaching 2-2 and, in lieu of an annual COL increase, you are instead being offered the opportunity to teach extra classes to cover cost of living.Tenured Radicalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05703980598547163290noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-91104491905808572892010-02-06T15:01:07.715-05:002010-02-06T15:01:07.715-05:00Doctor Pion: I reserve the right to be funny AND ...Doctor Pion: I reserve the right to be funny AND true.<br /><br />After all: if we can't laugh at administrators and educrats, who can we laugh at? Since they get all the money, we get all the fun, I say.Historiannhttp://historiann.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-35862991098293229192010-02-06T12:38:29.911-05:002010-02-06T12:38:29.911-05:00What Historiann wrote would be funny if it weren&#...What Historiann wrote would be funny if it weren't true. The only results I have seen from a similar program at our college has been to encourage "student centered" grading that produces failure in the next class.Doctor Pionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12513786840852469648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-81078486166895019282010-02-06T12:31:59.036-05:002010-02-06T12:31:59.036-05:00The idea that a 3:3 load is a "speedup" ...The idea that a 3:3 load is a "speedup" is amusing to some of us in academia. I have no idea how our composition faculty read and respond to the papers written by their many students, but at least we do keep composition classes below the normal cap for class sizes at our college.Doctor Pionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12513786840852469648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-92129204249418985782010-02-06T12:08:40.788-05:002010-02-06T12:08:40.788-05:00Thanks to Dr. Crazy for noting the student load of...Thanks to Dr. Crazy for noting the student load of most high school teachers--and no TAs. Add to that that many of us teach 3 "preps" and thus have 15 hours of lessons to plan each week, not to mention 25 hours of teaching time, and you start to understand why it's so hard for high school teachers to effectively teach writing. Many of us are fighting the good fight, but the notion that since we don't have research demands we have more time springs from the uninformed mind!Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05273422921322029935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-30991405006610818962010-02-06T00:44:26.216-05:002010-02-06T00:44:26.216-05:00I'd bet good money that almost all of the *rea...I'd bet good money that almost all of the *really* good writers--bloggers, novelists, humanists, scientists, business, etc--were at the tail end of the distribution of high-school writing experience. Yeah, you can learn to write competently even if you didn't write much in high school. But real quality writing, no.Comrade PhysioProfhttp://physioprof.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-24322108846704592472010-02-05T23:38:43.234-05:002010-02-05T23:38:43.234-05:00Physioprof - you're wrong on this one. While ...Physioprof - you're wrong on this one. While it's true that HS teachers don't have research expectations, they do (as the commenter after you noted) have at least 35 students per class, and they typically teach 5 or 6 sections, which puts their student count per year at 150-200. Further, HS English teachers (the sort with which I'm most familiar) are expected to teach not only their content area (literature) but also writing, grammar, and vocabulary. It is entirely unrealistic to expect that students are going to get all of the writing instruction they will ever need for the rest of their lives in that setting.<br /><br />As for whether students can improve as writers after early-to-mid adolescence, I don't have research handy to back me up, but I have taught writing courses for the past 10+ years, and I teach writing in my literature courses as well. Students can "learn to write" in college, even if they come into their college experience (as most of my students do) as underprepared writers. Obviously some students remain poor writers. But learning to write well (or at least competently) in one's first language, if one can communicate in speech in that language, is not an entirely new skill (such as the acquisition of a second language) and it's entirely possible to acquire the skills that one needs after the age of 18.<br /><br />TR - I did a riff off of your post over at my place. While I'm with you on the larger philosophical point of your post, I did go off in a different direction. But thanks for writing this! It gave me a way into writing about something I've wanted to write about for a while.Dr. Crazyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12457967076373916629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-90476070217916917272010-02-05T22:05:22.317-05:002010-02-05T22:05:22.317-05:00FYI: I'm their high school teacher and in my c...FYI: I'm their high school teacher and in my class, there are 35 of them at at time. How can I prepare them properly for you? Can we have some solidarity here?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-81430452569304042122010-02-05T22:00:31.511-05:002010-02-05T22:00:31.511-05:00Giving students weekly 1000 word expositive essay ...Giving students weekly 1000 word expositive essay assignments should be happening in high school. High school english teachers have no research duties and can devote the time and effort to do this better than university professors.<br /><br />And I have no evidence for this, but I have a suspicion that human brain development is such that students can really learn to write in early-mid adolescence, but by the time they are 18 years-old or so, if they haven't already learned to write, it becomes *much* more difficult to do so.Comrade PhysioProfhttp://physioprof.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-39699561653565462162010-02-05T16:45:49.656-05:002010-02-05T16:45:49.656-05:00I really want to agree. But I have had one student...I really want to agree. But I have had one student who patently did not learn in small classes. In fact, she found they so anxiety producing that she didn't attend, which isn't going to lead to any learning.<br /><br />For her, the thought of being in a room with a small group of strangers was terrifying. And the concern that she might be required to contribute even moreso.<br /><br />In a larger group she could remain anonymous and participate at her own rate. And her anxiety was reduced so she could actually take in what was said.<br /><br />While small classes are valuable and should be valued, we need to be careful not to assume that there is ONE right way to teach well.JoVEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16680602039278597976noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-10333494746826237002010-02-05T14:48:46.477-05:002010-02-05T14:48:46.477-05:00But, Tenured Radical: we already know that smalle...But, Tenured Radical: we already know that smaller classes work. How can we possibly create a new Assistant Vice Provost of Learning Outcomes and pay hir $160,000 a year and give her 4 staff members and a budget of $800,000 a year to implement hir fabulous, innovative ideas on the basis of time-tested wisdom like that? What you need to do at Zenith is demonstrate conclusively that clickers, or iPhone apps, or some other gadget-of-the-moment will make it possible to give 100 students the same educational benefit that a seminar for 6, or 8, or 10, would give them. That's how you make your career as an administrator, TR--pushing half-baked ideas and collecting dough for creating a new "Center for Teaching Excellence," not by doing what actually <i>works.</i><br /><br />Duh!<br /><br />And I kind of agree with the first Anonymous. 6 can sometimes feel too small, but it sounds like your seminar is going fabulously. I hope your students can keep up that level of engagement! Good luck, and enjoy.Historiannhttp://historiann.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-68061859694129086782010-02-05T14:26:57.037-05:002010-02-05T14:26:57.037-05:00I shouldn't play the "but I was different...I shouldn't play the "but I was different" card too many times: argument by anecdote drives me a little buggy, honestly. But I had hardly any classes smaller than 20 as an undergraduate, and the only time I got remotely detailed feedback on papers was in English. <br /><br />More to the point, the emphasis on writing skills is almost as Fordist as the drive for automated education "products". The best research I've seen suggests that it's quantity, not feedback, which improves writing. It's the student's attention, not the teacher's, which is the independent variable.<br /><br />What small, intimate settings could do, perhaps, more effectively is teach <i>thinking</i> and some social responsibility. <br /><br />On the other hand.... level of preparation matters. One of the reasons I have relatively little discussion in my World History surveys is that my students just don't know very much. While some discussion <i>exercises</i> can be effective at teaching certain skills, it's just not going to add very much to their knowledge base or disciplinary acumen if they spend class time interacting with people who are equally unprepared, nor is it likely that more individual attention from me would actually improve their retention and mastery of this material.Jonathan Dresnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04356112719229675996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-40000368775366784882010-02-05T14:20:40.322-05:002010-02-05T14:20:40.322-05:00Thanks for making the connection between care for ...Thanks for making the connection between care for student writing and small classes. I recall my undergraduate tutorials, with a five-page paper due every week -- that was quite an education, and keeping the writing gear on constantly improved my output. <br /><br />With my own students, I often try the one-page-reaction-before class approach -- enough to prime the pump for discussion and short enough to digest quickly. (I also have pre-class paragraphs for my lecture classes.) A page is still long enough for errors in argument or punctuation to appear, and hence a chance to start the discussion about improving writing.Adam Arensonhttp://makinghistorypodcast.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-66057460375598274182010-02-05T14:10:23.477-05:002010-02-05T14:10:23.477-05:00At Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the U.K., ...At Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the U.K., the normal teaching ratio is one to one in weekly tutorials. Most Fellows of Colleges teach tent to twelve undergraduates weekly each term. (There are lectures provided by the faculties and, on some courses, seminars as well). But this is a much more intense teaching and learning experience than those used in the U.S.A.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com