ISI Faculty Resource Center

The new study Academically Adrift reveals how little college students actually learn. It also spells out how little they are asked to do.

In particular, the study finds that students asked to do more than 40 pages of reading a week and more than 20 pages of writing a semester learn more than those assigned less.

20 pages? That seems unreasonably easy. 40 pages? What is this, middle school?

When I was first out of graduate school my courses (all undergraduate, both upper and lower level) had roughly 80 pages of writing assigned per student, with course caps of about 15 students. Over time I've had to lower that as my course enrollments have grown significantly. But still, the courses tend to have well over twenty pages of writing, and I think nothing of assigning much more than 40 pages per week. I do this as a matter of course.

Are my expectations unreasonable? If the study indicates that the 40/20 page ratio is considered more than usual, it leads me to think that many of my colleagues assign very little (and get very little in return).

There are limits, of course. I remember the prof who assigned me (in grad school) all three of Kant's critiques in a week. So let's set 2 of the critiques per week as the upper limit of reasonability--beyond that is just too much!

Yesterday was the second day of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference. In our track, "Internationalizing the Curriculum," we had four papers in the morning that discussed certain pedagogical techniques to consider in the classroom to make students aware of the world outside the United States. Two of them focused on mass media, while the other two used service-learning. Although the papers were interesting, I was a little disappointed that they didn't relate more to the theoretical literature on pedagogy. Nonetheless, it was an interesting start to the day.

In the afternoon, we had three more paper presentations: one on international political theory, one on international relations, and one on institutional concerns. The first argued that political theory needs to be more reflective of global concerns; the second argued for a non-American perspective of international relations; and the last discussed some of the challenges and opportunties at the institutional level of internationalizing the curriculum. The papers were thought-provoking, however, I wonder whether the first two papers were discussing the state of the discipline a few years ago as opposed to now. For example, political theory has already been "internationalized" to such extent, with new articles and textbooks about comparative political theory already existing. In some sense, political science has already addressed (if not completely addressed) some of these concerns.

Overall the conference has been very useful and I learned quite a bit about internationalizing the curriculum (and hopefully we were able to contribute meaningfully to the conversation, too). It certainly has given me much to contemplate about in our discipline.

We presented our paper today, "Statesmanship and Democracy in a Global and Comparative Context." In our paper we argue the difficulty of defining terms like "statesman," "democracy," and "globalization." We also point out the need to study statesmanship and how to implement such studies in the classroom. We concluded about the need for the "local" and the "national" when we internationalize the curriculum. The paper was received with some misunderstanding by a few, but we did receive some excellent feedback from some of our other colleagues.

The other presentation was about an assignment in class where the professor has the students design their own study abroad program. In addition to learning something about the other country, the student also learns certain administrative skills, such as how to process reimbursement bills and use Excel. Perhaps the most interesting issue that emerged from our conversation about this paper was how the world outside the U.S. and Western Europe is portrayed by the mass media, our government, and our textbooks as one of conflict rather than cooperation. Given this depiction of the world, why would a student want to travel abroad?
 

From Rich Brake, Director of ISI's University Stewardship and Culture of Enterprise Initiative.  This looks great. 

Announcing an ISI Regional Economics Conference

Whose Capitalism, Which Free Market: Exploring the Moral Dimensions of the Market Economy

Date: Apr 9 2011
Time: 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM   ET
Location: Taylor University, Upland, IN
Description: What is the vital connection between markets and morality?

Humane economist Wilhelm Ropke observed in the 1930's that the free market cannot long exist in the absence of certain bedrock institutions, including the family, religious faith, business ethics, a predictable legal framework, regulations for monopolies, and a widespread distribution of economic and political power. Fast-forward to today, and it would appear that Ropke's warning has not been heeded, with "too big to fail" now the dominant ethos of the age. This conference will seek remedies to today's crony capitalism by exploring the moral dimensions of a truly free and prosperous market order.

Alejandro Chafuen, President, Atlas Foundation, Washington, DC
"Christian Faith and the Roots of Austrian Economics"

Peter "P.J." Hill, Professor, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL
"The Morality of Markets"

John Medaille, Professor, University of Dallas, Dallas, TX
"Free Markets and the Pursuit of the Common Good"

Lawrence Reed, President, Foundation for Economic Education, Atlanta, GA
"Political Liberty, Money Mischief, and the March toward Centralization"
 

Link to registration information: http://indiana.isi.org

Link to promotional flyer: http://www.isi.org/programs/conferences/indiana11/indiana11.pdf

A paper published in the Journal of Political Economy finds that

the academic rank, teaching experience, and terminal degree status of mathematics and science professors are negatively correlated with contemporaneous student achievement, but positively related to follow-on course achievement.

You can read the rest of the summary (and the article) at the NBER or directly from one of the authors' webpage.

(The author has articles in quite a few interesting topics: check them out.)

HT: The Chronicle.

Now I'm told by the educrats that my style amounts to bad education. So why is it that c students consistently rank my courses as "much more learned than other courses" ?

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In response to the increasing number of requests to “write a paper for extra credit,” which can be purchased easily at the “writing help center” store front, I have developed several extra credit opportunities for students to earn a few extra points minus student shortcuts.

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At the Lehrman American Studies Center Regional Seminar at Harvard, we explored and discussed the nature of citizenship in the United States from its origins to today. Heather Cox Richardson presented a lecture on the changing role of citizenship during Reconstruction and Joe Fornieri talked about Liincoln's defense of black citizenship as a prelude to civil rights. There also was a discussion about how to teach citizenship in the classroom today. Some of the problems of teaching citizenship in the classroom were the rise of service learning and assessment as well as the presenting citizenship as civics in the educational system. The seminar itself was a terrific experience: I learned a great deal and I'm looking forward to more in the future!

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As part of the ongoing evacuation of academic culture from the academy, the corporate cubicle makes perfect sense: for faculty offices efficient, inexpensive, simple. Too bad that's not what the academy is about.

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How best to find success on the job market?  In my last post, I talked about what you can still do to improve your chances for this year.  As promised, I now turn to a consideration of what you can do to prepare for next year.  Sadly, a second year on the market is something that a majority of job candidates will have to experience, so it’s a good idea to start thinking about it now.  What, then, can one do now so as to fare better in the future?

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