[Newspoetry] online writing workshop

[Bill Wendling]

Also sprach Rob Wittig:
} 
} Not to either . . . 
} a) trigger evil flashbacks
} or
} b) require a length reply
} . . . but simply because of 
} my own naivete
} (and the suspicion that the answers might be delightful to read)
} It occurs to me to ask:
} What, precisely, goes wrong with the competitive academic model?
} (I have never experienced it.)
} answer or not as you like
} 
My mini-treatise on academia and what it seems to require from the
student follows.

The academic model we are saddled with these days is wholly unsuitable
for giving the student the tools to comprehend the subject at hand. It's
based around lectures and exams. The lectures don't encourage a dialogue
between student and teacher since classes can be rather large in size or
geographically distributed (in the form of web learning).

The teacher is completely isolated from the students' needs. She cannot
know how each student is doing, how much they grasp the material, etc.
The only method available to the teacher at a large university is the
exam.

It's my firm belief that exams are detrimental to the learning process.
They disrupt, for approximately 1 week, any dissemination or absorption
of new information since all resources are put towards the upcoming 1
hour period which will judge the students' capabilities in the subject.
Because of time constraints, questions on the exam have to be basic, so
no new information is given. Exams, by their very nature, are highly
anxiety/stress filled times. These two factors, and many more, make exams
usless as a means of determining who knows what. They tend to favor those
who can be relaxed in such a high stress situation and who have good
short term memories.

What does this have to do with the competitive academic model? Because
this is the competitive academic model. Such a model favors those who
have the winner-takes-all attitude. Those who can rote remember and
regurgitate on a test without really learning anything of substance. I
pester each of my professors with the same speech every year about how
the current system is fundamentally flawed in the ways I mentioned above.
The only alternative I could offer them is a mentoring system (which is
what grad school is supposed to be about anyway). That way the professor
would know each student on a personal level and be able to determine when
said student knows the material, etc.

This is scetchy, but I hope it's what you were looking for :).

-- 
|| Bill Wendling			wendling at ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu