Teachers, Classrooms, and Change - Thinking Classroom #3 - Volume 8 - 2007 - Journal Archive - Thinking Classroom Journal - Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking

In our previous column, we reflected on the notion of critical lessons, the subject matter and topics that are most pressing in our world today. Inspired by the work of Nel Noddings, the author of Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach, we focused on the idea that the content of our classes and of the school curriculum should examine the great moral and social issues of the day. We invited readers to move beyond critical thinking as the means of teaching and learning in any field in order to ask fundamental curricular questions: What is critical? What should we be teaching? Education for what purposes? Can we agree on what topics are critical for our students’ learning?

This time, we approach the topic from a somewhat different angle. What makes learning significant for our students? Last time, the focus was on the decisions teachers make about what to teach. This time we focus on students and the ways they make their learning significant in their lives.

At the beginning of the spring semester, we asked our students to write for five minutes about their view of an ideal learning experience. Our students are in their second or third year of university-level literature study, and some of them are in a teacher education program, so they have twelve years of schooling plus several years of university learning experiences on which to base their answers. We gave them a clean sheet of paper, the beginning words of a sentence—“For me, the perfect class is ….”—and five minutes of class time. What would they say?

We were curious to find out, because we have been reading the book Creating Significant Learning Experiences by L. Dee Fink. Near the beginning of the book, the author reports the results of a similar survey he had offered to university professors. He asked them to complete this sentence: “My dream is that students, one to two years after the course is over, will be able to….” The professors’ answers did not stress simply memory of course content, but rather the many ways they hoped students would put their learning to work in the world. Among other goals, professors dreamed that their students would:

Apply and use what they learn to solve real-life situations.
Find ways to make the world better.
Engage in lifelong learning.
See the connections between beliefs, values, and actions, and those of others.
Stay positive, despite the setbacks and challenges of life and work.
Think critically, to incorporate this thinking in their daily lives, and to share knowledge and skills with others to work towards a just world for all.

(Fink, 2003, pp. 9-10)

Their responses make it clear that these university teachers aspire to design courses that offer students much more than the factual knowledge of their content area, that go beyond content knowledge to provide skills and attitudes they will need to live productive lives. Such teachers, whether they are in a primary school or a university, aim to influence the kinds of people their students will become, and the kinds of citizens they will be in their societies.

So what did our students think would make a perfect class? First, they want the classroom experience itself to be engaging, interesting, and fun.

One student wrote that she wants “a class I’m excited to go to, where I learn something so interesting that I have to go home and tell my roommate.” Several said that they want a teacher who demonstrates passion for the material, and whose excitement is contagious. Many wrote about enjoying those classes in which the work is interesting to them—where the homework is something they look forward to doing, “not out of obligation but because of passion and joy.” Several students remarked that the perfect class is one that makes personal growth and change an exciting process. One student wrote, “For me the perfect class is one where I fall in love with something new. I will wake up in the morning knowing that I have the class that day, and I will be excited for it to begin. It will teach me more than just the subject itself; instead I will look at my life differently. When the class is over, I’m different from when it began. And I’m better for having taken the class.”

For our students, the perfect class is not only enjoyable, but also challenging. They valued those classes that really stretched them to think in new ways, that put difficult and complex material in front of them, and forced them to think carefully about it. They were dismissive of course-work that they perceived as busy work, too easy, or a waste of time. “The perfect class challenges me not just to learn but to think,” one student wrote. “It involves opposing viewpoints, requires me to define my thesis and amend it as I learn more, and it asks and earns my attention and careful intelligence.”

For some students, a perfect class is one that offers multiple ways of learning. “Every day offers an activity, a challenge, a lively discussion, or unexpected excitement.” Students called for a mix of lectures, discussions, experiments, small-group work, film—as many ways of learning as there are students in the class. Within this diversity of methods, students asked for freedom to make their own choices about what works best for them. One student put it this way: “I like to be led, but permitted to wander.”

The social dimension of learning was often at the forefront of our students’ minds. They called for classes that invite students to be engaged, but do not force them to be involved unwillingly. “I beg not to be put in the spotlight against my will, but rather I like being comfortable enough in my surroundings to volunteer myself.” Even more important were the learning goals that stress learning about oneself and others. “For me the perfect class is one where I learn about others and I also learn more about myself.” Another wrote, “The perfect class is one that teaches me about the world and makes sense of things that are confusing to me. It is one where I am able to grow as a person and better my relationships with others.”

What was finally most important for these 20- and 21-year-old students was gaining a better sense of direction for the future. While they care deeply about the experience of the class itself, they are also keenly aware of how a class can contribute to their lives and careers. “Ideally a class could show me what I wanted to do in the future, or at least point me in the right direction,” said one. Another put it this way: “A perfect class is one that feeds my passion. It opens my eyes to how I can better impact the world and encourages me to dream and follow through on those dreams.”

All these dreams from professors and from students about the ideal learning experience have a great deal in common. At the root of their shared desires is their understanding that learning must become significant. Both teachers and students dream about learning experiences that go beyond the acquisition of knowledge and lead instead to changed lives and a better world. There’s a profound optimism expressed in these dreams. And that optimism is rooted in experience: Teachers and students dream of these powerful changes because they have experienced similar changes somewhere in their lives in schools, and they want more of these beneficial outcomes.

Fink’s book focuses on the decisions teachers at every level can make as they design learning experiences to make learning significant. His book is one of many recent books by progressive educators that focus on active learning, service learning, critical thinking, problem-based learning, and other strategies.

Fink’s approach is built on a taxonomy of learning, six interlinking values that together make learning significant. It begins with Foundational Knowledge, the information and ideas that students encounter in the course. For too many teachers, instructional design begins and ends with this question of what students need to learn. Yet the comments of both the teachers and the students surveyed reveal a desire for much more than this. The next element in the taxonomy is Application, the skills and thinking habits that students need to solve problems or complete projects. The third is Integration, the lessons of a course that encourage students to make connections between ideas within the course and the ideas, people, and parts of life they have encountered outside the course.

Fink’s taxonomy includes as its fourth element the Human Dimension, which concerns learning about oneself and others. The next element is Caring, the student’s interest, passion, and energy for the work. Finally, the taxonomy stresses Learning How to Learn, the skills necessary to become a self-directed learner and a life-long learner.

Learning becomes significant for our students when the new knowledge acquired in the classroom becomes useful for solving the problems they face in life, and when they are able to care deeply and passionately about what they learn. The lessons we teach in the classroom become significant for students when they find pleasure in the work we do together, and when they recognize that our courses help them to find direction and meaning in their lives.

Critical thinking is a powerful means of teaching and learning, and it is an attitude towards knowledge that is essential in open, democratic cultures. Critical lessons focus school learning on the most pressing issues of our day. Significant learning occurs within the hearts and minds of students who are empowered and enriched by their classroom experiences to lead successful lives, lives fulfilling to themselves and meaningful in the contributions they make to others. Most of us who are teachers today can identify those moments in our own education when learning became significant in our lives. Our challenge is to design our courses so that learning becomes significant for all our students.

References

Fink, L.D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Noddings, N. (2006). Critical lessons: What our schools should teach. New York: Cambridge University Press.

David Klooster and Patricia Bloem are partners in teaching, writing, and living. Patricia is Associate Professor of English Education, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan. David is Professor and Chair, Department of English, Hope College, Holland, Michigan, USA.

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