Harriett Robles and others here seem to begin with a mental model of a
college or university as a "bureaucracy" locked into medieval routines
that have changed little in hundreds of years, with power structures
unwilling and unable to learn, to change, to move.
It might be useful to examine that mental model a bit to see if it is
accurate and useful, and whether that model is itself part of the problem
of helping colleges to learn what needs to be learned.
One point of beginning might be to note how many new programs of study
have been introduced into college curricula in recent years. The community
colleges, for example, have been quick to respond to all of the new
technologies and careers and incorporating them into curricula. If this is
true, is this not evidence of willingness to change?
We might also look at the results of some of the changes that have been
advocated and accepted , and to think about whether those changes, those
"learnings," have improved the institution and its educational programs.
Take the matter of institutions becoming "customer oriented," which has
often led to "student evaluation" of faculty.Has this been a valuable
change?
In my view the evidence is that this "learning," and its incorporation
into the college culture, has led to serious degradation of the faculty's
ability to insist on student learning. The so-called "grade inflation" was
inevitable,built into these proposals: if any student I fail or give a low
mark to will be able to retaliate with a bad evaluation, I think twice
about giving out "D's" and "F's."
Perhaps the core problem is this:
Most of those advocating change have a predetermined agenda for change.
They "know" that colleges should be student centered, not subject
centered; that students have different "learning styles" and "cognitive
styles," and these differences in style should be respected and built into
teaching practices; they "know" that young students raised on tv are
visually oriented and therefore need teaching styles that use more images
and less text; they "know" that the lecture is obsolete and has little
educational value. . .and on and on, a kind of standard litany of change.
When these changes are resisted, the mental model held by the advocates of
change explains that resistance as bureacratic resistance to change by the
entrenched powers.
The change agents might consider the effects of the "innovations" to date,
and might consider that some of the resistance to their new improvements
might be justified.
It is possible to believe that the evidence reveals that many of the
proposed cures are worse than the disease.
Steve Eskow
>I don't think there's a stiffer test of learning organization principles
>than higher education institutions, as ironic as that seems.
--Steve Eskow <dreskow@durand.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>