I just got off the phone with a colleague over in Interdisciplinary Basketweaving. They've got a special course taught once a year by a deanling with an MA, during one of our breaks in the regular semester. They've been teaching the course for at least ten years, maybe more.
One group of basketweavers finds the course and the deanling's approach to it unsatisfactory. The deanling isn't qualified as a basketweaver, and doesn't teach the sorts of things that basketweavers think are really vital. The course might be better housed in Underwater Arts, but the Underwater Arts folks said "no" many years ago because the course wasn't using an approach that's vital to the faculty over in Underwater Arts. And so, it found its way to Interdisciplinary Basketweaving, where it's been taught pretty much with the deanling doing their thing, ever since. And Interdisciplinary Basketweaving doesn't really have the power of a department such as Underwater Arts, and there's a deanling involved, so it happened despite some people's reservations.
The deanling wants to make the course fit a campus requirement. That in itself isn't unusual, since lots of courses fulfil one or another requirement. But this iteration of this course the deanling teaches isn't the only iteration, and the other iterations don't really fit the same requirement.
So, in order to make this work, it looks like the deanling needs a new course, something that's not umbrella-ish, and just includes what the deanling does.
Some folks want to stand up against the new course because it doesn't really work for Interdisciplinary Basketweaving. And the deanling really isn't well-qualified to teach the course.
On the other hand, to be honest, the deanling's been teaching this course for 10 plus years, and if I'd taught anything for 10 plus years, you can bet I'd be pretty well-qualified to teach it by then. (Because I'd have studied my ass off to do so. Wouldn't you?)
It seems to me that the time to draw the line was back when the deanling first started teaching this course. To suddenly say, "you've been teaching it for ten plus years, but now you're not qualified" seems stupid now. Why has Interdisciplinary Basketweaving not stopped it way back?
The answer, of course, is that the deanling is a deanling, and so it's convenient to let deanlings do what they want. It was then, and it probably will be now. It was easy to imagine the deanling would do this course, and then get bored, and give it up. But that hasn't happened. (There's a political payoff for the deanling, I think. Also a bit of financial, I bet.)
I guess one question is, is the course doing what it should be doing well enough?
If not, is there a way to get it to "well enough"?
Students who've taken the course (mostly first and second year students) tend to think it's wonderful. It makes them feel good. They think they've learned lots.
Maybe they have learned lots, but they haven't learned the "lots" that either the Basketweaver faculty or the Underwater Arts faculty think they should, mostly in terms of critical thinking and theoretical understanding (these aren't grad school sorts of theoretical understanding, but the sorts of theoretical understanding introduced and taught in lower level Interdisciplinary Basketweaving and Underwater Arts courses).
Take a stand or no?
I'm so bad at political stuff. I hate the idea that faculty folks didn't take a stand 10 plus years ago, but I also understand why they didn't. But I don't want to stick my neck out, either.
Except, you know, isn't this flattering of authority types a slippery slope to worse?
Showing posts with label Underwater Basketweaving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Underwater Basketweaving. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Friday, December 05, 2014
Damned if You Do...
The Underwater Basketweaving Department was having such a lively discussion of assessment today that I could hear it from my 9th story office.
All the UB majors choose a submajor, so what may have at one time been considered just "Underwater Basketweaving major" is now the "Comprehensive Underwater Basketweaving" major. And there's also "Creative Underwater Basketweaving," "Technical Studies in Underwater Basketweaving," and so forth. About half the courses that all the majors take are basically comprehensive courses.
The "comprehensive" faculty tends to teach pretty much all the students, while only a small subset takes "technical studies" courses, since the technical studies submajor has maybe 15 majors at any given time, and comprehensive has 150. So, pretty much everyone takes one or another senior course in "Understanding Contexts of Underwater Basketweaving" in whatever context area the faculty member does. So, when a deepwater UB historian is teaching it, then deepwater is the context. And so on.
The argument seems to have been about this: the comprehensive folks have to assess how the comprehensive submajor program is doing, and the logical place to do this is in the senior context courses, since all their submajors take these. But lots of other submajors take them, too.
Thus, if the course is assessing outcome X, where X is supposed to be learned in a bunch of comprehensive courses, and there are 15 comprehensive submajors and 5 other submajors, the assessment is going to be potentially problematic, no? What if in the assessment, the 15 comprensive submajors all do "good job" on outcome X, but the other 5 do "not a good job"?
Either they just run the data as is, and find out that they're only doing 75%, and that's not good enough, right? Damned.
Or they tease out the data, but then they're told that since the other course is supposed to teach students outcome X (something like, say, piano playing, that's likely to be much better if you've practiced again and again as opposed to having a lesson and thinking you're ready for Carnegie Hall), then they're damned because they aren't teaching the other submajors well enough. Damned.
Or they tease out the data and find out that the other submajors do just as well as the comprehensive submajors. Then obviously, those other comprehensive courses aren't necessary at all, and they can just cut those out of the curriculum, and students will "achieve the outcome" with the one course no matter their submajor. Damned.
In times of budget cuts, which are plentiful around here, the comprehensive folks are going to be damned either way. And, of course, they're doubly damned because since they're the only courses where all the submajors take courses too, they're also responsible for the whole program assessment.
All the UB majors choose a submajor, so what may have at one time been considered just "Underwater Basketweaving major" is now the "Comprehensive Underwater Basketweaving" major. And there's also "Creative Underwater Basketweaving," "Technical Studies in Underwater Basketweaving," and so forth. About half the courses that all the majors take are basically comprehensive courses.
The "comprehensive" faculty tends to teach pretty much all the students, while only a small subset takes "technical studies" courses, since the technical studies submajor has maybe 15 majors at any given time, and comprehensive has 150. So, pretty much everyone takes one or another senior course in "Understanding Contexts of Underwater Basketweaving" in whatever context area the faculty member does. So, when a deepwater UB historian is teaching it, then deepwater is the context. And so on.
The argument seems to have been about this: the comprehensive folks have to assess how the comprehensive submajor program is doing, and the logical place to do this is in the senior context courses, since all their submajors take these. But lots of other submajors take them, too.
Thus, if the course is assessing outcome X, where X is supposed to be learned in a bunch of comprehensive courses, and there are 15 comprehensive submajors and 5 other submajors, the assessment is going to be potentially problematic, no? What if in the assessment, the 15 comprensive submajors all do "good job" on outcome X, but the other 5 do "not a good job"?
Either they just run the data as is, and find out that they're only doing 75%, and that's not good enough, right? Damned.
Or they tease out the data, but then they're told that since the other course is supposed to teach students outcome X (something like, say, piano playing, that's likely to be much better if you've practiced again and again as opposed to having a lesson and thinking you're ready for Carnegie Hall), then they're damned because they aren't teaching the other submajors well enough. Damned.
Or they tease out the data and find out that the other submajors do just as well as the comprehensive submajors. Then obviously, those other comprehensive courses aren't necessary at all, and they can just cut those out of the curriculum, and students will "achieve the outcome" with the one course no matter their submajor. Damned.
In times of budget cuts, which are plentiful around here, the comprehensive folks are going to be damned either way. And, of course, they're doubly damned because since they're the only courses where all the submajors take courses too, they're also responsible for the whole program assessment.
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