Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Teaching in groups

[UPDATE: thanks to dmf this post is now being discussed over at the Daily Nous. If you want to read some very interesting responses to the use of group work in philosophy classes head over there.]

I often wonder what the point of classes is. Not just rhetorically, but actually, the idea being that if we know why we have classes then this might help us do a better job with them. (I also sometimes wonder in the rhetorical sense, because when I was an undergraduate I was actively discouraged from attending lectures and yet many classes are so large that lecturing is more or less inevitable.)

The point, it seems to me, is for students to interact with an expert on the material they are studying. They get to ask questions about assigned readings that they did not understand. They get some kind of (possibly very short) lecture on this reading so that if they only think they understood it they will be corrected. They get to ask questions about the relevant issues, and probably some kind of lecture on these issues. And hopefully some kind of discussion of the issues will either happen of its own accord in the process of all this or, more likely, will be made to happen by the teacher. The point of this discussion being to get students to think more, more carefully, and in a more informed way, than they otherwise would, about either issues that matter or issues that it is somehow useful to think about. (For instance, an issue might not matter in itself but debates about it might be historically or politically important, or it might be an issue debating which is thought to develop certain intellectual skills. Nothing turns on whether the weights in the gym are up or down, but moving them up and then down again can be very beneficial. If there is an intellectual equivalent (a very big if, of course) then academic work, including discussion, might well be it, or at least an ingredient of it.) Ideally this will all happen in a way that feels natural to the students, so that it connects as seamlessly as possible with the rest of their lives. Then discussing ideas, asking questions, reading, and otherwise exploring the world intellectually can become greater parts of their lives.

I think its apparent unnaturalness is why group-work feels so wrong to me. As far as I can tell, though, it's becoming the norm. See comments here and here, for instance, and the reference to "structured activity" here. (And while you're at it, see this comment for some of the problems with group-work.) I'm also going by what I've seen other teachers do--increasingly it seems to involve group-work and student presentations. So, why do I think this is so bad?

The first thing to say is there is a real problem of ambiguity and possible misunderstanding here. Not all lectures, or things that people call lectures, are the same, and not all group-work or structured in-class activities are the same either. The second thing to say is that I'm not defending lectures. I think they are largely a waste of time. When I was an undergraduate we were told not to go to lectures on the grounds that you can learn more, and more efficiently, by reading. Lectures were presented as a remedial option. I think they can be useful in this way, and when my students just seem lost I do resort to lecturing. But I see it as a sign that some failure has occurred, not as a go-to option. Enough about me though. On to complaining about other people.

Here are problems with group-work that I have observed or heard about multiple times from students:
  • the members of the group (unless the group is the whole class) do not include an expert on either the topic for discussion or the assigned reading on it, so mistakes can go uncorrected and misunderstanding can be increased (if plausibly, confidently, or charismatically defended) 
  • there can be a tendency for everyone in a group to want to get along and agree, so that diversity of opinion (which is sometimes healthy and at least indicative of independent thought) can be replaced by a kind of groupthink, in which the better (or better-supported) ideas by no means always win out
  • neither every student nor even every group engages in the exercise seriously or at all (policing can help here, of course, but is not likely to be 100% effective, and brings its own problems simply by making the teacher take on the role of police officer)
  • groups can be dominated by loudmouths (although they might also be more comfortable environments for some students to speak in)
  • the whole thing can feel like a waste of time
The first of these problems is probably less serious at more selective places. If everyone in the group has a decent grasp of the issues, ideas, facts, etc. then the wisdom of the crowd might drive out individual kinks of ignorance and misunderstanding. But if enough students have not done the reading, or not done it carefully, or done it but without sufficient comprehension, then trouble lies ahead.

The problem of the whole thing feeling like a waste of time could be addressed by explaining why it isn't, but this would require being able to do that. It might be enough to say, "Trust me, the discussion will be much better afterwards." But why should students trust the person who says this? If they are an expert on philosophy, what do they know about educational psychology? And, in fact, what proof is there that discussion is valuable, let alone group-work intended to improve discussion? I think discussion is part of the examined life, but there's no evidence to support that claim. There might be evidence that it helps with remembering facts, but if it does, so what? Memorizing facts is not what the liberal arts claim to be about. It certainly isn't what philosophy is about, anyway.

The biggest problem, though, has to do with the suggestion made here that such activities feel forced and unnatural. They are, after all, forced and unnatural. They involve the teacher's going from being a resident expert there to help students in his/her area of expertise to being a classroom manager, manipulating students for their own good. Class is no longer (if it ever was) a place where a conversation takes place between people who (at least might) care about ideas and books. It is now a place where learning is facilitated. Of course the change is not from black to white, but students seem a bit more patronized in the new way of doing things, and the ideas (literature, arguments, whatever) being taught seem a bit more remote from life, a bit less like things that anyone might actually care about when off duty. It seems a shame to me.

Having said all that, I am a strong believer in doing what works, and I think that if we're qualified to judge work in our areas, as we (professional teachers) surely are, then we can also judge when a discussion is going well or not, and whether it is going better or worse than past discussions. So if a little bit of group-work really does improve discussion then I'm all for it. But there is a downside that should not be completely ignored. And I don't think that group-work should be done just because it's the latest thing or because it helps fill up the time we are required to spend in class (as I suspect is sometimes the case).

No doubt a thousand grumpy old men have said much the same thing before. What I hope might be new is the ethical angle. Patronizing and manipulating people should be avoided as much as possible. And there is a great evil in the world that might be called 'management' (or 'bureaucracy' or 'assessment' or whatever you like to call it), replacing freedom, individuality, and spontaneity with various systems of control. There is, it seems to me, a real danger that classroom management might be part of this problem.        

29 comments:

  1. gah! i typed in a long comment that disappeared before it posted. it was just… my usual, i guess.

    but at the end i said:

    i want to say that the basic fact that should be the starting point of an answer the question, what are classes for?, has to be that you're meeting; you're all there at the same place at the same time. and then that you're going to come back and do it again.

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    1. Gah! squared. I just lost my reply.

      Anyway, I agree: you're all meeting together. So why not all talk to each other? I don't mean that separating into groups can never be justified. But I think the default option should be something involving everyone present in one group.

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  2. maybe a second point to consider is touched on by one of the CT commenters:

    'Having them do either tasks or discuss questions can work but as a student I’d want to feel that I knew why I was being asked to do it and could see how it would fit in with the subject of the lecture.'

    you do hear this a lot, and of course one always wants to help students understand everything they're given and that they're asked to do.

    but i wonder if a comparison to management would help there too. in other contexts there are some ways in which it is extremely distasteful and unhelpful to be asked to do things without understanding why (how they fit in, what's being accomplished, etc). and nevertheless, also ways in which many complex enterprises work: by making people do things they can understand well enough at the time, without requiring that they fully grasp the broader point of doing them. well-managed workplaces maybe are ones where that can be pulled off without too much actual exercise of management technique upon employees.

    in many ways, extremely explicit and modularized educational material and tasks seem like they help avoid, let's say, managerial defects in education. and there are gains for fairness, perhaps. can the same be said for measures taken to make students better understand what they're doing, when as students, they're not yet in a position to understand (as we hope them to become able to understand) what they're doing?

    i'm not sure. it seems like trust plays a different role there. and a lot of the measures that can be and are taken, could be seen as ways of minimizing any need for trust.

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    1. To some extent I think students do have to trust the teacher. But they should be trusting their expertise, e.g. "Read this, it's good. Even if you aren't ready to appreciate that yet." (Not that anyone should say that.) They have less reason, it seems to me, to be expected to trust teachers' ideas about pedagogical techniques when so little is really known about such things.

      Some teachers might know that their techniques work, but I suspect that often techniques are applied for less good reasons (trendiness, pressure from the administration, desire to kill time somehow, experimentation, etc.). Experimentation might be OK, but I don't think it's obviously OK to treat students as guinea pigs.

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  3. pardon (or just ignore) this tangent but when you say "and I think that if we're qualified to judge work in our areas, as we (professional teachers) surely are" I have to question this in terms of what academics are trained in and so expert in (as opposed to just paid for and so professional). I think that what folks tend to study/master are not works in progress by beginners but rather finished works by advanced practitioners, so that teaching is not what most professors are trained experts in, what do you think?
    -dmf

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    1. I suppose that's right. But as a TA you do get some training in how to grade papers, and as a professor you both learn by doing and have access to further training.

      I much less grudgingly agree that teaching is not what most professors are trained experts in. That's why I think they should be more inclined to relate to their students as something like peers than to subject them to pedagogical techniques about which they know little.

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    2. not saying that people can't learn and or don't have some talents just that this isn't really what doing research trains one to do, and than yes adding complexity/uncertainty to this mix without some actual expert (assuming there is some available) advice/plans seems irresponsible. Telling too I think that so many self-proclaimed experts in "critical" thinking aren't questioning most of how they do what they do when it comes to the classroom...

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    3. Yes. I can't speak for other people, but I think my experience as a graduate student was fairly typical. I did receive some training in how to grade essays, how to lead a discussion, and so on. And I got practice first as a teaching assistant and then as an instructor. Doing research doesn't train you to do these things, but graduate students do often get training in other ways.

      Having said that, the training isn't always very good. I remember one long talk about the value of identifying the individual learning style of each of your students and then tailoring your teaching accordingly. As if you could teach each student in a significantly different way during the same 50-minute period or without giving them assignments of uneven difficulty. I've heard since (from psychologists) that the idea of different learning styles is bunk anyway.

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  4. You know, I've been thinking about this things for some time. I mean this is a continuation of the discussion you raised in "An Idea of a University" and elsehwere. We both make use of Wittgenstein's remark to Rhees about what he ought to do when teaching. But that's difficult and it can't be mechanised and therefor cannot be taught.

    I think (and I'm not a teacher by the way, I don't think anyone would ever trust me with the job in this day and age) that what is most important in a teacher is the ability to listen. And often it is not even about listening to what the student says but what he or she does not say. And in some way this brings us back to our chosen (I don't want to say it but) profession: philosophy. I mean, I imagine a case where a student has not read the assigned text and it clearly comes out in what they say. Some would say it would be right to expose the fraud. I'd disagree. I think the right thing to do would be to take what is said seriously and see if that can lead somewhere in a discussion. It might even benefit the student who hadn't read by making them go back and read. And to be able to do that, I think, one has to let time be time and not be restricted by worry about making it through this or that amount of whatever before whenever–metting targets and setting goals and graphing achievements and evaluating curves etc. Because if the discussion of one point, say the Cogito, gains in depth then a lot of other related points will "automatically" be brought into play. So even a mistaken and confused expression of the Cogito can not only be corrected without exposing somewhat to embarassment and shame, but also bear fruit if one is willing to accept it for what it is. I have no idea why I'm saying this and what it has to do with the OP.

    Note: on the idea of different learning styles, that it just one more way to make it seem alright to shove 50 or more students/kids into one class. But there is some truth to it too. And it is that everyone is different, so in a sense it is individualist humanist spin on education reform (LEAN, austerity), or face-paint on a pig.

    A lot of these new techniques have to do with the ongoing regimentation/ mobilisation of the masses. We live, and have done so for almost a century, in a war economy. Although the propaganda (sales pitch) says otherwise you're not meant to think. That would impede progress.

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    1. Yes, listening and not worrying about a schedule, etc. are very important. But increasingly difficult. We are expected to train students to use techniques, and to do so by applying techniques to them. Everything has to be made technical so that this can be done. I was slightly embarrassed to use the word 'evil' above, but I think this is evil. It's dehumanizing.

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    2. Oh, I agree, it is. But you have to admit it's scientific. We had a minister of education who once said: "If it can't be taught to everyone then no one should learn it". That's setting standards. Some also say it's how you make education democratic. Like I said, face-paint on a pig. You have a slogan for it over there: "No child left behind".

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    3. preach, brother richter!! preach!

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  5. As an undergraduate I was told, in no uncertain terms, thrice, by three different lecturers/professors, that I was not expected to think before I had gotten my undergraduate degree. And perhaps not even then. Made for some tense relationships. What did I get from that?

    It's about results. Results have to be measurable/quantifiable. Only what is quantifiable is scientific. Lecturers (and instituitions here) are measured (rewarded) by how many pass, so they buy in on technique if it gets the results: students that pass. And students pass by regurgitating the information they are fed. So everyone reads from the same hymn sheet. It's a gross generalisation but as far as I can tell it's the same everywhere and at all levels, from kindergarten up.

    Apropos of nothing, I remember reading that Wittgenstein fumed over Loos taking up the position as "minister of culture" or what amounts to it. He thought it a sham or travesty. Think about this: "democratic government".

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  6. I've always wanted to be a preacher.

    In the US lecturers determine their own students' grades, so it's easy enough to make sure that they pass. There is pressure on teachers to be popular and to make sure their students pass, and almost no pressure to challenge students or make them think. Which is where the desire to quantify measurable results comes from, at least in part. To make sure that teachers don't react to the pressure to lower standards by lowering standards. But the results of objective assessment are predictably bad.

    The solution that occurs to me is to stop putting pressure on teachers. Trust them to do their job and leave them alone. But this won't happen because teachers are disliked, because no one is allowed to be left alone, and because the people who get money and power from not leaving people alone won't give those things up.

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    1. well all that's true but many teachers in higher-ed aren't very good (and as we have been discussing there is very little formal/institutional reflexivity around teaching/purpose) so there is the more philosophical (and very po-mo) dilemma of what sorts of standards could one apply to complex/diverse phenomena that aren't reducible to science/units/quantities, how does one measure the use of limited resources and contractual agreements?
      -dmf

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    2. I don't know. I don't know how much bad teaching there is. And I don't know of any way to improve teaching that works. I want to say that the first rule of academic management should be: first do no harm. And with that in mind I think a lot less should be done. But I realize that probably makes me sound complacent about bad teaching.

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  7. "First do no harm"... I like that. The hippocratic oath of eudcation. I just think it will only work in a society where something like it mesant something to everyone, i.e. on in which such a view was inherent in the culture. I sent in a paper once to a conference on Wittgenstein. My thesis was that if society/culture were such that W's way of thinking was something of value, then W would not seem useful. He is of value to us now (those who find him to be of value) because he goes against the times.

    As for what to do in situ, things being what they are, I think your oath and listening carefully ought to go a long way. Here's an analogy based on what my child taught me. You can't teach someone how to walk. You can only support and give encouragment as they learn how to. A lot of the time you're just in the way.

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  8. it would be a nice exercise to make a list of (probable? likely?) educational harms.

    is the rule meant as one for academic management or teaching? perhaps the imperative of teachers to, basically, HELP is a kind of natural complement to the managerial imperative not to harm. (but even so it would be hard to see how the harms to avoid ought not be avoided by anyone.)

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    1. and if 'don't harm' and 'help' are the basic but complementary rules, then it is interesting perhaps that 'help' is indeterminate, whereas we have a good understanding of things we think would harm anyone and so refrain from them (at least in other contexts); to help, we need to know what would help, what someone needs.

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    2. http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/10/24/whiplash-artistic-success-jazz-jk-simmons

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    3. the first rule of teaching, do no THAT

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    4. Yeah, don't do that.

      I was thinking of harms done by administrators who try to force teachers to do a better job, but of course everyone should avoid doing harm. And knowing what people need is hard, but you're right, that's what we should be figuring out.

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    5. well what they want, what they need, and what if anything the academic discipline at hand may have to offer in response, all seem open and vital questions to me.
      dmf

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  9. Every pedagogical method is going to have trade-offs. Nothing is going to work and suit every student in the age of mass-education. Sure, we all know Garfield was right, modulo us rather than Mark Hopkins, but that's not the environment we're provided in most of our jobs. So we weigh various goods and possibilities and try to find something that works most of the time, or at least seems to work overall better than the alternatives we can envision (with some side-constraints).

    Group-work has its potential benefits: it can increase willingness of students to think with others and to share their thoughts. It can increase student engagement in an activity. It can enhance student understanding of material.

    Those things make it potentially effective in introductory/gen ed classes. It will likely be appreciated by students who are not adept at the material more than students who (think they) are smarter than the rest of the class. So it probably comes down to a question of equality. Is teaching for the 1% or for the 99%?

    I have some group assignments that are incredibly effective and fun. I have some that i can't quite get the right mixture of structure and freedom to make them as effective as I'd like them to be.

    I think lots of complaints about group work result from poorly conceived and executed assignments. But just like lectures there are problems ingrained in the group assignments that have to be addressed in practice.

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    1. Thanks. I agree with most of this. In fact I agree with all of it except the 1% versus 99% part. You seem to move very quickly from the very reasonable claim that group work is "potentially effective in introductory/gen ed classes" to the much more contentious suggestion that it is the best way to teach for 99% of all students. You might be right, but I'm not (yet) convinced. Or perhaps you're simply exaggerating harmlessly.

      I wrote this post because of two concerns: 1) various things I read and saw led me to think that group work was becoming de rigueur in some circles, regardless of your correct observation that every pedagogical method has trade-offs, and 2) the trade-offs seem to be thought of too often as simply a matter of what works and not about what treats students with the right kind of respect.

      As I said in the original post, I'm a strong believer in doing what works. But I don't think the trade-offs should be ignored, and if one approach to teaching becomes de rigueur then I think there's a danger that they will be. So, for example, in your case I think you should stick with the group assignments that you say are incredibly effective but not feel obliged to persist with the ones you say you haven't managed to get right yet. Perhaps one day you will get them right, or perhaps you will find something that works better than group work in those particular cases. If that sounds obviously right then good. That's really all I'm saying.

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  10. That's it, of groupwork is the answer one has to wonder, what is the question? If the question is what works for the 99% (of what really) then what is it they're getting and how? If the aim (as at my alma mater) was to get 99% through to secure future funding then doesn't that water everything way down in a manner that is no good to anyone in order to secure future funding for what is no good? Sometimes I think it would be better for a student of philosophy to read and discuss one philosopher for three years than to read about 50 or 60 over the same span of time. If the end product of those three years is one decent paper (of whatever length) then bravo. Apart from that I'd say the student can read whatever they want. Caveat: I am of the conviction that philosophy has no subject matter, so, grain of salt.

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    1. Yes, a lot depends on what the goal is. When people say that something works I want to know what they count as working (which is not to say I'm convinced in advance that it isn't what I would count as working), and what alternatives they have (considered). Group work might be much better than lecturing to hundreds of students, but is it necessarily better than a more traditional seminar/discussion with twelve students? Perhaps it's better, but I don't think I'll be convinced that it is unless and until I find that it is with my own students. And I'm reluctant to try it for what seem to me to be ethical considerations, which seem to be ignored in a lot of the discussion of teaching techniques.

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