There have been a few interesting posts lately about collaborative learning. Many of them spout the relentlessly cheerful “we tried it and it was amazing and I wish more teachers would shift their paradigms because the students love it so much” line. (Hmmm. Perhaps my frustrations are already leaking through, eh?)
Happily, Seb Paquet pointed me to Martin Blanche’s post on “Obstacles to collaborative learning.” (Permalinks are broken, alas, so go to his main page for now.) I’ll take the liberty of quoting them here:* Students and lecturers are more familiar with a knowledge-transmission model of education and don’t always understand what is expected of us in a more constructionist environment. * We have too little information about lecturers’ and students’ backgrounds, networks and skills - so often we don’t realise that there is somebody in the group who could teach the rest of us a lot about some aspect of what we’re studying.One of his readers, Antje, added a few more:
* No or very limited mechanisms for students to talk back to the lecturer and (especially) to talk to one another.
* Inadequate ‘course memory’. Lecturers often are the only bridge for this year’s students to the knowledge created by last year’s group - students don’t get to see what last year’s group did. There is no mechanism for students who want to stay in the group after the course is officially over (and who could be a useful resource for next year’s students) to do so.
* Knowledge level of participants (if they come from different educational backgrounds and models they may have different experiences with education, different subject knowledge and different attitudes towards learning)
* Motivation (collaborative learning needs a great deal of personal motivation, a quality not very much present in a goal-oriented (degree hunting), immediate-satisfaction-seeking (fast-food …) society which we are more and more becoming. Motivation pre-supposes the need or urge to WANT to know and to WANT to make an effort … found, unfortunately, in a small percentage of humans)
* Personal characteristics (inrovert / extrovert / confidence levels). many students may want to contribute but are afraid of making mistakes or afraid of being patronised. others are unsure how exactly to contribute (collaborative learning does not instruct on how to use collaborative learning skills and can easily end up being an unstructured, anxiety-provoking lassez faire situation)
* Integration (integration of new and traditional learning approaches should be the aim rather than collaborative learning ‘in place of’ traditional teaching style models (and I guess Martin sees it that like I do). A combination will allow the student to weigh both aspects and become over time more accustomed to the s(often more frightening) approach of collaborative learning at his / her own speed.”
As I read through these, nodding my head in recognition, it occurred to me that there are probably significant variations in student (and faculty) receptiveness to these new paradigms across both academic disciplines, and academic institutions. At RIT, I’ve encountered a great deal of resistance—from students, not colleagues or administrators—when trying to move to more participatory, collaborative learning. I suspect that this is a function of both the technical nature of the field, and the institutional culture (which is fed by the $21K/yr tuition rate). Students are often resentful and critical when they feel they “aren’t getting their money’s worth” out of a class. Many of them feel entitled to lectures, whether or not they facilitate learning outcomes.
Perhaps I need to find more innovative ways to convince them of the value of a paradigm shift, but with 3 courses per quarter, 3 quarters per year, and an average of 30 students in each class, I’ve been hard pressed to innovate at that level. This year may be better. We’ll see.
Loren Webster blogged his reading of Catch-22 this month, providing excerpts and commentary as he worked his way through the book. I really enjoyed that—being able to see a book through someone else’s eyes, read his thoughts and analysis along with Heller’s original text.
So today, as I started re-reading Unlocking the Clubhouse, I decided to try to blog the book as I work my way through it.
I’m doing this for several reasons. First, because it will help me read the book more actively, and integrate it with my own thoughts through the process of writing about it. Second, because I’ll have easy, searchable access to my notes once I’m done. And third, because I think it’s worth sharing parts of this book with those who haven’t read it. It’s not unlike real-time conference blogging, really. Except that anyone who wants a copy of the book can get one.
I’m of two minds on comments. I’m doing this primarily for myself, and to share some information—I’m not particularly interested in getting into arguments on every point. On the other hand, hearing alternative perspectives could be interesting. So I’m going to start with comments open on these posts…but I may change my mind and close them if they turn into flamewars. I’ll aggregate the posts under an “Unlocking the Clubhouse” category, linked at the bottom of each post.)
Written by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, the book chronicles Carnegie-Mellon University’s efforts to (a) understand and (b) address the issue of underrpresentation of women in their CS department. When they began their study, women made up 7% of their entering freshman class. (Sounds depressingly familiar.) Five years later, the percentage had risen to 42%. During that same five year period, it should be noted, the overall national percentage of women in CS programs had dropped steadily.
Here’s a key passage from the introduction:
The study of computer science can be seen as a microcosm of how a realm of power can be claimed by one group of people, relegating others to outsiders. While not ruling out the possibilities of gender differences in cognitive preferences, we challenge the assumption that computer science is “just boring for girls and women” by showing the weighty influences that steal women’s interest in computer science away from them. Our book tells the story of women students who were once enthusiastic about studying computer science and what happens to them in school.s. We describe what teacher sand parents need to do to engage and protect girls’ interests and change computer science into a field that is engaging and interesting for a much larger and more diverse group of students. The goal is not to fit women into computer science as it is currently taught and conceived. Rather, a cultural and curricular revolution is required to change computer science so that the valuable contributions and perspectives of women are respected within the discipline.
When I’ve written in the past about women and technology, or spoken with people about the small number of women in computing programs and professions, the response is often “so what?” So what if women aren’t in the programs—if they’re not interested, they’re not interested. As one person wrote sarcastically in my comments, “Clearly […] we must start forcing more women to become engineers! (Beware the use of a single statistic as an indicator of a complex system. Be-more-ware the tendency to take action based on such a statistic.)”
Margolis and Fisher must have faced similar questions, because they devote a large section of the introduction to this topic. They go beyond the obvious potential benefits to the women of the wider range of job options available to someone conversant with a range of information technologies. Here’s the passage I found compelling:
In the long run, the greatest impact may be on the health of computing as a discipline and its impact on society. The near absence of women’s voices at the drawing board has pervasive effects. Workplace systems are build around male cultural models, and entertainment software fulfills primarily male desires.
They provide several examples to illustrate this problem—voice recognition systems that were calibrated to men’s voices so that women literally went unheard. Automotive airbags designed for male bodies, which resulted in avoidable deaths of women and children. Artificial heart valves sized to the male heart. They continue:
Along with technology’s power come responsibilities to determine what computing is used for and how it is used. These concerns may not be on the mind of adolescent boys who get turned on to computing at an early age and go on to become the world’s computer wizards. But these concerns must be part of a computer scientist’s line of work. The conversation among computer scientists shold not be isolated to all-boy clubhouses; women’s voices and perspectives should be part of this conversation. For this to happen, women must know more than how to use technology; they must know how to design and create it.
Theoretically, IT is more focused on these aspects of computing than traditional CS, which is one reason we’d expected that our program would be more attractive women. Thus far, it seems we were wrong. What remains to be seen is whether it’s a function of the program itself, or a problem with the pipeline leading to it. I suspect both, but that’s the point of our research. (New and far more detailed web site underway for that…stay tuned.)
(This is one in a series of entries from <a href=”<$MTBlogURL$>”>mamamusings related to the book Unlocking the Clubhouse, by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher. For the whole series, go to the “unlocking the clubhouse” category page.)
In discussions of gender differences, it’s not unusual to hear people ascribing emotional responses to women, and rational responses to men. But what Margolis and Fisher found about men’s and women’s reasons for studying CS were very different. They discuss this at length in chapter 3.
We have found that women decide to major in computer science based on a broad set of criteria. The simple enjoyment of computing is a leading factor for women, but other factors also weigh heavily in their decisions. They value the versatility of computing, its relation to their interests in math and science, its career path to safe and secure employment, the exciting and changing nature of the field, and the encouragement they received from parents and teachers. For many male students, in contrast, the decision to major in computer science barely reaches the level of conscious consideration; it is a natural extension of their lifelong passion for computing.
Of course, the dot-com downturn has had an impact on the “safe and secure employment,” and at least one person I’ve spoken with has told me that they think that’s a major reason for women not entering computing fields now. But when you look at the numbers from the CMU study, that factor ranks fourth.
In the CMU study, forty-four percent of the women—but only nine percent of the men—linked their interest in computing to other arenas. Margolis and Fisher call this “computing with a purpose,” and again, that’s what we’ve tried to do in IT as opposed to CS. Are we failing in conveying that to the students we’d like to attract? Or is our implementation not in line with our stated goals?
Margolis and Fisher end the chapter by suggesting that computing can—and should—be taught in interdisciplinary contexts.
[This] establishes multiple standards of excellence, which together can yield a stronger community of computing professionals than any one by itself. The perspective that computer science can make itself stronger by incorporating the values typical of women in the field changes the question from “How can women change to fit into computer science?” to “How can computer science change to attract more women?”
(This is one in a series of entries from <a href=”<$MTBlogURL$>”>mamamusings related to the book Unlocking the Clubhouse, by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher. For the whole series, go to the “unlocking the clubhouse” category page.)
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