As a historian, I have always been skeptical of generational labels. The idea that Baby Boomers are radically different from Gen-Xers or the still more recent Millennials seems better suited for selling books and magazines than explaining the evolution of human behavior. So when I first heard of the FACETS seminars on teaching the “new” generation of college students, my eyes rolled. There was nothing wrong with higher education that couldn’t be fixed by a little more willingness on the part of students to crack a book.
The Different Priorities of a “New” Generation
. . . I had begun to worry that a student’s ability to succeed in these assignments depended as much on his or her individual learning style as it did on their work ethic and innate ability.
But then I thought for a moment. Getting students to crack the books was exactly the dilemma that I often faced in my classes. But increasingly, I had my doubts that a lack of diligence and motivation from students was at the root of the problem. In fact, in my two brief years as a history professor at UWSP, I had found that students were generally hard working, eager to learn, and willing in most cases to challenge themselves in the process. But frequently, these values were poorly engaged by the traditional experience of the university history course: the fifty-minute lecture, the bluebook essay-exam, and the historical research paper based on readings and primary documents. Instead of enthusiasm, such assignments inspired apathy. Worse yet, I had begun to worry that a student’s ability to succeed in these assignments depended as much on his or her individual learning style as it did on their work ethic and innate ability.
Perhaps here, I wondered, there might be something tangible in the different priorities of a “new” generation. Despite my skepticism about such labels, there are obvious differences in the way the current group of Millennial college students has grown up in comparison to earlier generations. Most notably, they are remarkably comfortable with modern forms of communication, especially the Internet. At the same time, they seem remarkably impatient with the older methods of my own college experience, namely listening to lectures, reading books, and researching in the library. Although I am a relatively young “Gen-Xer” myself and more than comfortable surfing the Web, I am old enough to remember when computers were new. I had to learn to use them—to research and write; to think, to communicate—and there remain many tasks for which I still consider the newfangled machines pernicious. Why anyone would choose, for example, to go online to read a book or a newspaper is beyond me. Yet, for most of my college students, their own familiarity with these methods of communicating began at birth. It is second nature to them, a set of skills and a way of thinking they did not consciously learn.
FACETS—Ways to Reconsider My Own Teaching Strategies
Consequently, I signed on for the FACETS seminars with two goals in mind. First, I hoped to gain a more theoretical understanding of the challenges I face in the classroom, especially those involving the learning styles and preferences of younger college students. Second, I wanted to explore new ways of reaching these students more successfully, methods that moved beyond the lecture-and-exam format typical of history courses. On both counts, my participation in FACETS proved worth the effort. The seminars encouraged me to think critically about teaching methods, especially how to engage students as active participants in their education. Among the most promising strategies was to make better use of those pernicious machines with which my students seemed so comfortable. Toward that end, I experimented with several online learning tools: web-based course content; audio-visual materials; and online discussion groups designed to teach students that history is a lively and relevant aspect of modern life. In general, these experiments turned out to be useful additions to my approach in the classroom. But even more important, my participation in FACETS led me toward a renewed appreciation for the value of the liberal education we provide at UWSP. While methods must certainly evolve to meet the changing needs of students, in the process it becomes more important than ever to emphasize the content, skills, and values that we strive to communicate through our teaching.
In a world where basic factual information is so readily available, the idea of memorizing facts for a test seems unnecessary and illogical to many students. They have a point.
Without question, the most important practical lesson I learned in the FACETS seminars ways to reconsider my own teaching methods. In particular, the seminars encouraged participants to design courses around the outcomes they hoped to achieve, rather than simply the knowledge they hoped to impart. Obviously, learning basic concepts and information is an outcome we might expect from any college course. But in history, as in most disciplines, it is rarely the most important one. Much more significant is that students learn the skills required to practice history: to process and evaluate large amounts of information, to think carefully and critically about its importance to relevant questions, and to effectively communicate their conclusions. Yet, when I measured these goals against my own course syllabi, I found several disparities between the work I asked students to do and the skills I hoped they would learn. The most glaring problem occurred with the traditional bluebook exam in which students were asked to write timed in-class essays in response to broad historical questions. In a world where basic factual information is so readily available, the idea of memorizing facts for a test seems unnecessary and illogical to many students. They have a point. Even more troubling, doing well on such exams likely depends more immediately on a student’s ability to recall information under pressure than his or her understanding of the material. If “memorizing information” and “thinking clearly under pressure” are not high on my list of expected outcomes for the course, then it made little sense to make them such important components of the graded assignments I asked students to perform.
As a result, I went back to the drawing board. Rather than giving bluebook exams in class, I asked students to write the same essays at home, where they would have more time to consider the questions and marshal the kinds of information required to support their arguments. Likewise, although I continue to rely primarily on lectures to deliver the content of my courses, I now use a number of additional “modern” methods as well. In particular, I incorporated a variety of online tools, including Desire2Learn, the course management software licensed by UWSP. Using this software, I now require students to read online articles and primary documents, take online quizzes to assess their performance, and participate in week-long online discussion forums on topics related to the course. Adding this content necessitates reducing the number of classroom meetings, which has an obvious appeal to some students. But the majority of students value Desire2Learn for its pedagogical advantages. “Hybrid courses [taught partly online] are convenient and they work,” one student remarked. “I’ve learned more effectively and at my own pace.” As such comments suggest, students enjoy the opportunity to assume a more active role in their education, and to engage more directly with the content of the course. They especially like the online discussions. “I'm the type of person who during in-class discussions would just listen and probably never say anything,” another student confessed. And, from another student came, “The online component helps me to participate.” These kinds of comments are typical of the reactions I received after adopting Desire2Learn, and they suggest the ways in which so-called Millennial students may be aided by the use of technologies which, though new in the classroom, are entirely familiar to them.
A Liberal Arts Education—The Backbone of an Education
Although my efforts to accommodate this “new” generation of students and their methods of communicating have been generally successful, I remain skeptical about many of the other supposed characteristics of Millennials. In particular, again because students now have unprecedented access to information, they are said to be less willing to defer to professors and the disciplinary boundaries that now comprise the bureaucracy of higher education. Consequently, during the FACETS seminars, we discussed ways in which faculty might serve as guides rather than experts in their respective fields, and how the campus might alter its curriculum to better address the needs of students.
I have never placed much stock in my own expertise, but I am decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of changing basic course requirements. Certainly, there is something of a crisis at UWSP regarding the university’s General Degree Requirements, or GDRs. The GDRs are the essence of what a liberal arts education is supposed to entail. They ensure that students at UWSP receive a broad education, an experience that provides not just a trade but exposure to the arts, humanities, natural sciences, math, foreign languages, and minority and environmental studies. In this respect, the GDRs are what separate the education we offer at UWSP from the training that students might receive at a technical college. Many of the classes I teach fulfill these requirements, and as a result, most of my students are not history majors. Recently, I began asking them what they thought of the GDRs, and their collective response was disturbing. In general, students have a great deal of animosity toward these courses. They view them as obstacles to their getting the degree, bureaucratic requirements that have nothing to do with their major, and by extension, little connection to the job training they hope to get at UWSP.
How best to combat this problem is a topic I’ve discussed at some length since my participation in the FACETS seminars. Some colleagues suggest modernizing our curriculum, reducing the number of requirements or reshaping courses to offer students more “practical” experiences. But in my typically skeptical view, this seems an overreaction to the perceived expectations of students. Among the most important lessons I learned from my experience in FACETS is that there may in fact be better ways to teach old lessons to these “new” students. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to rethink the very purpose of the liberal education we seek to provide. For me, then, the most important question raised by the FACETS seminars was how we might keep institutions such as UWSP relevant to the Millennial generation without losing sight of the basic skills we are trying to teach: thinking critically; understanding the contributions of art, science, and the humanities to modern life; and, yes, even spending a few quality hours in the library reading a book. I have yet to find satisfactory ways of answering this challenge. Nonetheless, my participation in FACETS and the discoveries I made there have given me a new sense of confidence that the answers deserve to be found.
Afterthoughts—Looking Backwards
Unfortunately, two years removed from my FACETS experience, it seems that my early skepticism may well have been justified. It remains unclear whether or not any of the changes I made in the classroom really worked to inspire students or foster a deeper level of learning. To be fair, students did enjoy the online content and discussions, and I still include these tools in my class as a supplement to the lectures. But there were few noticeable improvements in the quality of student writing or their overall performance in the class. Even more troubling were my efforts to shift from in-class bluebook exams to take-home essays. Although the take-home assignment worked well for the majority of students, giving them more time to think for themselves and craft their response to historical questions, it also encouraged a small but substantial minority of students to cheat. The remarkable versatility of the Internet, it seems, is as much a curse as it is a wonder. No matter what I did to discourage students from simply cutting-and-pasting from various websites, the level of plagiarism in the class jumped markedly each semester. As a result, I have resigned myself once again to testing with bluebooks, despite their obvious pedagogical shortcomings.
Rest assured that I am not disappointed with my experience in FACETS. In the end, FACETS did inspire me, if not my students, to appreciate the larger project of a liberal education and to continue looking for better ways to achieve its aims in the classroom. Answers such as these are never easy to find, but I still believe the search is worth the effort.
Brief Bio: Greg is Assistant Professor of History at the UW-SP, where he teaches courses in American history, the history of Wisconsin, environmental history, and the history of technology. He received his Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2001.His first book, entitled Consuming Nature: Environmentalism in the Fox River Valley, 1850-1950 will be published by the University Press of Kansas in September 2006. Contact Greg at: gsummers@uwsp.edu