The New York Times ran an article on Dec 26, 2014 titled “Colleges Reinvent Classes to Keep More Students in Science”. It describes the ineffective lecture-based approach to teaching and contrasts that with active learning in the classroom. That students learn from solving problems rather than from sitting passively has been known for a long time. (I figured it out myself after giving a few lectures in software engineering at MIT and then realizing that broadcast communication to the students could be much more easily accomplished by giving them a Web page or email (see http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/teaching-software-engineering for more).) Why haven’t universities adopted active learning? The simplest explanation is that it is more work and they haven’t faced any competition so why bother trying to do a good job? Complacency and incompetence, in other words, the twin gods worshipped in the typical American workplace.
The Times, however, has decided that the most credible explanation for this phenomenon is not that customers keep handing over $50k/year for the easy-to-produce lecture-based product. It is that professors are trying to keep students, especially women and blacks, from majoring in their subjects. The journalist didn’t ask what seems like an obvious question: Why would people in a bureaucracy want to shrink their section of that bureaucracy? Wouldn’t it make more sense for math and science professors to try to get more students majoring in their subjects, which would justify larger budgets, more staff, new buildings, etc.?
“Why would people in a bureaucracy want to shrink their section of that bureaucracy?” ——————-
Because the marginal cost of teaching some students, in terms of psychic rewards or penalties for the teacher, is much higher with dumb or unmotivated students. If you are a professor and your style of teaching can alone weed out poor or insufficiently disciplined students, it may well be a smart strategy to employ that style.
“Science” is a pretty dismal career path, unless you pick up enough math or programming to jump ship and work on Wall St, Silicon Valley, etc. I know Phil’s already covered this (http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science) but nobody outside Academia actually knows this. Your average person on the street still thinks “science” is a good career path – perhaps because, as woeful as it is, it’s better than the rest of our economy? And of course, if you do win the intelligence/diligence/credential/grant/tenure lottery, it _is_ a sweet job.
But the default assumption about scientists is always – we need MORE. Of course, those agreeing almost never seem to have degrees in a hard science, instead law, economics, business, etc.
Here’s an article from three “captains of industry”, titled calling the employment opportunities “systemic flaws”: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/09/1404402111.full.pdf+html
I work in the field, and I _swear_ the same day that article was published we received an announcement about all the new on-boarding programs the organization was starting in order to get women and under-represented minorities into science. My cynical reaction was, “hasn’t this country done enough bad things to them already?”
You are only young once. If you lead a student to spend time pursuing a career (usually at great expense) where he has zero chance of success and can still live with yourself, you *should* get out of teaching.
Curle, et al: If it made sense for math and science professors to try to shrink their undergrad populations, why wouldn’t professors in other departments also do that? What is the special incentive for the math/science folks to deter undergrads from becoming majors?
[I might add that departments that don’t attract sufficient undergrads, e.g., various language departments, are often axed by the university and this is one of the few ways that tenured faculty do lose jobs.]
@philg,
“If it made sense for math and science professors to try to shrink their undergrad populations, why wouldn’t professors in other departments also do that” ——————————-
I don’t know that they don’t. People in all walks of life seem to understand the utility of passing dead weight off to the other guy. I presume this is the reason collegiate education departments exist. The buck passing has to end somewhere.
phil, teaching economics/finance at a dutch university, the problem we have is that having groups of, say, max. 30 is just too expensive. Most lectures are with 100+ students and having problem-based interactions with students is quite hard.
I love the concept though and with a small class (15) it works really well, totally agree.
The blame is always on the teachers yet a certain percent of the population appears to be able to learn using the same teaching methods that have worked for centuries. Perhaps the failing students just aren’t capable of the abstract thinking that is needed to succeed in the subjects they are failing?
I am a math professor at a public university in the midwest. My response to the Times article is that the pedagogy is changing, but the old guard is resisting it. My younger colleagues have embraced the active learning approach, but the generation of professors older that me has not. It is not true, as the Times asserts that universities are not trying to get into the act—they are.
And, I am a proponent of the active learning approach, simply because it keeps students focused on the material. I believe I’ve had some success with it.
Arjen: There is no question that the mass lecture method is more profitable for a university. But American students and taxpayers pay a lot more than Dutch students and taxpayers. So in theory it should be possible to spend more on teaching.
Al: Asserting that some students are incapable of abstract thinking (formerly known as “dumb as bricks”) is even better for professors! There is now no possibility of being incompetent as a teacher, e.g., by using the lecture method that has been found to be ineffective by virtually all researchers. If a student doesn’t learn the material it is due to a genetic inability to engage in abstract thinking!
An ineffective teacher can also cite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27s_theory_of_cognitive_development (“However, research has shown that not all persons in all cultures reach formal operations, and most people do not use formal operations in all aspects of their lives”–an academic guy with a PhD).
[Why is it that “a certain percent of the population appears to be able to learn using the same teaching methods that have worked for centuries”? Pedagogy research shows that they didn’t learn from lectures, though they may have attended some. They learned from reading and solving problems. Then the people giving the lectures took credit for the learning with roughly the same rational basis as an on-campus McDonald’s taking credit for all learning at a university (since all students visit the McDonald’s.)]
John: Since you’re a math professor, what do you think about the gatekeeper idea? Is there in fact a substantial percentage of math faculty that would like to have a smaller number of students majoring in math?
The STEM departments could just give everyone “A’s” (the way some “studies” departments do) and increase their budgets – they start out with 28% of all students but they lose almost 1/2 along the way. But they have this funny old fashioned insistence on requiring measurable competency from their students and their subject matter lends itself to tests that have “right” and “wrong” answers such that it’s hard to fudge the results. Hopefully in the future they will get with the affirmative action program and lower their bars so that incompetence is no obstacle to a degree, regardless of race, creed or color.
Sure it doesn’t hurt to improve teaching methods, but in the end there is no teaching alchemy that is capable of turning lead into gold.
Last semester I starting using peer to peer instruction, using clickers:
http://iclicker.com
Beth Simon has helped me a lot. Some helpful stuff here:
http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~bsimon/PI/
Some points:
1) Its harder than it looks, at least for me. New learning materials. Have to resist the temptation to be “the smartest guy in the room”.
2) My high-achieving son believes its a methodology to make the smart kids (him) have to carry the dumb kids (others).
3) The lower achieving students do demonstrably and statistically better, e.g. some C and D students will become B students on tests. Whether this is a lasting improvement is unknown.
@Anon-e-mouse: But the default assumption about scientists is always – we need MORE. Of course, those agreeing almost never seem to have degrees in a hard science, instead law, economics, business, etc.
and are often politicians.
Philip,
I have no knowledge of any of my colleagues wishing to have fewer math majors.
We have only about 100 math majors total, which is a very small number for a department/university our size.
On the contrary, some of us are actively trying to recruit more undergraduate majors, since this ends of being one source of our PhD student cohort.
Finally, the more math majors, the more likely an advanced undergraduate math course can run (e.g., undergraduate Differential Geometry). Most of us would prefer to teach a more advanced course than say, Calculus.