The Seven Deadly Sins of Higher Education
and
The Seven Cardinal Virtues of Higher Education
Lion F. Gardiner has written a very disturbing book. Redesigning Higher
Education:Producing Dramatic Gains in Student Learning (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education
Report, Vol. 23, No. 7. Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, Graduate
School of Education and Human Development) is both a scathing attack on the status quo in
higher education and a guide toward modernizing and professionalizing administration,
facult, staff, and students in today's colleges.
One pivotal chapter in this important work briefly summarizes the flaws of higher
education that are firmly established in decades of recent research cited during the first
half of the book and dwells on the promise of using research-proven methods for
"Improving Quality" (105-121). That chapter is summarized below with a
moral twist that echoes an occasional theme of the book, the ethical implications of
"scrapping" so many college students. As you read both lists, you have to
decide which traits characterize your college.
The Seven Deadly Sins of Higher Education
- Operating according to "academic tradition" rather than on principles firmly
established by research in modern educational theory.
- Operating for the "expediency" of faculty and administration rather than
adjusting for "our students' developmental needs."
- Taking an "atheoretical or lay hypothetical approach to students and learning"
rather than following what research tells us about ways to develop students.
- Virtually eliminating advising.
- Merely placing students upon entry rather than assessing their "developmental
levels or needs."
- Conducting most classes so that students are to "listen passively to authorities
tell[ing] them facts," despite the research-proven fact that most listeners to
lectures spend at least half of their time in fantasy and personal memories, rather than
engaging students with content by means of activities that require higher-order thinking
skills.
- Undermining an academic climate by having very little contact with students outside of
the classroom rather than integrating out-of-class time with the curriculum and systematic
student development.
The remedies are hinted at in the statements above, but the research-based virtues of
higher education show the potential for teaching virtually all students at no increase in
cost. "The cost of quality is zero," Gardiner reminds us, because the
costs of an initial investment in better education pay for themselves by increased
retention--and factors like increased alumni contributions from additional graduates.
Although each of the "virtues" listed below applies to the whole system of
education at an institution, each can also be applied to the classroom.
The Seven Cardinal Virtues of Higher Education
- Living the Mission: Having a mission statement and goals is a
meaningless gesture by itself. The actions of eveyone at a thriving college
communicate the institutional purpose consistently. In addition, the stated goals of
the institution need to be truly significant to avoid elevating minutiae. Thriving
institutions
 | use their goals to make them useful rather than adding extra programs and activities |
| integrate and coordinate consistent teaching principles across the curriculum rather
than overly departmentalizing programs and rather than erecting private domains for
individual administrators or faculty. |
Acting on Results: Thriving institutions not only define goals,
outcomes, objectives but also assess the degree to which they are achieved, using results
to improve courses and programs, lauding their research-based successes to potential
students and to funding agents. In addition, "input assessment" tells such
institutions the abilities of arriving students so that the true impact of the educational
program can be made clear when "outcome assessment" is completed.
"Process assessment" helps to solidify the connection between results and the
institution's efforts.
Integrated Curricula: A purposeful community uses known psychological
theories inside and outside of the classroom to foster students' increasing their
abilities to deal with "abstraction, epistemology, moral development, and ego
development, . . . capacity for intimacy, . . . interpersonal social skills, . . . and
identity" (111). Across the curriculum, not just in isolated "study
skills" courses, teachers in a learning community use "step-by-step
training" in critical thinking and metacognition, along with "abundant
practice" and "timely feedback in diverse contexts." Developing
wisdom can be the chief process of higher education. "Humane and
democratic values" are fostered by allowing students to think rather than forcing
them to memorize facts alone, as well as by helping students separate self-esteem from
hostile responses and "apply this understanding skillfully in the personal decision
making and interactions with others" (112).
"Doing What Works": "Newer, more modern professional
methods . . . known empirically to respond effectively to students' diverse levels of
development and styles of learning" can help colleges virtually "individualize
mass instruction" (113). The challenge is to design education so that it
"can produce the diverse and higher-order cognitive outcomes society demands, involve
students in sustained, intensive work with one another, develop a challenging and
supportive classroom climate that builds self-esteem, specifically teach interpersonal and
team skills, develop the capacity and desire for lifelong learning, and . . . personalize
mass instruction." Lecturing on facts and testing for isolated facts, the
research makes clear repeatedly, does not meet this challenge. What does?
| Gardiner advocates "systematizing instruction" to provide a framework to help
faculty state outcomes, see the learning tasks needed to get students to achieve each
outcome, find required resources, structure course activities, and measure results. |
| "Active learning" methods range from lectures that involve "substantial
interaction among students and between students and teachers" to individualized
learning. Instances include
 | Workshop Physics at Dickinson College (see S. Tobias, Revitalizing Undergraduate
Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't. Tucson, Arizona: Research Corp., 1992),
which reduced course content by 30 percent in order to deepen learning for long-term
knowledge |
| mastery learning (see C-L. C. Kulik, J. A. Kulik, and R. L. Bangert-Drowns,
"Effectiveness of Mastery Learning Programs: A Meta-analysis," Review of
Educational Research 60.2 (1990): 265-299), which "emphasizes high-quality
achievement on the part of all students" (115) |
| Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), or the Keller plan (see T.R. Guskey, Improving
Student Learning in College Classrooms, Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1988),
includes clear objectives, reading, active learning, some self-pacing, mastery learning
and careful sequencing, peer tutors, and "timely and nonpunitive assessment and
feedback" (115-116). If a few lectures are used, they are optional and
primarily motivational. |
| Cooperative learning (see D.W. Johnson, R.T. Johnson, and K.A. Smith, Cooperative
Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity, ASHE-ERIC Higher
Education Report No. 4, Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, School of
Education and Human Development, 1991. ED 343 465. 168 pp. MF-01; PC-07) involves students
in groups using a flexible selection of methods, can increase class attendance, and
"has had strong positive effects on students' self-esteem, relations among members of
different races, and cooperativeness in other situations (117). |
| Guided Design (G. P. White and W.C.C. Coscarelli, The Guided Design Guidebook:
Patterns in Implementation, Morgantown: University of West Virginia, National Center
for Guided Design, 1986), which is a group problem-solving method, basically |
| Learning
communities involve collaborative efforts across campus (see the Washington Center for Improving the
Quality of Undergraduate Education, Washington Center News Special Ten-Year
Anniversary Issue 8.2, 1994). |
|
Campus Climate: Motorola notes a "30-to-1 return on training
expenditures." For a college to become a learning community, the managers must
be studying the management methods that most academic administrators don't get in graduate
school (137-138), while the faculty must be studying the modern educational methods and
technologies and principles of student development theory that they seldom learn in
graduate school (141). Such "retraining" must be more than single-shot
workshops (141)--practice and critical feedback are needed (138) to develop not only
management and teaching skills but also to learn how to cultivate interpersonal skills and
critical thinking in our students. Further, administrators who listen and act on
what they hear instead of fostering competition and mistrust (135) can help minimize
faculty burnout (136). This applies from the college president to the department chair
(135 & 137). When administration, faculty, and staff are learners and share in
one vision for the college (138) and when the personal integrity of the college leadership
causes strong efforts to build community through sharing information, cooperation among
parts of the college instead of isolation, giving control to their workers who can then
take pride in their work, and replacing fear with respect (133), then a true learning
community can result.
Preparing Students to Learn: Although most students don't spend enough
time on task, the quality of the effort is what really matters. Instead of training
students to memorize isolated terms and definitions and to "study" by merely
reading assigned materials for a first or second time, students need to be trained in
every class "specific methods of learning and metacognition," such as reciting
instead of rereading (119). (See, for example, "Deep Learning, Surface
Learning," AAHE Bulletin 45.8 (1993): 10-13.) Assessing learning
skills with a tool like the LASSI for systematic diagnosis of students' incoming and
outgoing skills would help establish learning as the primary business of the college.
"Developmental Academic Advising": Instead of the isolation
and 15 minutes of registration activity typical of higher education, which supports
sorting and scrapping of high percentages of students, advising for retention of students
involves "thorough assessment of a student's characteristics and feedback, guidance,
and mentoring from trained advisers throughout the college" (120).
Scrapping students costs an institution ethically and financially in lost tuition and
state matching funds, alumni gifts, recruiting new students to replace the attrition.
Even a 5% increase in retention could recoup thousands of dollars for an
institution, leading to "educational solvency" (127-128). Education is
second only to the family in its impact on individual lives (128). Our challenge as
an industry is to produce "a nation of self-aware, enthusiastic, and skilled critical
thinkers," to produce "humane citizens--men and women of wisdom--who can
interact effectively with others in the workplace and the community" (149).
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1999