Mon 30 Jan 2006
In our thread on job openings and class sizes, a TA for Political Science 120 was kind enough to point out that:
I believe that PSCI 120 is a discussion/lecture class in order to help freshmen and sophs (for whom the course is intended, Prof McAllister makes it very difficult for upperclassmen to take the class)try political science in an environment that isn’t entirely intimidating. Political Science is not a topic that is very common in high school, and many students have little confidence in expressing their opinions and views on controversial current events. I believe that the size of Professor McAllister’s class helps the students figure out if they like PSCI (I took the class and decided to be a major) and then they will go on to take other and perhaps smaller classes.
Also, another thing is there is a huge difference, as I am sure you know, between 50 and 15. Professor McAllister is an excellent lecturer and I do not believe that his skills are being wasted by having a larger class, rather the students are fortunate to have one of the most talented lecturers in the department.
1) Thanks for the detail! Discussions at EphBlog are always more interesting and productive when they are grounded in actual facts. If other readers could tell us more about PSCI 100 and PSCI 120, we would appreciate it. I would be especially curious about the roles played by the TAs. There were not, I think, TAs in political science at Williams 20 years ago.
2) Is the purpose of 100/120 to allow students to “try political science in an environment that isn’t entirely intimidating”? I have my doubts. Old timers will recall that the department used to be structured with 4 intro courses (101 — 104), which were almost exactly equivalent to the current 201 — 204. They were far from “initimidating.” They were meant to be introductions to political science and served that role perfectly. Moreover, they were all discussion-sized, small enough that the professors got to know us as individuals.
3) In what sense is PSCI 120 a discussion/lecture class? I understand the “lecture” part, but how/where does the “discussion” come in, at least in any meaningful way? The course that I found most frustrating at Williams 20 years ago (PSCI 221: Issues in US Foreign Policy) was, I think, the intellectual forerunning of 120. The professor (Mac Brown) was a fine lecturer, but discussion/debate was impossible because there were too many (40+) students in the class. Brown did his best to have a little back and forth, but it was painful and annoying. There was so much that I (and many others) wanted to say and talk about, and yet there was no way to have that conversation. The log was too crowded. But perhaps 120 is run differently. Details please!
Ridding Williams of all lecture classes is a longterm goal of EphBlog.
4) The (true!) fact that McAllister is an excellent lecturer should be about as relevant in a Williams classroom as the fact that he is a star squash player. There should be no lectures in political science! This is one of the central reasons why Williams is different (and better) than a place like Harvard. Is this even worth debating? Does anyone believe that a student is better off being lectured at by McAllister in a class of 50 than she would be having a discussion with McAllister in a class of 15?
I am not arguing that PSCI 120 is a bad class or that McAllister is a bad professor. In fact, I am sure that PSCI 120 is a wonderful class and that McAllister is a star professor (besides being an author at EphBlog and the sponsor of our Winter Study seminar). But PSCI 120 would be better with fewer students.
Williams should redirect resources so that it has more professors teaching courses like PSCI 100/120 that students want to take and fewer professors teaching classes that students do not want to take.
January 30th, 2006 at 8:12 am
2 Things:
There is certainly a place for lectures in political science classes. Professors are supposed to be experts in the field in which they teach, which is enough of a reason that students should sit and listen to them talk. They can provide a perspective and synthesis of the topics in a unique way, in the context of course goals, and also teach about a subject more effectively than a few readings that were assigned could ever do.
Second, even in “large” (40 person) discussion courses, there were usually fewer than 30 and probably more like 20 people who were eager to actively participate on a regular basis. Those who chose not to did so at their own detriment, but it did make it easier for the rest of us to really be engaged.
As a major, I did take 2 of the 100 level courses, 1 as a freshman and 1 as a senior. The one I took my first year was Moral and Political Reasoning. There were about 19 first years meeting at 830 AM during our first semester at Williams for a writing intensive class about difficult and abstract concepts. We talked a lot more about theories and classical concepts of political theory than anything immediately relevant. However, it was a great experience and backdrop for thinking about more modern politics and specific cases.
The course I took during my senior year was about Terrorism. Yes, I was the only senior in the course and I did have to ask really really nicely to be in it–but I had almost no knowledge of international affairs at that point having focused on American Politics and Political Theory. We read not the most “intellectual” things on the topic, but those that the professor believed were having the greatest impact on Americans and on our leaders who were directly confronting the terrorist threat. I probably got more out of this than the course I discussed earlier because I was more capable of reading and discussing intelligently. And yes, I did still have to work hard on everything I did. However, I think mixed courses at Williams are extraordinarily important. A course with a few upperclassmen can raise the level of discussion, improving the educational value for everyone. They can bring insight and experience, as well as knowledge from other courses, that can enrich every discussion.
Classes shouldn’t be intimidating, but a class of frosh isn’t necessarily more intimidating than a class of equally mixed students from all 4 years.
January 30th, 2006 at 8:50 am
You write:
No, no, no. A thousand times No. Imagine the most wonderful lecture ever given in a political science class at Williams, filled with interesting insights and additional thoughts on the readings. It takes an hour to give, an hour during which all the students in the class have to shut up and listen, an hour during which they can not talk with the teacher or with each other.
Now, instead of that lecture, imagine that the professor distributes the words he is going to say on paper as part of the assigned readings for that week. What is gained and what is lost?
1) All the insights from the lecture are still in the reading. Moreover, students can consider those insights at their own pace. An obvious section of the lecture can be read quickly, a more demanding portion can be perused slowly. Since students are different, each can read the various sections at her own pace.
2) Class (and professor) time is now available for discussion. The more discussion that occurs among students and with professors, the better the education received.
3) Some of the performance art of a good lecture is lost, but a similar amount is gained in the running of the discussion. Moreover, if you think that this performance art is so wonderful and interesting, why not videotape all these great lectures and make them available for viewing in Sawyer or on the web. How many students would, on their own time, view such lectures?
Lectures are necessary at universities in which the classes are too large to make discussion possible. Williams, with its wealth, does not have that constraint. There are still incentives, many reasonable and some unhealthy, which will lead to lectures. Part of EphBlog’s mission is to fight those incentives.
Again: Which is the better education: PSCI 120 with 12 students or PSCI 120 with 50?
January 30th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Not edited for grammar or style, but my thoughts.
A few points on this theme since I have thought about these issues quite a bit over time. I understand all of David’s points and they are probably correct in many cases. But I know it is wrong in the context of PSCI 120. A little background. At the start of the academic year 2001, I was teaching my usual courses–a senior seminar, Cold War, Vietnam etc. When thinking about what to teach the following year, I realized that I would have no class forum to talk about(and learn about) the most important issues of our time. It is for this reason that I developed psci 120, “America and the World After September 11.” The purpose of the class was not to teach students the classics of international relations theory (that is why we offer psci 202), but to help them understand neoconservatism, the roots of terrorism, the basics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the debates over the purposes of American power etc. I had two basic goals. First, enable first years and non majors to have a basic understanding of the current and ongoing issues of the day. This struck me as more important than having them learn the details of Kenneth Waltz and neorealist theory or abstract arguments about interdependence. Needless to say, I did not have any desire to teach those subjects after September 11. Second, my goal was to spark interest in enough students that they would go on to become majors.
The following is not at all meant to be self-promoting, but I think there is no doubt that psci 120 is a success on every possible level. I could have 75-100 students in psci 120 every semester if I desired. Of the 250 students who have taken the course over the last 4 years, probably one 25 have been juniors or seniors. My course evaluations have been superb and what is most interesting about those evaluations is that the score for productive discussions is always at the highest level. I do not run psci 120 as a class in which I lecture for an hour; usually I never lecture for more than a half hour. As anyone who has taken the class can attest, I really do run it as a discussion and dialogue with the students. On that note, I think David misunderstands the lecture process or at least my style of lecturing. I usually have a very rudimentary lecture when I get to the office about 6am and I then rework it all the way up to 11:20 when I teach. What I then deliver to the class often deviates quite significantly from my notes. Giving out class notes well in advance would not work for me and I suspect it would not work for other profs.
On a more general level, I think that lectures are not a substitute for discussion but a necessary element for productive discussions. I have spent much of the last twenty years of my life studying the Cold War. I know that Williams students would feel cheated if I assigned them some reading walked in and said let’s discuss this as equals. I know they would also feel cheated if my voice was no more prominent than that of their roomate. Based purely on what I have heard in terms of negative comments about other profs over the years (and these are very few and far between), the classes that Williams students dislike the most are those in which they get no sense that the prof is bringing anything unique and distinctive to the table. The corollary to this critique is that the class seemed to have no order, structure, or purpose beyond basic questions like “What did you think about the readings?”
I could go on forever, but I think I will stop with David’s last question. The answer is PSCI with 50 students (although not 75-100). As an economist, David should recognize that you first have to factor into the equation the 38 students who never would have had a chance to take the course. Students always answer this question on the basis that they would be one of the 12 left to remain in the class; obviously in most fair scenarios they would not remain given the fact that 75% of the class would be removed. Second, I personally like the broader stage and the shared sense of community that comes from many people having the same experience. I like the fact that by the time I am 50 years old there will be approximately 750 alums who have taken the same course. I am sure I will form many solid bonds with quite a few of them and I am sure in my old age it will be comforting to follow those who have gone on to graduate school or careers in the government or military (or anywhere else).
Needless to say, there is nothing wrong with teaching 12 students in a class either. I teach smaller classes too and they have all the virtues david suggests. However, if I could only teach one course at Williams, psci 120 with 50 students (or 40) would be my first choice every time.
I promise this is my last thought. From the perspective of my family, golf, and research time, it would be certainly better for me to teach psci 120 with 12 students. Think of all the time I would have back in my life if my reading of papers was cut back by 75% and if I did not have to make sure I had a lecture that could be delivered to 50+ students twice a week. I get paid the same amount teaching 125-150 students a year that I would get teaching 40-50. That is not a problem for me, but the assumption that I am acting in a manner contrary to Hopkins and the log while someone else is fully within that spirit because they either can’t attract or won’t teach more than a dozen students in a class is deeply offensive. People like Sam Crane, Marc Lynch and myself bear a teaching burden at Williams that very few can match. The idea that we would be better citizens telling 75% of our students to go elsewhere is simply wrong.
January 30th, 2006 at 11:05 am
I think that James and I are in almost perfect agreement but that I have, perhaps, not expressed myself clearly. I had asked:
James replies
James is certainly correct, although I am more of a political scientist than economist, truth be told. Let me phrase my question more clearly:
To me, the latter is obviously better. The problem is that Williams in general does not put as much importance as it should on teaching important classes that students want to take. This is not James McAllister’s fault! Hu-DeHart thinks that Williams needs to hire two more experts on the Africana Diaspora. I have no problem with this as long as they are also qualified to teach (and want to teach!) classes like PSCI 120 (or PSCI 100 or whatever).
I have no doubt that, in a world with 5 sections of PSCI 120 (or PSCI 100), I would want to be in the one taught by McAllister and Crane. I have no doubt that their sections would be best. But the other sections would be pretty good as well.
James writes:
This is not the “assumption” that I (or anyone else) is making. James does not make the rules, he simply plays by them. It is not his fault (or Sam’s fault or Marc’s fault) that their classes generate so much interest, that so many students want to take them. It is to their credit that they turn away so few students. They are the very best that Williams has to offer, descendants in a long line of great teachers like Burns, Gaudino, Bossert, Hyde and Newhall.
The fault lies with the College. The College should ensure that it hires enough professors with the qualifications and desire to teach (and teach well) classes like PSCI 100/120. (Note that the nice thing about introductory courses is that any Ph.D. with the appropriate subfield is qualified to teach it.)
But what does it mean that the fault lies with the College? Is Hopkins Hall an evil building? No, the fault lies not with the institution, but with the people who run the institution, with the people who run the College, or with the people who run the political science department.
It is not James’s fault that PSCI 120 is oversubscribed, that he needs to turn students away. But it is someone’s fault. To whom should our complaints be directed?
It would also be interesting to hear from students who had wanted to take PSCI 120 but were turned away.
January 30th, 2006 at 11:57 am
David, you offer a strong proposition: discussion is always better than lecture. While it is directed specifically at PSCI, I think you would claim this for many, if not all non-science, departments.
I think that is completely wrong. Introductory classes in many departments aren’t large enough. For example, the introductory Econ classes should be one large lecture. This frees up 2 to 4 professors to teach upper-level electives that would be discussions.
The flaw in your logic is that all discussions are made equal, and that is not the case. At the introductory level, students should be acquiring the toolkit that is a prerequisite for discussion. Ignorance as the basis for a conversation doesn’t amount to much.
When I discuss economic issues with undergrads, it is amazing what strange ideas they have about economics. Ideas they pick up from the New York Times and the Economist and Lou Dobbs: large chunks of it wrong. This is where discussion ends and they have to sit down, take out a pencil, and listen. “That idea is wrong, and here is what makes it wrong.”
This goes back to a point Lowell made about the law several months back. In the attempt to distill it so people can “discuss it,” the intuitive depth of the material is lost.
The discussion sections that I have of 25 people are really lectures where I ask the questions and they slowly build up the model with their answers. It involves a dialogue, but hardly a discussion. And in discussion I get to pick and choose my topics, but if I had a semester’s worth of material to cover, I would definitely lecture. Discussion is too slow a method to get to the important material.
Perhaps I should just amend and paraphrase the line from Prof. Just: There is nothing in a discussion that a student new to economics can possibly add. Maybe by a 300 level class they have the tools to discuss economics at a superficial level, but until then, no. So why fake it, just lecture, and lecture well, and then let them go at it later.
January 30th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Richard Dunn:
Aren’t you ignoring the whole issue of getting students engaged and actively invested in the learning process at an early stage in their college careers?
Many of the inefficiencies in covering material can be offset in a class of 15 to 25 students when all of the students are actually reading the assignments and actively engaged in the topic rather than being passive recipients. I would be willing to bet that students prepare more thoroughly for a class in which they are expected to actively participate than one in which they are expected only to assume the note-taking position in a lecture hall and fight off heavy eyelids.
January 30th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I went to a high school where every single class — English, biology, history, math, economics, Greek — was a discussion class with 13 students or fewer. I have not taken a single class at Williams where I have learned as much, learned as deeply, or remembered as much a year later as I did in my classes in high school. Lectures, in my opinion, are efficient for transferring information but ineffective for teaching and learning.
January 30th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
My primitive is that if you are at Williams, you should be prepared for class. Period.
My lectures in History, Art History, and English did not result in heavy eyelids. Indeed, it was a joy to see listen to Steve Fix lecture on Portrait of an Artist. It is certainly not how I would want the entirety of my education, but it served a valuable purpose.
And frankly, what do you teach when you ask for an uninformed opinion? Maybe an equally valuble thing to learn is to shut up. Maybe more people need to learn that they should wait before giving an opinion, that a single good thought should only come after being quiet and listening. And for some topics, that may require a semester or even a few years.
January 30th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
As I was writing that, I was struck by the parable of the teacher:
Luke 6:39 And he also spoke a parable to them: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. 41 And why do you look at the speck that is in you brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 Of how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye. 43 For there is no good tree that produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree that produces good fruit. 44 For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. 45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. 46 And why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Every one who comes to me and hears my words and acts on them, I will show you what he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation upon the rock. And when a flood rose, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly is like a man who built a house upon the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.
January 30th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
David, why do you make the assumption that the lecture could just as easily take place outside the classroom, while the discussion must take place inside it? Why not the reverse?
If you view the purpose of courses as to teach students about the subject matter, then it isn’t at all obvious to me that lectures are undesirable. Students pay the $40K to gain the wisdom from the professors — wisdom that their classmates simply don’t have. Lectures can be more engaging, multimedia, and interactive in a way that books cannot. In short, students can learn efficiently from lecture.
What happens in discussion? For the person talking, it is often a chance to have her thoughts/concerns addressed. That is, the professor can tailor the remarks to the specific student. The student also benefits from working through the logic of an argument on her own.
In a tutorial, this works well because there are only two students. Both students will be engaged and have their thoughts addressed. Lecturing should not be necessary in a class of two.
But what about a class of 12? Most of the students will be sitting around listening to a colleague speak rather than talking themselves. So instead of listening to the learned and considered musings of the professor, they are subjected to often sophomoric ramblings on tangential topics. And they don’t even get the benefit of explicitly laying out their thoughts on the matter. A student might rationally prefer listening to the professor rather than fellow students while in class.
Now there is a pedagogical purpose behind discussion in classes. Students do benefit from arriving at conclusions on their own. And the best course I ever took was almost entirely discussion. You need classmates who are smart, do the reading, and willing to participate freely and constructively (ie. buy into the structure of the course). Not every class has that combination.
But when it comes down to it, I was never sure why the discussion can’t occur outside the classroom. The professor is only available in the classroom, so take advantage of the professor there. Your classmates are available in the gym, dining halls, snack bar, the Purple Pub, parties, their dorm rooms and at varied hours of the day. If classmates are a resource (and I think they are), why not take advantage of them at other times when they aren’t competing with the professor?
January 30th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Richard occupies a reasonable space on the spectrum of opinion on the utility of lectures. In fact, places like Harvard are run by people even more enamored of lectures (or less enamored of the usefulness of listening to undergraduate comments.) In fact, at Harvard, there is very, very little substantive discussion between economics faculty and students, even in the upper level electives. If you want to be seen and not heard in class, you should go to Harvard and not Williams.
Yet I still think that Richard is wrong, that more learning occurs in smaller classes, and that this is true across the curriculum. Diana Davis testifies to this. But Williams, as an institution has already had this debate, has already decided that discussion is better than lecture. The tutorials are one piece of evidence of this decision; increasing the size of the faculty is another. So, Richard’s fight is not so much with me as it is with Williams.
But, regardless of one’s position on this debate across schools and subjects, today’s topic is only PSCI 120 at Williams. For that class at our College, there is just no debate, I think, that 5 sections with 20 students each would be better than 1 section of 50.
Let me re-ask the question, to both Richard and (d)avid:
For now, I don’t want to bring resources into this. Assume that the extra sections are free, that no other classes were lost as a result. I realize that, in the real world, more sections of PSCI 120 mean less sections of something else, but I need to first establish that more sections are in and of themselves desirable.
Both Richard and (d)avid point out (correctly) that discussion sessions can be poorly run. I have no doubt that it is possible a student would prefer to be in PSCI 120 with 50 students than in a 20 person class with an incompetent professor. But I have a high opinion of the abilities of just about everyone in the political science department at Williams. Perhaps McAllister is the best discussion leader, but I would wager that Reinhardt, Shanks, Willingham, et al would do fine as well.
Once I have established that, independent of costs, PSCI 120 as five sections would be better than PSCI 120 with one section, we can go on to a discussion of the trade-offs involved.
January 30th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
First, keep your comments to yourself about whether Dave or I would pick Harvard over Williams. It’s just snarky and completely unnecessary. I think both Dave and myself were talking about intro classes run as discussions.
As for your last question, the answer for me is easy: I don’t know. I never took 120, or any Poli Sci class for that matter. So if you want a specific answer to this question, then I can’t give it.
However, I know how you work in these conversations, Dave. You want to establish something as true singularly and then turn it into a universal. And on this I am firm, students need to learn to listen, pause, think, and then maybe reply. We put too much value on immediate response and on thinking of an answer before someone has finished speaking.
But if you are honestly only interested in 120, then I can’t help you.
January 30th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Kane,
1) A “bad” discussion class is not necessarily the fault of the professor. I’ve watched experienced faculty members in different classrooms perform equally well to find one class blossoms and the other is a painful experience that neither the professor nor the students particularly looked forward to. If you rely upon the students for much of the course content, then a lot of the blame for failure has to lie in the laps of the students.
2) Leading good discussion classes might be the hardest skill in teaching. Even a professor that does it poorly may not be “incompetent.” Figuring out the questions to ask to lead students through the central logic of the day’s topic is extremely hard. I know very few newly minted PhDs who lead discussion well, but I know many who are truly excellent lecturers.
3) How can you possibly divorce teaching five twenty student sections of PSCI 120 from resources? I am sure that the political science department would welcome two new faculty members to cover the teaching load that Jim is currently handling by himself, but it isn’t happening.
Students attend small schools like Williams to get attention from professors (which makes the lack of activity during office hours all the more puzzling). You are more likely to get attention from professors in smaller classes. But since you can interact with your colleagues outside the classroom (and peers are important to education as well), why not take advantage of the professor in the classroom rather than listen to fellow students engage in a debate that the professor has heard for the last twenty years? Good lectures are interactive and push students to think about questions that they would otherwise not even contemplate.
January 30th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Who would have ever thought a bunch of Williams alum would be sitting around arguing in favor of large class sizes?
January 30th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
I’m not certain if this discussion is intended to be specific to Williams, but I can say that there are times when I think lecturing can be a vital, vibrant, and dynamic way to teach a class. I could not really imagine a survey history class at a large or midsized state university, the time when many students might have their only exposure to college-level history, run as anything but a lecture. I hate the idea of referring to myself as an expert, but I can safely say that in the survey i am master of my domain, and to rely on students to come in every day having read whatever i handed out beforehand, outside of the reading I already ask them to do, would be to assume far too much of a work ethic and commitment on the part of my students, who already think that i overwork them relative to other professors.
That said, I am not sure I was ever lectured to in a history class at Williams, at least not in the way that i lecture to my surveys here. And while I sometimes have to lecture to fill in gaps in my upper level classes here, it would have been unthinkable at the upper levels for one of my Williams profs to have held court for 50 or 75 minutes.
So if the question is one of pdagogy everywhere, I have to say that those who deny the capacity of a lecturer to be able to provide a worthwhile teaching experience are simnply full of it and not worth paying heed. but if we are talking about Williams, and the small liberal arts college in general, I might be able to make some concessions.
dc
January 30th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
I question the use of the word “concessions”. Aren’t we really talking about the core essence of a small liberal arts college here? Not to be viewed as a “concession”, but rather as the fundamental differentiating quality of the Williams education?
If we are satifsied with 50 person lecture courses, then what would conceivably motivate someone to attend Williams instead of, for example, Duke or Dartmouth? If we do not believe there is an advantage to small class sizes, then what why would anyone give up the breadth and depth of lecture courses available at a larger university?
January 30th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
WOW - it seems to me that unlike the well known aphorism with respect to the discussion of a subject certain by politicians, everything concerning PSCI 120 has now been said, and everyone has said it!
January 31st, 2006 at 3:50 am
As so many discussions here, the above has bloomed into wonderful complexity since I first looked at it this morning. That may be yesterday morning now.
Richard wrote:
Has everyone finished speaking? At least, for the moment?
As as I sit weighing the likely wisdom of further thought versus the exigency of saying something before the discussion drifts away, is there something useful to add here?
Is this a lecture or a dialogue– and which should I be trying for? (Should I go back to cramming Spanish political dialogues?)
Allow me to tread into these waters, and try to end up somewhere near the further shore.
Socrates and Plato– not to mention most of the pre- and post-Socratics, and a score of other times and traditions– practiced both the dialogue and the lecture form. Using various forms and methods, Merideth Hoppin taught me a bit of that specific tradition– and of the cults that carried them in Greece– in a wonderful tutorial. I was lucky to be the only participant in English, and to have Merideth’s entire tradition, in the Oxford tradition.
Certainly, Merideth lectured me– usually in fifteen to forty-five second spurts. If she had wanted to “hold court” for forty-five minutes, as it has been referred to here, I suspect she would have had her reasons. But I believe James McAlister has made clear– and Derek Catsam has repeated– producing a clear and relevant “lecture” is both hard work, and the art of integrating with a particular group no simple thing.
Merideth convinced me to take CLAS 101 from a new professor the following semester, an experience which underlined the long preparations it takes to truly master such material.
Per hwc’s first comment, we would do well to continue to engage in comparisons of the “benefits” of teaching introductory economics (or any other discipline) via large lecture, or in small groups. At Cornell, half of such classes have to watch the “lecture” over video feeds, from the galleries! Should they try to switch to the St. John’s model?
And I sure wish we had reached the day where I could download Steve Fix lecturing on Portrait of an Artist, or James’s lectures on America and the World, and that I had the ability to pass these materials to students and others who don’t have the luck to be at Williams. Both Western Kentucky and Cornell might be much better, if we were following that path– and the resource costs might be substantively reduced.
At large US universities where enrollments determine funding, departments fund upper-level seminars by enrollments in large lecture courses, whatever their quality or effect; at the German universities which pay professors by enrollment, creating an effective lecture that can garner hundreds or thosands of enrollees is quite an acheivement.
Of course, having professors such as Germany’s Hans Blumenberg, who had a staff of nearly a hundred researchers below him, may not be a model we wish anywhere in the Americas. But [Leg] is also the sort of work that the Americas seldom acheive.
I hope we also might seek to avoid unnecessary dissent and factionalism. David is (we might assume) intentionally extreme in his defense of the discussion model– and we may need such extreme defenders, to pose questions we are not otherwise asking as the curriculum undergoes gradual but significant change. Granted that PSCI 120 is likely best a “lecture” (with much discussion) format; the question remains, in an academy that seems to moving further and further away from the personal models of the Log, are we missing something?
Are we practicing the forms? Of course any of you can point me to the incredible excellence of Williams professors as individuals– to situations where a model such as Derek Catsam’s lectures are more appropriate– but is our institution, Williams, taking the right path? Is academia?
David’s general path of inquiry (which doesn’t necessarily fit very well with the example of 120) seems to be that we pay an economic price by devoting resources to “elective” versus “core” courses. By developing a “smorgassboard” of courses designed to address multiple “specific,” “individual,” “personally interesting” or even “minor” topics, we loose or compromise the quality of learning in the intro or core courses.
All the terms in quotes are pulled from Williams discussions before 1990, from the mouths of professors whom David might (or might not) consider overly “leftist,” and from discussions which, generally, pursued various versions of the vision of “diversity” which David is taking pains to call into question.
Might we pass over what may be David’s errors– a less than perfect example, chosen under the press of time– and, as good and fellow tutors, try to follow and develop the idea(s)?
I’d put the above consideratios in another way, as an interrogative: do we fail to give people the background and skills necessary to further understanding of themselves and the world?
And do we face unique challenges in addressing the needs of contemporary students?
(d)avid notes:
I believe Bruce Kieffer repeatedly made more or less the same point in discussions at the MCC in the Spring of ‘90; I keep remembering his comment that professors “d[id] not play hardball” at Williams. But to put this is something of my own words, some students at Williams are more interested in hearing their own voices– and getting an affirmation back– than the wondrous process of learning which Richard Dunn describes above.
Or are they? If we are pedagogists, we should not necessarily begrudge them their personal qualities and needs–, but understand and react to the phenomenon, to “the characteristics of an age and the needs of a generation.”
For myself– and trying to speak for some of my classmates and friends, if not professors and collegues– “active engagement” and listening in the way Richard describes did not seem to be the norm. However, today, in response to that old conversation with Bruce and many others– my immediate response is that the need for the skills of listening and reaction are, today, as relevant as they ever have been– if not more in need particularly because Richard needs to say and claim:
The above needs to be addressed as a social and historical phenomenon– (is not a corrollary to Frank Oakley’s comment that we lack institutional memory, that we are such poor listeners?). We might claim the contemporary batch of students is relatively poor in listening to each other, and relatively starved for affirmation and response to their own voices– I’m not sure what criteria we might advance to judge such a claim compartively– and yet I am confident that it is a situation where, if we look much closer, we would find that much more is going on, and that our own methods and skills, institutional structures and choices are at stake.
As for small discussion formats and Diana’s comments, well, I went to Deep Springs (with 24 students in a valley roughtly the size of Manhattan) and took more than my fair share of tutorials, Ford courses, and the like. But, as for lecture and listening, as I went down that path, I was oft criticized for being quiet in the Williams classroom– and nearly silent in grad school (unless presenting). It takes effort to listen, including to ones’ peers. And to be frank, by the end of grad school I found much of “the discussion” pointless– the ‘passing chatter’ of recent initiates, as I sought to hear the underlying patterns and messages. I came for the lecture, to listen, absorb, and stop to think. And maybe, maybe, come up with something worth saying.
And I do pause to wonder if any of this is yet worth saying. Am I there yet?
Dare I also pause to reflect on how much we change, when we think, in the way Richard has described so much better than I could? I’m still trying to grasp the pattern, and repeat.
In the background of this discussion– which should perhaps be more of the foreground, I’m failing to get much of the audio tutorial in Spanish playing in my left ear. I just gave the Dean of Health Sciences somewhat short shrift on my view of electronic aid systems; the Dean of Business isn’t here tonight (which will keep him off my couch). I downloaded Dan Gilmore’s version of the “open source” course in microeconomics earlier today– which may help fulfill my wish to follow a econ curriculum, and to keep up with Rogelio Ramirez de la O. And I’ve given only passing comments to the discussions of binary logic and monads and subjectivism– which, for their part, have finally reached levels where I feel I can throw in passing comments that are useful.
Moving back to those programtic question which obsess the CEP and Guadino and the Telluride Association and etc.– programmatically, I would suggest that we strive to always have a portion of the introduction to any discipline available via some sort of small group format– whether it be the equivalent of those Ford courses which introducted me to Physics and Psychology at Williams, or small introductory “discussion” courses, or a (no longer “experimental”) format (as we now see the model being implemented widely) such as the Freshman Residential Seminars. Each pedagogical format that can reach and motivate students in very different ways than a good lecture, even ones so good as Prof. McAllister’s.
The challenge is maintaining a rough approximation of optimal fluidity of forms– placing students who will respond well to FRS in such a form, students who will respond well to a general lecture in that. An interesting task and experiment– as the year that I personally created the FRS brochure, 300 first-years applied for the program.
And as the person who more or less personally blocked Prof. McPherson’s idea of an integrated ECON 101/ENGL 101 FRS, I’ll pause to mention that such a form is a wonderful idea. (As “literature,” Adam Smith is almost as much fun as Keynes). Unfortunately, as in so much of this discussion, resources were a key consideration then; Williams couldn’t have an ECON/ENGL FRS experiment, and a FRS that resembled a Telluride seminar. (As it were, Michael and Morty taught their own Telluride seminar… but we didn’t get a version of the ECON/ENGL idea…)
Why has Williams abandoned its close connection with the Telluride Association, a relationship which brought me and Ethan Zuckerman and Maura Tierney and so many others to Williams? I’ve never had the chance to discuss that with Steven Fix, but surely the depth of Williams’ “faculties”– its mental abilities to understand– suffer from that disengagement.
As in my CLAS 101 example above, David also is a bit extreme in linking a poor discussion section to the figure of an “incompetent professor.” Some professor are simply inexperienced– and some professors have to consider that their economic future may not lie within the institutional setting and committments of Williams– and poor discussions happen for many reasons. Beginning with the simple, I taught sections of the same course at 8am and 3:15pm for several semesters, and the differences were amazing.
Moving to the more complex– at least half of the professors mentioned in the discourses above have, at one time or another, griped to me about lack of student engagement…
At Williams? Are we just talking about what happens at Williams?
As for listening: it is wonderful to sit in a cafe in Bowling Green, KY, and hear the local versions of those conversations– and to remind the faculty here that their colleagues at Williams and Berkeley and Harvard have similar complaints. And that the nature and focus of those complaints evolve and change– with our understandings– over time.
Localized versions of that conversation are of course still going on– as they have for decades– in the cafe of the International House at Berkeley; down at Cafe Coco next to Vandy and in the Starbucks next to UL; and in more varied forms, just around from the Gravensteen in Ghent, and at the Petit fer au Cheval north of the Sorbonne; in the now no-longer dusty buildings of Charles University in Prague, and in the cafes around the corner from Slavoj Zizek’s office in Ljubljana.
Ghent and Ljubljana may be “outliers;” perhaps their culture and students don’t fit this model. But… certainly the students of the Czech Republic and of Poland, where the arts and parts of the humanities are beginning to die for lack of interest, might even be more extreme examples of the “distractions” experienced in Williamstown.
Distractions? Is that what we are to call the sudden emergence of freedom and minor levels of prosperity, the explosion of film and the practical arts, the emergence of communications technologies, the return of the material arts, and the sudden and wonderful uncovering of Prague’s soot-laden surface to reveal the yellows and greens and vibrant reds of the art nouveau city below.
Let’s listen a moment to that transformation: in Czech, “art nouveau” is seccesionisti, (not quite– with two “c” and no orthography for the long vowels, that’s the Italian spelling, whose political meaning is nonetheless appropriate). The word for art nouveau in Czech derives from Moholy-Nagy’s experiments in the rapid sucession of images– one of the foundations of film– and, later, his series of courses at the BauHaus in the juxtaposition of “the grain” of simple blocks of wood– themselves sources of Le Corbusier’s brutalisme, which, itself, far from “brutal,” was “raw,” architecture which, like Moholy-Nagy’s seminars, demanded that its viewer sit, listening to the voice of the materials.
Should we call these “distractions?” What wonderful distractions! (I cannot find what I wish in Goethe’s travel logs, on the instruction of the Italian landscape; Nietzsche, who wrote Morgenroete from notes made while walking in Italy with Lou Salome, is evident enough.)
But turn to Mission Park and Harvard’s Canaday complex– as a footnote to other discussions here, Canaday is the “authentic” source of a dorm constructed to prevent rioting in the 70s– both are bastard sons of Moholy-Nagy’s tradition, and Corbusier’s raw and brutalistic Unite de l’Habitation at Marseille.
And, of course, trying to listen and understand the underlying human dynamics– and the personal and political and pedagogical consequences– of a Mission Park or a Canaday, led me to Prague and playing with pieces of wood in the architectural program at Berkeley, and to Paris and Marseille, and to…
Ah, so many languages and expressions. Returning from the “aside,” the point is that we act among world-historical processes that are more subtly entertwined than we may suspect: the failures of “discussion” above occur in specific classrooms at Williams and Berkeley, but they also, simultaneously, occur globally. The lack of engagement (that is the traditional term, but is it the best one?) is a global phenomenon.
And as for listening, for me, the background to this discussion is moving far within Milan Kundera’s first “novel,” Life is Elsewhere. While lacking the direction of a locative case, the title as translated into English still contains the basic “device”– a turn of language which claims that “what’s going on” is indeed “going on elsewhere,” –not as a youthful complaint, but as a fundamental principle of reality. In Czech, Kundera embodies this theory of ‘action of a distance’ in each of his novel’s sentences… each moment, each “expression,” a lieu (has its place) only somewhere else.
What if I had never been given the chance to explore quantum physics in a group of five at Deep Springs– as a “sophomore?” Would my brow be raised because Kundera’s theory of causality is parrallel to Werner Heisenberg’s– or more recently, to E.O. Wilson’s claims for biological “diversity?”
Moving from such heights or depths, I think the general argument that we are pursuing (restated in my own words of the moment) is that pedagogy– the process of engaging our students in mutual discussions which include them in our community and traditions– is compromised by the corporate structure of our (academic) institutions.
Turn to Nietzsche (an earlier theorist of action at at distance): in our [Anstaltungs-Institutionen], our preparatory institions, our preparation(s) for life.
In my own terms, shifting frame again: this occurs by a lack of attention to the processes of good corporate governance– not just at Williams, but at NASA and ENRON (and the halls of the Californian government, which allowed ENRON). I have recourse only to my own immediate personal path: L.L. Nunn, Deep Springs’ founder, was also the founder of electrical power transmission.
And reading his correspondence… and the correspondence of the early leaders of PG&E and other power utilities… certainly reveals corporate structures far different than those just references. One of the wonders of Deep Springs, was to have Brad Edmonson push me into the archives, and to find the “captains of Industry” writing each other twenty page letters, so very personally and humanely.
It is now approaching the small hours of the night, and while this document is still surely “flawed creation”– and could certainly benefit in clarity and brevity from many more edits– both sleep and many other committments loom near.
Surely I should have found some way to express the needs of the students of the Czech Republic? Surely, as material arts re-emerge in Eastern Europe, they should rediscover and re-engage the teachings of Moholy-Nagy? And perhaps– and certainly– as interest in classical music careers in Eastern Europe evaporates, we in North America should be sending our students to learn from their masters?
Somewhere in the middle of this, I should have paused to write one of our young flutists that she might take such a path– that with a bit of Czech, and a bit more determination,– and with an absence of new students in Prague– she might her instruction at Charles’ University far beyond what she can gain in the United States.
Dialogia.
But by now I’m certainly speaking too much. I should be learning Greek, so that I might actually listen to the Phaedrus.