Evaluating students for research
I didn't like science when I first started high school. I thought science was a string of facts that you memorized. My opinion changed when I went to Governor's School and spent the summer doing a research project. Research, I learned, was fun and engaging. While I was quite capable when sitting in a classroom, I've learned that I don't enjoy it, and my tolerance for it has decreased significantly since my younger years. (That might be a surprise based on the fact that I've been in school so long, but there it is.)
A couple months ago, I asked someone for a letter of recommendation for a grad fellowship. This person responded that they could write about the paper/presentation I had done for a more informal class, but since they hadn't had me in a regular class, they weren't comfortable saying much else.
I was very surprised at this response. The reason I had asked this particular person for this recommendation was precisely because they had seen me work on something that required me to do more than the standard "learn concept, regurgitate." This class was similar to a journal club where we had weekly discussions on journal articles. At the end of the course, those who were enrolled had to read a lot of literature on a particular topic and then write a paper and give a presentation on what they'd read. The particular topic I was interested in was taken by someone else, so I decided to choose a topic that was one we had only marginally touched in the course. Several people talked me afterwards and mentioned they'd enjoyed my talk.
This has been one of the few opportunities I'd had since coming here to demonstrate something beyond normal classroom skills in a course. Because this fellowship was about research, I thought this professor was in a much better position to assess my abilities compared to someone who had taught me in a "regular" class. I was therefore very surprised at his response.
I read a book called, Teaching Engineering, a couple years ago. Perhaps I mentioned it back when I read it. One thing that really caught my attention was the comment that students who are more visual-spatial will tend to do poorly in classrooms where fundamentals are being taught (in this context, you can imagine courses like circuits and electronics) but (if they make it that far) will often excel in upper-level courses where they can draw upon their superior skills in synthesis. Of course, the ideal is to have a very balanced learning style such that you can sail through all types of learning smoothly. Realistically, there are a large number of people who don't have that option.
I know a lot of professors understand there is a large difference between being able to perform well in a classroom versus performing well in research. The two do, of course, have some cross-over of skill sets, but obviously there are a lot of areas where the two do not mesh. And, in some ways, research and traditional classrooms are mutually exclusive.
This is one of many reasons I feel it is important to try to teach courses more comprehensively. That is, teaching a course that encourages only surface learning not only does not provide the students with meaningful information, but it also deprives teachers of determining a student's ability for more complex, higher-level learning. If undergraduates want to go on to graduate school, it seems that a good evaluation of a student would require that the student had participated in some sort of deeper-learning exercise either as part of their coursework or as an activity that supplemented their coursework.
However, this requires an academic culture where there is an acceptance of learning differences. If all of the professors in a department have done very well both in a traditional classroom setting as well as in research, they may not understand or care that there are students who may excel in one area but are average in another. Likewise, students who are more interested in deep learning and research may very quickly lose interest. Weeding such students out may be the objective or (perhaps, an unfortunate) result of a program which is run by those who assume that there is only one way to learn and to demonstrate competence.
A couple months ago, I asked someone for a letter of recommendation for a grad fellowship. This person responded that they could write about the paper/presentation I had done for a more informal class, but since they hadn't had me in a regular class, they weren't comfortable saying much else.
I was very surprised at this response. The reason I had asked this particular person for this recommendation was precisely because they had seen me work on something that required me to do more than the standard "learn concept, regurgitate." This class was similar to a journal club where we had weekly discussions on journal articles. At the end of the course, those who were enrolled had to read a lot of literature on a particular topic and then write a paper and give a presentation on what they'd read. The particular topic I was interested in was taken by someone else, so I decided to choose a topic that was one we had only marginally touched in the course. Several people talked me afterwards and mentioned they'd enjoyed my talk.
This has been one of the few opportunities I'd had since coming here to demonstrate something beyond normal classroom skills in a course. Because this fellowship was about research, I thought this professor was in a much better position to assess my abilities compared to someone who had taught me in a "regular" class. I was therefore very surprised at his response.
I read a book called, Teaching Engineering, a couple years ago. Perhaps I mentioned it back when I read it. One thing that really caught my attention was the comment that students who are more visual-spatial will tend to do poorly in classrooms where fundamentals are being taught (in this context, you can imagine courses like circuits and electronics) but (if they make it that far) will often excel in upper-level courses where they can draw upon their superior skills in synthesis. Of course, the ideal is to have a very balanced learning style such that you can sail through all types of learning smoothly. Realistically, there are a large number of people who don't have that option.
I know a lot of professors understand there is a large difference between being able to perform well in a classroom versus performing well in research. The two do, of course, have some cross-over of skill sets, but obviously there are a lot of areas where the two do not mesh. And, in some ways, research and traditional classrooms are mutually exclusive.
This is one of many reasons I feel it is important to try to teach courses more comprehensively. That is, teaching a course that encourages only surface learning not only does not provide the students with meaningful information, but it also deprives teachers of determining a student's ability for more complex, higher-level learning. If undergraduates want to go on to graduate school, it seems that a good evaluation of a student would require that the student had participated in some sort of deeper-learning exercise either as part of their coursework or as an activity that supplemented their coursework.
However, this requires an academic culture where there is an acceptance of learning differences. If all of the professors in a department have done very well both in a traditional classroom setting as well as in research, they may not understand or care that there are students who may excel in one area but are average in another. Likewise, students who are more interested in deep learning and research may very quickly lose interest. Weeding such students out may be the objective or (perhaps, an unfortunate) result of a program which is run by those who assume that there is only one way to learn and to demonstrate competence.