Required reading

There's something to be said for reading books on teaching. There is also something to be said for not reading books on teaching.

Why do we demand that students work individually? Tradition suggests that it encourages learning, that it's about academic accountability. A student who does the work can take intellectual ownership of the work. True. Very true. I don't dispute a thing. You have to do it to know it.

Then we hit higher ed. The theories are the same, and I still agree with them, but I'm beginning to question the wisdom of testing and of traditional group work. Students need to take ownership of knowledge, but -- perhaps -- there are other ways to make it stick.

From the day I delivered my first newspaper, I have yet to run into an employer who demands that I do the work by myself and ask no one for help. Every question that I have asked over the past 20 years has been answered either by someone telling me what I needed to know or by pointing me in the direction to find that answer. Not once I was I told that asking a co-worker for help was tantamount to cheating.

So why, when we have a collection of over-18s before us, do we demand that they horde their knowledge? Why is one group sharing information with another group often looked upon as a bad thing?

I'm going to see what I can do about abolishing that. If I'm supposed to be training my students for careers in the "real world," then I need to not only encourage collaboration but temper out the "but that's cheating" mentality.

So here we go, back to Guy: make meaning. Okay, create a situation where the students can divine their own point from everything AND where I can find my own meaning.

Done. They have a project involving a SWOT analysis and Splice Music. This is, I'm proud to say, one of the most popular projects we've done to date.

All good strategy demands implementation (Guy: "Get going!").

Done. We are two days in and things are getting quite interesting. And I mean that positively, by the way.

Now, about that "cheating" thing... I abolished the groups. Sort of.

All groups are encouraged to share their information and findings with other groups. It is not, I told them, cheating. Why? They asked the inevitable question, and I gave them the only answer I had: Because the workplace does not operate like that. Good employers want their employees to collaborate and share information. They do not want their work teams to gather, hide, and horde information necessary to the overall good of the company.

As a result, tomorrow's 1 p.m. class is having a round-table discussion where everyone will bat around ideas and findings. They're going to share the research and write individual papers.

The 12 p.m. class's groups are getting bigger. Teams are setting up group accounts and sharing passwords (talk about trust!), dividing the work between them, and finding that what was once unnerving is now interesting -- all because they are better able to focus on what they do well rather then the entire project.

Am I worried about someone slacking off and gaining points only by association? Yes and no. It's quite interesting how quick the students are to choose those who they know will do the work over those they consider friends. "Payment" via group grade helps keep things even.
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Someone asked me why I've the hubris to boast that this blog might be heretical -- after all, you can find a score or two of books out there on teaching theory. I just purchased one, in fact: The Courage to Teach, by Parker J. Palmer. It's my summer reading, and I'll let you know my take once I finish it.

Here's why I'm so bold:

(1) because I'm overloaded with thick texts and long lectures and endless websites that talk about engaging adult learners by using activities better saved for elementary and high school students.
(2) because I do not believe that teaching and business management are mutually exclusive.

Management itself is changing -- just read Scott Berkun, Guy, or even the ultimate management guru Peter Drucker (who had it right decades ago when he said we need knowledge workers -- meaning people who could invent/re-invent themselves in the workplace, who could think for themselves, and who could be lifelong learners). Pick up their books, see what they have to say about the world we're training our students to enter. While you're at it, pick up Dubner and Levitt's Freakonomics, Gladwell's Blink, and Senge's The Fifth Discipline. All of them make excellent points and are relatively easy reads.

Managers are learning that they have to handle their workers differently then fifty years ago. Teachers need to realize that as well, especially those in for-profit adult education.

Frankly, in many ways, education needs to catch up with reality.