Postmodern Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning With Generation NeXt

Article re-printed with the permission of Dr. Mark Taylor.

Dr. Mark Taylor

Postmodern Pedagogy

An academic model appropriate for today's students in postmodern times must recognize the fundamental differences in Generation NeXt from previous generations of students (as described in "Generation NeXt Comes to College: Meeting Today's Postmodern College Student") and the poor match between many traditional instructional practices and the needs, desires, and tolerances of Generation NeXt.

While lecture based instruction from an expert instructor might never have been the most efficient way to bring about deep learning, it had a certain fit with modern times and sensibilities - the belief that there are universal truths that can be transmitted to willing students. Our current postmodern times require more ownership information and ideas by students, developed through the personal construction of knowledge, and so suggest the need to alter a number of fundamental "traditional" practices. Some changes will require the recognition of the consumer based realities of higher education in the third millennium; if school is not fun and does not have apparent meaning and/or benefit, young people will not participate, or participate in full and authentic ways.

Other changes reflect the absolutely necessary shift from a teaching to a learning centered environment, as outlined by Barr and Tagg, O'Banion, and others. The prime recognition is that our colleges do not exist to provide instruction; we exist to create learning. The traditional "teaching" practice of lecture to passive students has been long discredited as ineffective, though few schools have fully embraced the scope of change necessary to become "Learning Colleges" as described by O'Banion.

The following outlines some necessary changes and practices to make this paradigm shift, from an old school, modern, instructional based institution to a "consumer conscious," postmodern, learning based institution appropriate and effective with Generation NeXt and other student cohorts; the practices of Postmodern Pedagogy ("PMP").

1. Changes in the dynamics of the student-instructor relationship
   Many higher education faculty still aspire to the old, traditional model of "expert to acolyte" where students looked to them for an agenda and identification of what is and what is not important. Now, the faculty must become not only experts in their fields, but facilitators of student learning. In truth, the relationship of faculty to student in PMP is also provider to consumer, with the expectation less that the student "please" the instructor, then that the instructor please the student. Ideally interaction will be in a collaborative relationship toward shared goals where students are engaged learners as full partners (al la O'Banion), but students must be engaged on some level or levels to attend, persist, learn, and succeed. Faculty who fail to appreciate their provider role will be unsuccessful on many levels, and a poor fit for the PMP, student centered college.
2. Changed responsibility for students and instructors
   Traditionally, instructors held all the cards. They determined the content, outcomes, procedures, and nature of their classes, often with little or no outside input. Instructors often lectured on what they personally found of interest without feeling significant responsibility to cover the entire content of the class. While instructors were responsible for input, students were responsible for outcomes - their success or the lack thereof. The successful student was one who could identify what was important and give it back to the instructor on tests and a paper. Teaching was the constant (every student got the same thing) and learning was the variable (some students learned more and some less). Responsibility for outcomes rested with the student; they all had the same input so variances in output was up to them. In fact, an "appropriate" distribution of grades has been a measure of instructor success. In the learning model, learning must become the constant; all students need to demonstrate success in reaching learning outcomes. Teaching becomes the variable as instructors facilitate student success by whatever means necessary. If significant numbers of students do not reach success, that becomes the instructor's responsibility, and the instructor's problem. Ideally, as O'Banion says, the learning college engages learners as full partners who will assume primary responsibility for their choices. In the PMP it is incumbent on the faculty to make those choices and desired outcomes attractive, realistic, meaningful, and possible.
3. Focus on student change.
   PMP requires clearly articulated goals that address how students will be meaningfully and demonstrably different on exit for all desired outcomes at the class, course, program, and institutional level. What is the content the student must know? What application skills must they possess? What higher order thinking and abstraction capacities should the develop? What recognition of the value, meaning, and worth of this discipline should the be evident? What professional or institutional citizenship and character development goals are addressed in this activity and how are they impacted? How do the assessments of these elements reflect an awareness of external goals (see below)? The ability to regurgitate knowledge based factoids is not sufficient student change, and evidence indicates that low level comprehension changes are not long lasting.
4. Changed instructor's role
   So what does the instructor do to operationalize the learning paradigm in PMP? I identify six major activities.
   
   
   1. Identifies external goals. The course outcomes have to be bigger than the instructor's ideas about appropriate academic expectation and outcomes and the student's desires, and of a higher order than Gardiner identified as being most common. Health care educators have known, and articulated, this forever. In a nursing program there is little argument about "why do we have to learn this?" There are external goals (licensing criteria and tests) that are non-negotiable, in addition to the basic and hopefully evident need for competent patient care. The liberal arts are being challenged to identify these external goals beyond "it is a core class," or "I love it and you should, too." Institutional exams, like "rising junior" comprehensives, can be helpful, though a meaningful shared competency final for each course is better than no external goal at all. The expectations of employers must also be considered.
   2. Helps students own and personalize goals. If students don't care, they will not care. A critical, and unfortunately new, responsibility for many instructors is helping students understand and decide that this subject, this material, this class matters to them personally. PMP recognizes the consumer realities of higher education today and the necessity to help students personalize program and institutional goals for student success, as well as institutional retention. In the learning domains, we have spent way too much time on the cognitive, little on the psychomotor (for kinesthetic learning), and have almost completely ignored this, the affective "why care?" element. Unfortunately, the passion of a Ph.D. in physics for the workings of the world is not sufficient to convince a student in a required introductory physical science course of its elegance and worth. Active learning techniques can help instructors in assisting students in owning and personalizing goals, as can meaningful career counseling and guidance, and developmental academic advising. Few postmodern students aspire to a renaissance understanding of the world. PMP recognizes that relating the class to their career, future graduate education, or vocational success might be necessary.
   3. Offers learning options. If students have an interest in learning, and reaching learning goals, they will seek out that learning. If a grade is tied to their success, all the better. How can students reach the learning goals? There are many options, and these options should be made available to students in PMP. Students can learn now or later, alone or in a group, here or there, live or online, and through visually, auditory, or kinesthetic channels. They can come to lecture or listen to lecture tapes, read the book or listen to a tape of the text, attend a study group or a tutor group, work in a project group, follow an online tutorial or lesson on disc, chat online or post to a message board, ask questions in class, online, or in the instructor's office, or chant core concepts in a drumming circle. The options are almost limitless and affected only by instructor and student creativity and skill, the subject, and the technology available. When instructors are freed from the tyranny of lecture, new worlds open and student learning blooms.
   4. Facilitates a variety of learning methods. Once students own the outcomes and know their options, faculty cannot retire to the lounge to allow learning to take place in their absence. It is incumbent that faculty remain active and available to help students identify the learning methods best for them, to assist with each of the methods and activities, and help students assess their progress.
   5. Acts as resource. Fortunately, faculty are experts and will be sought out by learning active students. I once assisted in the instruction of a "music appreciation" class, not because I am music faculty (because I am not) but because there was a performance expectation for the class. As sponsor of the music club, I was known as a player. As students worked to learn their songs they knew I could help them isolate and identify dominant, major and minor chords, count out measures, and, hopefully, help them learn their song (and avoid embarrassment on performance day). Being sought out by actively learning students is "the holy grail" for many faculty, and one they could experience with increasing frequency through the application of PMP concepts.
   6. Assess against the external criteria. As long as higher education is structured around the "credit hours leading to a degree" paradigm, someone will have to assign a grade. Assessment and subsequent grading can be "gotcha" activities. Most Boomers and Xers can remember being surprised by a final grade. Traditionally, students never saw a real grading rubric, only the breakdown of what counted for how many points, often a midterm, final, and paper. The midterm was the first, and possibly only, graded activity before the final, when the paper was also due. Some instructors tended toward the obscure to encourage (in their minds) a close reading of all course material. Some might seek higher order thinking, but student conclusions had better be the same as theirs. In PMP, no student should ever be surprised by a grade. Ideally, every student would be successful and would inform you when they had reached mastery. Since you and students would have agreed on what is significant and the student has some ownership of the goals, assessment against the external criteria becomes yet another collaborative activity. The challenge for each instructor will be to develop these assessments, though some suggestions will be offered below. Self evaluations, peer evaluations and practice tests all help students better understand course goals, objectives and outcomes, the grading rubric, and their relative progress and success (or lack thereof).
5. Working up educational taxonomies.
   Any instructor who is not familiar with Bloom's famous taxonomy of educational objectives should be hornswoggled. Unfortunately few graduate programs address instructional methods at all, much less learning and assessment hierarchies. According to Gardiner and others, college instruction continues to be primarily lecture based with assessments of low, knowledge based, material ("factoids"). This meets the needs of neither today's students or society. PMP recognizes the need for a certain amount of foundational knowledge in every discipline, but suggests generating a need for this information through the application and stimulation of higher level educational activities and goals. In art, one could make students learn many colors (knowledge) before painting (application) or deciding which works of art they like or don't like (evaluation). Or students could start by identifying a picture or some pictures they like, and identifying the colors therein. It would put the colors in a context, and establish meaning for the lower level material.
   
   Briefly summarized, Bloom's taxonomy, first published in 1956 as a Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, identified a classification taxonomy of educational objectives, and related activities and assessments, from the lowest level of knowledge through comprehension, application, analysis, and ultimately to the highest level of evaluation. As Gardiner points out, most faculty spend too much time on the lower levels of knowledge and comprehension and not enough time on higher levels. It is no coincidence that lecture tends to lead to memorization (at best) while active learning strategies are more effective at developing critical thinking and other higher forms of learning so we would expect lecture based classes to develop almost exclusively low level learning. The evaluation level includes appraisals and judgments about the worth and utility of information, based on internal evidence like logical accuracy and consistency and external evidence; relation to theory and to works of recognized quality. PMP recognizes that both theory and works of recognized quality are falling on hard times in the postmodern age of opinion and spin, but students' understanding and appreciation of both are goals for most educators. It is easily argued that assisting in the development of these higher levels of thinking and reasoning are important for the citizens of a democracy and are a fundamental mission of higher education. Educational methods and related evaluations, therefore, should aspire to higher levels of learning, and utilize active learning methodologies to achieve these ends.
6. Increasing activity in learning.
   Incorporating active learning methods is basically increasing the level of interaction and increasing the student activity level in classes and related learning activities. In a traditional lecture based class the instructor is very active and the students are generally inactive, if not somnambulant. There are many benefits, learning and other, to increasing student activity. PMP recognizes that as levels of activity increase, the connections between faculty and students increase, as do connections between students, which leads to increases in the sense of membership with the school, satisfaction, and subsequently retention. Increases in activity and interaction also increases our ability to reach citizenship and character development goals by actually allowing students to demonstrate and receive feedback on their citizenship and character via interaction, as opposed to showing their ability to sit quietly during a lecture.
   
   As noted earlier, listening (the desired student behavior during a lecture) tends to lead to memorization, while active learning activities more likely lead to critical thinking and higher learning goals. Active learning methods can also be used to help students develop ownership of course goals and investment in course outcomes. Fundamentally, active behaviors like doing (self and peer evaluation, for example) and telling are more effective for most types of learning than listening, so most faculty might be encouraged to reduce the amount of time they spend lecturing and increase time spent assisting students in active learning activities, especially peer teaching activities. PMP would stress that these methods are especially important for Generation NeXt given their needs for engagement, and dissatisfaction with traditional lecture based classroom activities, which they tend to find boring, not entertaining, and not stimulating.
   
   Some faculty will argue that their classes, while structured around a lecture, are lively environments of class discussion and debate. Unfortunately, most "class discussion" tends to be dominated by a few verbal and extroverted students and does not place a requirement on all students to actively participate. If the class is larger than about six students there is just not enough time in one discussion forum for everyone to meaningfully deal with class material, and the dynamics do not lend themselves to truly deep learning.
   
   Active learning techniques, of course, must be chosen and adapted to the objectives, content, and structure of each class, course, or activity. Some technical programs are, by their very nature, almost exclusively active learning laboratories. There is a range of active learning techniques from small groups and project groups, interactive dyads, small group and project groups, jig-saw and expert groups, brainstorming, peer teaching, peer grading, self grading, simulations, immediate mastery and imbedded assessments and quizzes, and practice assessments in various formats that faculty can use to work toward higher learning goals. The references at the end of this handout would be a good starting place for finding and developing resources appropriate to each instructional area.
   
   There is, of course, a vocabulary and knowledge base necessary for every discipline, and many introductory classes must present this material. Making the terms meaningful enhance their applicability and student ownership. A brief example from the social sciences might serve to illustrate how an active learning method can be used to help students reach the highest, evaluative, level of learning. The class is organized in dyads with an A and B in each dyad. The instructor presents a concept and asks "A, paraphrase this definition to B" which represents active learning at the knowledge level. Following a brief sharing of some of the paraphrases the instructor asks "B, offer A an example of this concept from the world." Again, following a brief sharing of the examples, the instructor might ask "A, offer B an example of this concept that you have personally observed." As you can see, we are moving the concept to higher cognitive and ownership levels. After people have talked about these personal observations, the instructor might direct, "B, tell A why understanding this may or may not matter or how it might be or might not be applied to your life, then A, respond to the same items" and students will, on cue, raise their learning to the evaluation level. They will each have heard another student, and themselves, make an evaluative statement about the relative worth of this information. In fairly short order they have each processed a basic concept from knowledge, through comprehension and personal application, to evaluation, and come to recognize and appreciate that "in this class we are going to be looking at information that matters."
7. Meaningful assessments.
   As long as grades will need to be assigned, student learning will need to be assessed. There is much literature on developing course objectives and assessments. Let it be summarized here as the need for less content and more application, less quantity and more quality, less scantron and more essay and encouragement to assess at higher levels on the learning taxonomy. Traditional objective question forms favored by many instructors like matching, listing, multiple choice, and "fill in the blanks" tend to focus on knowledge level learning, and perpetuate for students the idea that these surface level factoids are what is important, as opposed to deeper learning higher up the learning taxonomy (especially well articulated recently by Tagg).
   
   Instructors are admonished to never surprise a student with any evaluation. All scoring rubrics should be well know and students should be familiar enough with the grading rubrics to be able to grade their own, or others, work. The first evaluation of any assignment should not be for a grade, but for feedback. Test forms should be well know to students before the test is administered. One measure of the quality of an in-class test might be the level of concern an instructor has about cheating. The more concern for cheating, generally the lower level information assessed, so the lower quality test. Tests that seek to tap into higher levels of understanding are rarely susceptible to traditional cheating (copying and sharing answers) and questions can be constructed to require students to demonstrate their understanding at the knowledge and comprehension levels for them to articulate and defend responses at a higher level. These can often be completed out of class.
   
   Instructors are encouraged to reduce their dependence on traditional in-class tests to assess student learning, and the class paper to assign a grade (papers which can often only marginally be justified as assessing learning) and to explore other assessments and demonstrations of learning. While the traditional research paper may be difficult to defend as a learning or assessment activity, class projects can be valuable. PMP would also stress that the availability of web based information has fundamentally altered the learning processes involved in writing a research paper, especially given the availability of pre-written papers for sale and trade. However, projects that are long term, are viewed as meaningful by students, and those that include a "sharing with others" or peer teaching component are especially valuable. Portfolio development, and chat and message board postings might also be considered in the grading rubric.

Overcoming Obstacles to Change

The transition from the teaching model of higher education most Boomer and Gen X faculty and staff experienced as students, and perpetuate in daily practice, to the learning model of Postmodern Pedagogy appropriate to Generation NeXt students in these postmodern times is not, and will not, be easy. Though the benefits are many, these fundamental shifts require many different behaviors from instructors, and changes in the academic system. Several possible obstacles to change include:

• Instructor belief in the effectiveness of instructional activities. It can be very difficult for instructors to leave their comfortable "expert" roles and lecture based classes to facilitate more active student learning. The response of many instructors to the mismatch between Generation NeXt and their traditional instructional methods has been to keep doing what they have been doing, only more vigorously. As instructors experiment and experience success in facilitating active learning methods, they might be expected to develop more excitement about and faith in these activities.
• Instructor skills. Dealing with the consumer mentality of Generation NeXt and facilitating active learning requires a different skill set than providing lectures. Development activities and a sincere dedication to change will be required for campuses, and individual instructors.
• Teaching resources. Unless desks are bolted to the floor, many active learning techniques can be operationalized with existing resources. Some new technology may be needed for online discussion groups and computer assisted instructional techniques but most of what instructors and students need is already available.
• Student readiness. Students socialized for passive learning at low cognitive levels may have difficulty accepting that higher levels of activity from them will be tolerated and expected, and that higher learning is required. Just as active learning requires a new skill set from instructors, it requires new student behaviors they must also be trained to perform adequately. PMP initiatives across the campus from day one will help students understand that these are institutional expectations and might increase compliance and resocialization.
• Administrative support. Most academic administrators have also been socialized in the teaching paradigm. If they visit a class and no one is "teaching" (lecturing) they may question the efficiency or propriety of that instructor's methods. Administrators need to not only be supportive, but be prepared to facilitate PMP as their faculties operationalize student centered, learning oriented methods.
• Academic architecture. Imagine that an instructor at a community college currently teaches five sections of college algebra each semester. She is probably doing about the same thing around fifteen hours a week; teaching algebra classes. An active learning paradigm would suggest that she might "teach class" (work problems on the board) during one of her scheduled class sections, and could work problems for several hundred students as well as she could for ten. Once these demonstrations are archived to an audio/video file, she would not have to work them live again, nor would the class need to assemble. The AV files could be accessed from anywhere. This would free all of her class time, and whatever time she was spending working with students out of class, for facilitating other active learning techniques: dyads, small groups, on-line, distance contacts, tutorials, and the myriad of other learning activities (and students' attainment of learning outcomes). This would require some major changes in scheduling, resources, performance appraisal rubrics, and the very nature of scheduling and monitoring instructor time and activities not currently available under many school's teaching paradigms. The most advanced parts of a truly student centered learning paradigm, like open entrance and open, mastery based, exit based exclusively on each student's demonstration of success in learning, would require some fundamental changes in academic scheduling; both in daily instructor activities and the academic.

Conclusions

Postmodern pedagogy provides an academic model appropriate for today's students by recognizing the fundamental differences in Generation NeXt from previous generations of students and the poor match between many traditional instructional practices and the needs, desires, and tolerances of Generation NeXt. Necessary changes will require the recognition of the consumer based realities of higher education and the absolutely necessity to shift from a teaching to a learning centered environment.

Resources and References

Barr, R. B. & Tagg, J. (1995). From Teaching to Learning, A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education. Change, Volume 27, November/December pp. 12-25.

Bloom, B., Krathwohl, D. & Masia, B. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook II: Affective Domain, pp. 186-193.

Boettcher, J. V. & Conrad, R. (2004). Perspectives and Principles for Designing Learning, Learning Abstracts, Volume 7, Number 6, June. Available on line at http://www.league.org/publication/abstracts/learning/lelabs0406.html

Drummond, T. (2004). A Brief Summary of the Best Practices in Teaching, from the North Seattle Community College Education Program (an excellent analysis of many teaching practices, and available on-line) http://northonline.sccd.ctc.edu/eceprog/bstprac.htm

Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating Significant Learning Experiences. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Gardiner, L. F. (1994). Redesigning Higher Education, Producing Dramatic Gains in Student Learning. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports, Volume 23, Number 7. Abstracted in http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed394441.html

Gardiner, L. F. (1998). Why We Must Change: The Research Evidence, The NEA Higher Education Journal, Spring 1998; pp. 71-88.

O'Banion, T. (1999). Launching a Learning-Centered College, League for Innovation in the Community College and PeopleSoft, Inc. (A wealth of information is available from the league at http://www.league.org/publication/abstracts)

Tagg, J. (2004). Why Learn? What We May Really Be Teaching Students. About Campus, March-April, pp. 2-10.

Taylor, M. (2004). Generation NeXt Comes to College, A Collection of Papers on Student and Institutional Improvement, Volume 2, pp. 19-23. (Copies available on request from Dr. Taylor)

Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-Centered Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Many universities have faculty development resources that are available on-line including:
» ULCA (http://www.uctltc.org/)
» Honolulu Community College (http://www.honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/index.htm)

Dr. Mark Taylor
mltaylor@asub.edu
taylorprograms@comcast.net
(501) 626-5889

http://www.taylorprograms.org