Qualifying

Today, I got my first look at my course evaluations for the Spring 2010 term. My Interpersonal evals looked good, the Public Speaking ones were extremely positive, and the evals from Listening Behavior tore the roof off the house. It seems that in the opinion of the students, each of those classes went very, very well. The one outlier was Communication Theory.

I've been thinking a lot about that class. It's only the second time I've taught it, and the first time it's been its own class, as opposed to a special problems. Back in January, I announced that there would be two tests in the class, both at the very, very end: one would be an objective test over all the theories we'd covered, and the other would be an essay test, for which I'd give them the essay questions beforehand. In fact, I posted the essay questions before the first class meeting, so they had fifteen weeks to craft their answers. I also posted a study guide for the objective test around the third or fourth week, and stopped talking about it.

Late in April, about a week before the objective test, I mentioned it. More than half the class looked very surprised. "We have a test next week?" Not only had I told them at the start and provided a study guide, but the test itself was on the syllabus calendar. In bold. Bright red. But it was a complete surprise to them. More than half the class failed the test, and on the course evaluations I just read, they pointed to the arrangement of the class, and that test in particular, as the reason they didn't think the class was well taught.

What this makes me think is that I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

I'm also the lead instructor for First Year Seminar, so we did focus groups and other such activities to find out how we could make that class a more useful, positive experience for incoming freshman. What was the one message everyone agreed upon? What did they hammer into our heads? "Don't talk down to us or treat us like children. We're adults, and you should show us the same respect you show each other." But what happens when I don't nag them every week to study for their comprehensive final, like mom nagging them to clean their room? Well, that means I don't understand their needs as learners.

Their other repeated complaint, on the SSI and in feedback to our marketing firm, is that classes at NCU lack rigor. In this sense as well, my Theory students wound up unhappy receiving exactly what they'd asked for.

What they seem to think will happen in the workplace after they graduate is that their bosses will assign them only short tasks that fit within the attention span they choose to bring to bear, and whenever they do any longer-term work, their managers will manage their time for them. I don't think it works that way, but I suppose one of us is right, and if they are, things will work out. And if I was right, they won't be able to say no one tried to teach them differently.

Understand that I don't, by any stretch, think the class went perfectly. I learned a lot of lessons about how to tackle that class, and I think it'll look quite different the next time I run it. And I do continue to turn over in my mind what they say, because it is dangerous to rush to judgment and assume my own perspective on the class is all that matters. What they wrote, and what I learned, have a year and a half to percolate through my mind before I have to gear up to do this again.

But dangit, this is a class for majors! When I teach the general interest classes that draw people from every major on campus, I'm at peace with the reality that only some of what I talk about will strike a chord with them, and they'll pursue it and connect it with their own experiences and values, and retain that much. All the rest will go pouring out their other ear and be forgotten. But when it comes to Communication majors taking their survey of Communication Theories class, this is their toolbox. These are the ideas that make up the backbone of the field of study. It is not acceptable to me that they "play school," that they go through the motions, that they cram for a test and forget what was on it as soon as they get to their second post-test beer. Not acceptable. If we talked about Coordinated Management of Meaning in January, then it's downright important that they still grasp CMM in May, and in August, and May of the following year, and on and on. If they disagree, too danged bad: time for me to be a granite wall in their path, and they can either change their ways, or else wipe out on my stubbornness.

And I can also say that this experience provides some measure of reassurance on a worry I nursed through most of last year: it's a bad sign when you're too popular with your students. I don't want them to like me too much right now; instead, I want the twenty-years-from-now version of them to look back and like how much they grew under my instruction. Their work ethic and responsibility is not a fraction of what it will be, and if I fit their expectations right now, then I'm lowballing terribly. With this class, I got a glimmer of hope that they encountered the level of expectation that will stretch them into their best selves.