The annual NSSE studies, along with other sources, consistently show that on average Canadian and American students treat their full-time studies like a part-time job. A full-time course load (five courses) requires that 15 hours per week be spent attending classes. NSSE results from 2006 (replicated in other years) indicate that students spend on average only about 13-14 hours per week preparing for their classes. Thus, on average university students spend fewer than 30 hours per week on all aspects of their studies—the equivalent of a part-time job—and this ignores the fact that daily attendance in typical classes in many programmes not requiring attendance is only between 50 and 70 percent. Workload may spike during exam periods, although there is no data for this, but without classes to attend, the total time devoted to studying may not be any greater. Besides, if students keep up with their courses by preparing on a weekly basis, studying for exams should not be onerous. However, our concern is specifically with the 40-50 percent of students who put fewer than 10 hours per week into all aspects of their studies, the group we call the fully disengaged student for whom a ‘faux-BA’ will be awarded.
In last week’s blog, I argued that the time spent in class ought to represent the tip of the iceberg of learning, not the iceberg. Leaving all learning to class time may be justifiable in primary schools, and understandable in secondary schools of mediocre quality, but is out of place in a university worthy of its name.
An image that seems to drive misinformed conceptions of engagement in the university classroom is that of the cool ‘super prof,’ as portrayed in movies and TV shows. This cool prof casually walks into a classroom and puts on a performance by standing on his desk and uttering a few profundities, dazzling the class with his brilliance and wit for a few minutes until a bell rings and the class is dismissed. The reality of the day-to-day teaching that takes place in a university classroom is far different from this, not the least of which is that classes can run as long as three straight hours (and there are no bells to end classes). Standing on a desk and spouting profundities would get stale very quickly, and a prof trying this every class for three hours would become a laughing stock among his students, and likely a candidate for psychiatric institutionalization among his colleagues. In our upcoming book, we interview ‘real’ super profs—those who win teaching awards—to see what do in their classrooms. In last week’s blog, we argues that professors need their students to prepare for class so that they do not have to waste time going over all of the rudiments of the material.
The necessity for students to actively engaging in learning by reading material in advance is perhaps more obvious if examples are given from English literature courses. Imagine trying to teach students about interpretations of a book they have never read. Then imagine the type of test you would set, all the time knowing that many students will either cram the book before a test, or never bother to even read the book with any earnestness. Given the ‘no-fail standards’ that currently apply in many schools, what type of test would you set that does not fail more than a few percentage of the class? Well, the only type of test would be one that allows students to regurgitate from their lecture notes and what they picked up from a light reading of the material. This type of scenario is reminiscent of the stereotype of the high school student who relies of Cliff Notes or Coles Notes, but it does not belong in institutions of higher learning, and certainly not in courses that are supposedly part of a liberal arts curriculum with its transformative potentials.
Now imagine trying to teach large numbers of students—into the hundreds in many classes—how to interpret a highly abstract economic or sociological theory, or grasp the mechanics of a difficult statistical method, knowing that most will not read in advance of the class, and instead walk into the classroom knowing little about the topic at hand. You can spoon feed these unprepared students by giving them the material from the readings point by point or you can entertain them with witty stories and various theatrics. In either case, they are exposed to only a fraction of the material that should be learned if they are to become proficient in their knowledge of the topic, and thus able to critically analysis the material. Students may walk out of such academic-lite lectures thinking that they are engaging in ‘higher learning,’ but this type of learning is really more appropriate for lower levels, not the tertiary level.
Some readers may think that this situation is only common in large classes at research-intensive universities where professors have the reputation of caring more about ‘their research’ than ‘their students.’ However, this scenario can be found even in small, seminar-type classes, if standards of bi-lateral engagement are allowed to decline.
The term ‘engagement’ takes on a clearer meaning for most people when it refers to a commitment to marriage, where both parties reasonably expect that the other party will meet them halfway in terms of that commitment. The ‘marital engagement’ would hardly transform into a marriage if one or both parties did not live up to the conditions of the contract. Yet, this is precisely what takes places on a daily basis in our universities and this is why we should take the disengagement problem seriously.