Inciting Interest and Augmenting Autonomy

In Bridges to Autonomy Alison suggests that we, as teachers, ought to only wield our paternalism in a way as to ultimately increase the autonomy of our students. It is difficult to ascertain, though, which of our paternalisms will serve to this telos.

So how are we to foment interest while increasing (or at least not hindering) autonomy? It is slightly paternalistic, yes, to force students to create questions on the assigned reading, as Professors Johnson and Silliman both do, but this satisfies the above mentioned maxim. By having prepared questions the ease to exercise autonomy by class participation is significantly increased. Also, there is no force that will better drive interest than curiosity, and the creation of questions, if done with sincerity will raise just such curiosity.

Question: What other concrete techniques satisfy this maxim?

Entertaining Exceptions; Or, a Response to Shelby

Shelby asked: "How can teachers encourage and cater to students who are exceptions to the norm?"

Of students that are exceptions we find, primarily three groups: exceptionally successful students, poor students that struggle with course material and work, and poor students by virtue of apathy.

As Matt mentioned in his response to Shelby's post, there is not much an instructor can do with this ultimate group, and teachers will often exhaust themselves trying. These are the students that deserve the least amount of catering, though, it is important to still be there if they change their minds.

The difficulty primarily arises with the first two sets. Ideally an instructor desires to effectively teach both sets but this would seem to indicate treating them differently which is dangerous at best, and counter-productively disrespectful at worst. I admit I may be bias here, but the method I always preferred as a student was for the instructor to teach the challenging material in class and be available for help if the struggling students needed it, but not to cater to specific difficulties during class time.

Question: Is there an effective method to teach both extremes of the student body while remaining fair and respectful to both?

Sans Swearing; Or, A Response to Shelby

Shelby asked: "Should swearing, and other paternalistic ploys that aim to increase student learning, be employed in the classroom?"

Well, I am less torn. As I mentioned in class, permissibility denotes neither wisdom nor desirability. So while the use of profanity and vulgarity is permissible via the maturity and autonomy of students, it is neither wise nor desirable. These paternalistic ploys of which Shelby speaks are the wrong solutions to the right problems. If swearing is needed to force students to pay attention, the battle is already lost, there is already, lying beneath this, a deeper problem with the class. I agree with Emily that an occasional swear is not an issue, while using vulgarity as a substitute for quality teaching and content is problematic.

Question: Does the use of paternalistic, disrespectful ploys and tricks denote a lack of quality in the teacher, the content, the students, or some combination thereof?

Gratuitous Grading; Or, a Response to Brittany

Brittany asked: "Can you think of a situation where a grade for feedback purposes only would be useful without a subsequent assessment or opportunity to show that the feedback has been put to good use?"

I completely agree with Brittany's comment in her post that written comments or teacher-student discussions are far superior to a number or letter as feedback. but she goes on to say: "How would a teacher then assess whether or not the student is actually using this feedback unless the class was given some sort of assessment exam?"

First of all, I think a second draft of whatever the feedback was about will serve to adequately demonstrate improvement, but regardless, why do we need to know that the student is using the feedback? It would, perhaps, be slightly too directional or paternalistic to force students, by means of positive or negative reinforcement, to absorb and reproduce teacher feedback. If education is truly the goal of the educational system, this should not matter so much. Students need to be autonomous individuals. What is gained by punishing the students that don't use the feedback? Give the students the feedback, and let them go from there. Students with a passion for learning and improving will give serious, rational thought to their teacher's comments and will typically act on them.

This is the answer to the question, by the way: Feedback without some follow-up assessment is useful within a classroom full of dedicated, diligent, students. Most likely to be found (though dangerous to think of exclusively) in post-secondary education.

Question: It was not meant as rhetorical, so I shall repeat it here, why must we know if students have used the feedback given to them?

Sans Standardized; Or, a Response to Mike

Mike asked: "What do you suppose would happen if state exams, such as MCAS, were removed, or re-formatted?"

Well, in the interest of honesty, I cannot say for sure, but I will do my best to venture a guess.

Teachers would be happier, for they would have more free reign to teach what they want, to teach the actual subject, and not to the measly mandates of MCAS magnates.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to think that, unburdened of such stress, students would enjoy school slightly more, and with increased enjoyment, I think, would follow increased interest and increased learning. I agree, Mike, that such tests are parasitic to the education process.

...

That having been said, however, my heart does go out to the politicians. After all, without this infallible method of assessing students, teachers, and school, how are they going to be able to compare us across counties and states? Education is something that is over funded anyway, so how else will they decide which schools to cut more money from. What about colleges? How else can they decide which students will be the best additions to their schools? How else other than reliable demonstrators of merit: standardized tests.

...

Question: We talk often of testing alternatives, but what benefit do tests provide that we must replace?

Anecdotes Aplenty

I think (not feel) that anecdotes often provide weight and potency to posited points. We must be vigilant, however, to use them as support for and not instead of reasoned evidence or sustained systematic research, lest we thereby slip into an anecdotal fallacy.

IEP on Anecdotal Fallacy:

"This is fallacious generalizing on the basis of a some story that provides an inadequate sample."

A single instance from experiences past is insufficient and inadequate to demonstrate nigh any hypothesis.

School; Or, Here's To You, Nick

'School' from Old English (skol), from Latin (schola), from Greek:

σχολη

or

Skhole: School, lecture, discussion. Also, leisure, spare time. The original notion was leisure, which evolved to an otiose discussion, and finally to a place to have such a discussion...school.

Not exactly a modern conceptualization of school, but perhaps it should be.