StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

What colleges should teach - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The issue of what colleges should teach has featured prominently in debates within academic circles in recent years due to concerns that colleges are churning out graduates who are merely book-smart and nothing else…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER93.1% of users find it useful
What colleges should teach
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "What colleges should teach"

What Colleges Should Teach The issue of what colleges should teach has featured prominently in debates within academic circles in recent years due to concerns that colleges are churning out graduates who are merely book-smart and nothing else. Numerous leading academic figures have made contributions to this debate. The article Designing Colleges for More Than Just Creativity by Maddy Burke-Vigeland focuses on the need to make colleges more interactive places for learning rather than just rigid, highly wired places for information dissemination. Burke-Vigeland concluded that the current fixed forward step-sitting arrangement of lecture halls is unsuitable for interactive learning as it prevents students from expressing their individuality. He advocates for a flexible classroom which allows professors and students to restructure the classroom to allow team discussions, reversible writing on the walls, incorporation of technology that enables communication with other students around the world, and adaptation of the room for different course work (Burke-Vigeland, n. p.). In the article, What Should Colleges Teach? Stanley Fish raises concern regarding a recent trend whereby college courses are increasingly diverting from their main discipline of focus into other unrelated disciplines. He focuses on the discipline which he teaches, literature, and points out an observation he made whereby writing courses in colleges nowadays tend to focus on analysis of various social issues such as globalization, racism, and sexism instead of focusing on writing. As a result, few students taking writing courses in college are able to write a clean English sentence. The author asserts that writing courses should focus exclusively on writing and teach nothing other than grammar and rhetoric (Fish, n. p.). In the article, Rethinking the Way College Students are Taught, Emily Hanford asserts that the traditional method of teaching in colleges whereby students learn through non-interactive lectures is no longer effective since most students are not able to absorb most of the information that is usually disseminated in a single lecture. The author advocates for the peer-instruction method of teaching in colleges and provides proof of its effectiveness by referring to the success of a number of professors who use this method to teach their students. These include Joe Redish, a physics professor at the University of Maryland, Brian Lukoff, a researcher in education at Harvard University, and Eric Mazur, a professor of physics at Harvard University (Hanford, n. p.). In Rethinking the Way Colleges Teach Critical Thinking, Scott Johnson laments the way through which colleges teach critical thinking. He asserts that current practices whereby students are taught through lectures to memorize information is not achieving one of its aims of developing student critical thinking skills. He uses his specialty discipline of instruction, Earth Science, as an example to demonstrate how students can be taught facts while simultaneously gaining crucial critical thinking skills. Johnson asserts that the best way to achieve this purpose is to dedicate a significant portion of the course teaching students how the factual information of the course was gathered through logical and critical evaluation of available information (Johnson, n. p.). In the article, Colleges Should Teach Intellectual Virtues, Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe underline the importance of helping college students develop intellectual virtues in addition to the traditional roles of teaching them the skills of their discipline, literacy skills, and critical thinking. The authors assert that colleges should help students develop intellectual virtues so as to mold them into all-rounded human beings (Schwartz and Sharpe, n. p.). From the five articles analyzed, it is evident that the education students acquire in colleges does not completely suit their needs and requirements for both professional and personal development. Technology and globalization have transformed the college learning environment into a dynamic setting that changes rapidly in accordance with rapidly advancing information and communication technology and increasing cultural diversity. Consequently, rigid college teaching methods should be restructured and made flexible so that they may be easily adaptable to the learning needs of all types of students in colleges. In order to achieve this aim, college instructors should teach their students techniques of digging up information for themselves from secondary sources instead of giving them already-prepared material through lectures. Instructors should teach students only thirty percent of the course and assign them the task of researching the remaining seventy percent for themselves. This method will enable students to acquire valuable researching skills in addition to acquiring a better understanding of the course material. Instructors should give students a couple of valuable researching tips before setting them on the task of researching the course material. These should include locating relevant material for the topics to be covered, ascertaining the reliability and validity of this material, and extracting only relevant information from a wide array of sources. Students will be more motivated to read material acquired through their own efforts than that provided by the lecturer. However, the lecturer should ask students to submit their research results for him to go through it and ascertain its reliability and relevance. He should then point out mistakes to students who did not meet the course requirements and advice them on appropriate way forward. In Rethinking the Way Colleges Teach Critical Thinking, Scott Johnson stresses the importance of teaching students how the course material was gathered through critical evaluation of course content and logical analysis. His research confirms the efficacy of teaching students information-gathering methods instead of just giving them already-gathered information to study (Johnson, n.p.). Secondly, instructors can achieve the aim of adapting the teaching process to student needs by allocating cooperative group assignments. Cooperative learning tasks with clear performance measures and goals facilitate increased high-level reasoning, increased generation of new solutions and ideas, and transfer of learning concepts and skills from one situation to another. In addition, cooperative group assignments foster positive interdependence which prepares students for future job group tasks and positive interaction with working colleagues. Cooperative group assignments also foster the development of social skills which help students to develop positive relationships in the society. Such positive relationships are crucial for facilitating interactive learning in colleges, since not all students have the motivation to engage in participatory lecture sessions. In his article titled What Does College Teach?, Richard Hersh outlines the benefits of student involvement in the teaching process. Hersh asserts that students taught by instructors who are keen to involve their students in the teaching process develop advanced problem-solving skills in addition to portraying a much greater understanding of the course material than those who do not engage in cooperative group learning (Hersh, n.p.). Finally, college instructors can successfully adapt the teaching process to student learning needs by fostering learner self-responsibility. They can achieve this by allowing students to plan and conduct evaluation of much of their learning. College instructors should allow learners to take an active role in a portion of the course by encouraging them to formulate their own learning goals, identify material and human resources they require to fulfill these learning goals, select appropriate strategies, and evaluate learning outcomes. This practice will contribute towards motivating learners since they will be committed to a decision they participated in making. According to Maddy Burke-Vigeland in his article, Designing Colleges for More than Just Creativity, facilitation of learner autonomy leads to the development of positive attitudes for learning and motivation of learners (Burke-Vigeland, n.p.). Despite the numerous benefits that students stand to gain through cooperative learning, several leading figures have raised criticisms against it. The main argument against cooperative learning is that there is a huge potential for abuse and misuse of cooperative learning as an educational provision, especially for academically talented students. There is a strong belief among some education scholars that this population of students ends up losing motivation for learning due to subjection to a teaching process that is not suitable for their learning needs. This argument has no basis since some studies have proven that academically talented students also benefit tremendously from cooperative learning. Cooperative learning enables them to interact with students weaker than them and assist them to understand the material which they might not have understood in class. This provides a boost to their confidence and self-esteem, consequently, translating to motivation for learning (Hanford, n.p.) Conclusion Evidently, participatory, interactive and cooperative learning provides greater learning outcomes among college students than purely lecturing teaching practices. The traditional lecture does not allow for sufficient student participation. As a result, students fail to acquire motivation for learning. Cooperative and participatory learning stimulates student motivation by allowing them a stake in the learning process and promoting the expression of their individuality. Therefore, this flexible learning practice enables college instructors to adapt their teaching methods to suit the learning needs of each of their students. Works Cited Burk-Vigelaind, Maddy. “Designing Colleges for More than Just Connectivity” Scientific American, 2013. Web. 31 Mar 2013. Fish, Stanley. “What Should College Teach?” The New York Times, 2009. Web. 31 Mar 2013. Hanford, Emily. Rethinking the Way College Students are Taught. American Public Media. 2013. Web. 30 Mar 2013. Hersh, Richard H.  “What Does College Teach?” The Atlantic. 2005. Web. 9 Apr 2013. < http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/11/what-does-college-teach/304306/> Johnson, Scott K. Re-thinking the Way Colleges Teach Critical Thinking. Yahoo News. Scientific American, 2012. Web. 30 Mar 2013. Schwartz, Barry and Kenneth Sharpe. “Colleges Should Teach Intellectual Virtues.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Commentary. 2012. Web. 31 Mar 2013. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“What colleges should teach Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/english/1472049-what-colleges-should-teach
(What Colleges Should Teach Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 Words)
https://studentshare.org/english/1472049-what-colleges-should-teach.
“What Colleges Should Teach Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/english/1472049-what-colleges-should-teach.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF What colleges should teach

A College Education: What Is Its Purpose

"should the Obama Generation Drop Out?... It has been discussed by Murray that Barack Obama has put forth 2 potential ideas for developing the post-secondary education by increasing the use of public colleges and the educational taxes but for making these happen, a broader platform is required.... The author considers that a large portion of the students are not intellectual enough to carry out the college level education and they join colleges just for the sake of getting those credentials....
1 Pages (250 words) Essay

FE College teaching

collaboration between the FE College I teach in and other relevant Post Compulsory units in the area, drawing on relevant conclusions to support good practice related to quality improvement.... Before the two important reforms in 2000 and 2002 previously mentioned referring to FE units, change began during the 90s, when the FE colleges in Britain were made independent of the Local Education Authority (LEA) in terms of control over finance or human resource.... This meant both that the FE colleges were fully responsible both for the proper management of functions such as finance or human resource and that (especially after the creation of the Further Education Funding College in 2001) they had to managerially perform in order to be eligible for funding3....
6 Pages (1500 words) Case Study

Why the current third level colleges are not using emerging technology in the classroom to teach students

His analysis of the ways in which science students learn shows how free-ranging their studies should be permitted to... Every student who enters a classroom, even a third-level college classroom, has a unique set of needs.... A lecturer who enters the room to give an auditory presentation is… Ackerman's study shows how moving to visual forms can enhance the quality of instruction; emerging technologies would permit professors to design websites and CD-ROM software to augment their teaching styles, helping to Additionally, the studies done by Becker, and by Bonk and Fischer, show the significant effects that using online instruction and other forms of technological interaction can have on the learning of primary and elementary students....
11 Pages (2750 words) Essay

Accreditation of City College of San Francisco

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior colleges has given its verdict based on these reasons, the President of the Commission, Barbara Beno said, “Only accredited colleges can receive public funding under state law.... However, City colleges failure to fix serious, long-standing problems of leadership and fiscal planning means that the accrediting commission could vote as early as next June to yank the schools all-important certification” (Asimov)....
5 Pages (1250 words) Research Paper

Letter on the desire to become a college coach

I have for this reason been following their games and training sessions and I am informed of their potentials, to be exploited, and their weaknesses that should be managed for success in competitions.... This follows your college's expression of interest in hiring a competitive coach that can lead the college's football team to winning major national and international tournaments....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Business Communication Methods in Warwickshire College

nbsp;… As the essay, Business Communication Methods in Warwickshire College, stresses the different types of communication methods used by Warwickshire College are as follows: Students opt for their colleges in a traditional “Shopping” method, and they are more likely to use technological benefits introduced to them.... It is observed that the students use social media to a large extent to search colleges available to them....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

The Electoral College: abolish and replace with a national popular vote or preserve

In this document, the names of the individuals who have been appointed as the members to the electoral bodies are located Several factors contributed to the creation of electoral colleges.... This necessitated the creation of colleges where only a fraction of the population would participate in the process.... In order to reach a compromise the concept of electoral colleges was settled on.... Over the years, the concept of the use of electoral colleges has under gone considerable changes to become the sort of institutions present today (Bugh, 35)....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Augsburg College's Physician Assistant Studies Program

Five Things Physicians should Know about Physician Assistants Clinical and Health Affairs.... I undoubtedly consider Augsburg College's physician assistant program the best among the three physician's assistant programs offered by colleges in Minnesota.... In the essay “Augsburg College's Physician Assistant Studies Program” the author discusses the importance of giving medical advice to people on their daily practices and diets to help them avoid deadly medical conditions....
1 Pages (250 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us