Week 2: Tagg (2003): Chapter 10-12; Collins (2012)

Collins (2012)

My first thought when reading about this article is "Oh my god! It is exactly happening to us!" Then I thought whether our decision would have been different if we had had a chance to read this article before we decided how our grade would be assessed.

It is great to move from my own experience in the decision making process of class assessment to the article addressing the same topic. I am excited to go over the article and curious to figure out  how our decision making is different from  that of the participants in the research.

It is really interesting to find out that we (our classmates and the participants) share many thoughts in common regarding trust, responsibility, risk, opportunities, etc. What is unexpected to me is although 98 out of 195 participants were interested in group grading option, they came to the agreement that without 100 % consensus, they would not proceed with a group grade  choice. The author explains that the students did not feel fair to force a student unwilling to take the chance of group grading. In my opinion, their agreement makes me think about the respect for an opposite idea. They are willing to open to the new idea, new experience, however, they are aware that mandating a person to live with unwilling decision makes it hard for that person and for themselves throughout the semester.

Another question raised in my mind: For the research purpose, would it be possible to have 2 two groups, one with the conventional grading structure and the other with unconventional  one to compare and contrast the motivations, learning experience, outcomes, etc. I don't know! Maybe it is not feasible!

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Tag (2003): Chapter 10-12

Tagg proposes 5 characteristics of the Learning Paradigm:
- Supporting students in pursuing their own goals
- Requiring frequent student performances
- Providing frequent and ongoing feedback
- Assuring a long time horizon for learning
- Providing stable communities of practice

The students 'goals must be the important ones and must be set by themselves in order to have much effect. But who is going to guide students to have the right and important goals? and by what way? Theoretically, a learning paradigm could help students pursue their goals. I doubt the current education is really hot cognitive economy yet. Where are we in the continuum of the Instruction Paradigm and Learning Paradigm?  Is it just half way? What I mean is that we gradually change the teaching method, value student centered, focus much more on the student learning outcomes. However,  graduation, getting a job, paying off the debt seem to be too much for students and their family. Maybe it is a surface purpose, but it is real, practical, and without achieving these goals, I doubt that students can get something like deep learning. Why we accuse that the Instruction Paradigm is the product of the higher education system only? Is it only the responsibility of educators that make students become surface learners, be more interested in grades and graduation than deep learning and growing. There is no single company, business, corporate, organization that hire an employee without qualification. And the first thing that an employer is getting to know you is through your resume where you have to reflect your educational background before your work experience, and of course, an official transcript. The higher GPA you have, the better score you get in the eye of your employer, at their first impression. I believe whenever the society, including educators, policy makers, employers, and other stakeholders still consider grades as a measure for one's capacities, they cannot ask students to change their thoughts about grades and assessment. So, in my opinion, the change should happen from the top.

Tagg argues that students should be an experimenter, a wayfarer, a person who seeks discovery, a searcher for the yet unseen, who seeks out beginnings, new engagements, new sights. He emphasizes that colleges should create a learning paradigm and inspire students to take risk to discover and build something new. He concludes that the most important job of university professors is to produce effective  beginners.

One illustration of the Learning Paradigm approach is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Scholar Program at Michigan State University. What is new from the program is as follows:
- Faculty members as learning conveners
- Faculty and students are both learners
- Collaborative learning
- Faculty and students decide what to learn
- Collaborative grading system design
- Change the way of thinking

The Bailey program seems very interesting since it aims at developing the whole student by helping them develop their own learning experience. I wonder how many programs like this one are carrying out in the US  HE universities and whether there is any research conducted to assess the learning outcomes of the students from these programs and what outstanding differences between these and those from a cool cognitive economy.

Another example is Olivet College, which transforms its educational program at the college level. In this program, students are responsible for their own learning and they take ownership for their learning.