On Mar 10, 2009, at 1:05 PM, Melissa Michelson wrote:
> For those concerned about promotion/tenure review, I would recommend
> making grading a little more lenient while switching. Nothing makes
> students happier than good grades. I did this last year and got
> perfectly lovely student evaluations despite it being my first try
> with TBL. I have tenure, so it doesn't matter so much, but I didn't
> want a revolt.
> -Melissa
Melissa,
Sorry, but I just have to ask: did you think student learning improved
using TBL vs. not using it?
If so, now that you have tenure, would you be prepared to be less
lenient to see how student learning is impacted by changes in your
teaching? If student learning doesn't improve, will you continue to
use TBL?
No body likes getting bad evaluations, but if students learn better,
don't we have an ethical obligation to resist (or redirect) their
pressure to "not teach," as some so rudely expressed to Erica? My
Faculty Development Center colleague Barry Casey just came back from
the TBL conference, and he was telling me of some engineering faculty
who expressed similar pressures Erica is experiencing. However, even
when student grades improved, some students said they didn't like TBL
and wanted to "go back" to the old way of lectures & papers.
This troubles me.
Apart from preparing students to think and cooperate in ways that will
be expected of them in their careers, don't we owe it to them to
confront their own inflexibility, so they can learn to adapt to the
next new thing they will inevitably face--in life generally?
John
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