In which I discuss educational philosophy heresy

Educational reform always provokes controversy and arguments. I honestly started engaging in healthy discussions (read arguments) about educational reform when I was in my first education theory class in college. Most education reform arguments come down to whether the current paradigm is really broken, and whether the new paradigm is enough better to be worth the trouble replacing the old paradigm. Most of these arguments have fuzzy data at best to show for either side of the argument.

In my experience, these arguments tend to ride heavily on the past educational experiences of those involved in the arguments. The problem with this approach is that it assumes the two (or three or four) argue-ers are all equivalent learners. It assumes that all learners will thrive in the environment in which the argue-er thrived. It assumes that all learners have a mental processing intake system which acquires and stores information in a similar manner. It assumes that all learners are motivated to learn by the same motivations that drove the argue-er. No wonder these arguments are typically never resolved with the one party spontaneously saying, "Wow, you're right, and I was wrong all along. Thank you!".

Why is this? I think it is because we often make the assumption that all learners are equivalent in every aspect of acquiring, storing, retrieving, and applying knowledge. This makes it easier for us to create what little data we have as our current model for getting data on effectiveness of educational models. A p-value is not so useful if the entire cohort you are studying is a ill-defined mass of goo. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we have as our substrate, an ill-defined mass of goo.

What do I mean by this? Take neuroscience education in medical school as an example. First, there are obvious background differences - people with advanced degrees in neuroscience mingle in the class with those who have no idea what the frontal lobe is all about. Second, the way people learn is different. When I was a resident, I liked to see a few patients, and then take time right then to look up a bunch of stuff about those patients. I had friends who would rather be slammed with as many patients in a shift as they could find, as they felt they learned better in the doing. Some people like learning large concepts, and then going into details, and others like learning the details first, and then piecing them together later into a larger whole. Some people like to focus on one system or organ at a time, and some people like to have multiple courses concurrently running, so there is more time to absorb the information from each course. Some people love concept maps. Personally, I've never been able to get my head around why they are so great. I'm more of an outline guy. With these differences, we are trying to measure and argue over substrate that is an ill-defined mass of goo.

I'm not saying there are not basic learning theory principles which can be universal. I am saying the application of those basic learning theories is sometimes more wibbly wobbly than the ed-heads like to let on in their arguments. It could be that this multiple choice test on whether education reform is needed is not really a multiple choice test. It's an essay test. And there are multiple right answers as long as you can justify your answer. And everybody hated those tests...

Medical students want syllabus 3.0

I've been getting feedback from students over the last two years on what materials they would like to have included in the course materials distributed with our second-year neuroscience course.  I have heard a very clear message from the students over the two years I've been teaching the course.  The expectations for what is included in the course materials and which readings are required has changed over the last few years.

Let me take you back to the mid-nineties when I took my medical school course work (and my college experience in the early 90's).  Let's call this syllabus 2.0.  I received copies of all the slides presented (as long as they were in PP, we still had some lecturers who used slide carousels and they had minimal notes printed - call that syllabus 1.0).  In class we took notes.  If you missed or ditched class, you could look back over what the lecturer talked about by subscribing to a note taking service which was run by the students.  Readings were from the required textbooks.  Test questions covered anything in the printed syllabus as well as anything said verbally in lecture (even seemingly off-hand remarks) and anything covered in the textbook.

In this model, the material is presented, but there is a intentional (or unintentional) fire hose level of information delivered.  It was up to the student to wrestle with this large volume of information, distill it down to essential concepts, and organize it in their brain to allow them to pass the test.  It was expected that there would be some test questions which were not covered explicitly in class, and the purpose of those questions was to differentiate the top of a group of very highly motivated students.  The upside of this model is that if forces the student to be able to analyze large volumes of information some of which is not a core concept, and independently synthesize the important concepts.  This skill is not outside of the required skill set to be a doctor in a clinic.  The downside is that there is room for the individual student to miss the boat and miss out on important concepts which aren't explicitly identified as core.  Also, this model can increase student anxiety during test preparation as you are not clear until you take an exam if you are missing the boat.

Let's move to 2013.  Our course syllabus was inherited from the above paradigm,  and we have been modifying multiple lectures.  Hence our lectures don't have well developed outlines or notes by the faculty to accompany PP presentations.  Students have on several occasions pointed me towards courses at our institution and others where the course materials include extensive annotation by the faculty in addition to the slides.  Students over the last two years have said things like (paraphrased):

"What I want is to have everything I need to know about this lecture written down so I can go learn it."
"I don't want to have links to a whole bunch of useful information about a topic, I want a single link to a very succinct, applicable resource."
"Even if the syllabus for a class is 450 pages, if it is all I need to look at, that's what I'd prefer."

Another way to state this is the students would like a curated information repository which is finite, organized, and focused on the learning objectives.  This sounds to me like it is mirroring discussions about moving from web 2.0 to web 3.0.  In other words, there is a desire to block out noise and focus on what is important to the individual.  Thus, all information in the course materials is honed to efficiently deliver information necessary to perform well in the course.

The upsides of this is that is very clear what the student is expected to learn.  From a pedagogy standpoint, this is an ideal situation for an educational model based on measuring competence.  Hence it is clear what measure to obtain, and all learners can potentially reach this bar.  The downside is that this perhaps does not help in the long run as this is not how real life medical decision making occurs.  There is no finite set of combinations of signs and symptoms, so often there is a need to be able to process a cacophony of noise and distill out the important ideas.  There is always more to read or more detail, and part of being a doctor is gaining skills in deciding how to be your own curator.

Which is better?  My view is we should aim in the grey of the middle.  I think it should be clear what is necessary to pass the exam, and if all material covered in class, small groups, and presentations is mastered.  I agree that if there is a picture slide, that it is reasonable for a lecturer to include some text to create context for the slide.  I do think it is also reasonable to have some way of assessing whether a student can surpass these minimal competency levels.  On an exam, that means asking questions which may not have come specifically from the readings.  It may introduce a novel topic and apply the concepts learned in class in a new way.  What are your thoughts on how much detail should course materials contain?