Comments on: Some Reflections on the Core http://aspectwebsite.com/some-reflections-on-the-core/ A Publication from the School of Arts & Sciences at Salem State College Thu, 27 May 2010 13:36:22 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Dan Albert http://aspectwebsite.com/some-reflections-on-the-core/comment-page-1/#comment-712 Dan Albert Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:54:21 +0000 http://aspectwebsite.com/?p=1253#comment-712 I read with interest the articles in the latest issue (episode?) of Aspect online. There is much to be gleaned from this and the other articles. Still, as the one who I wager has taught more students in the core over the past two years (about 400 in World History 1 & 2) than anyone else at the college, I cannot help but be struck by the voices that are not part of the conversation. I am not naive enough to think the core is only about the students, but they need to be engaged more directly (not simply through surveys) in these conversations. Similarly, the army of adjuncts and one-year temporary faculty such as myself are the ones who are right now teaching the core and probably have some worthwhile insights. Here's my modest proposal: recognizing that curricular changes can take time to implement and recognizing the importance of improving the core quickly for the sake of the students and the college, let me offer one non-curricular suggestion that would help to achieve the kind of synergy that Jude Nixon's wife's devilish French "game" has in mind: enroll incoming students as a block in their first semester of History/English/Speech, etc. and look for ways to extend the classroom into the residence halls. Is this beyond the realm of a computerized registrar. In my experience, students learning as a cohort could achieve far more efficiency in learning than even faculty integration. It could create true 24-hour learning communities, empower students, and require little of faculty. The classroom walls would crumble and we could create a critical mass of students engaged in a perpetual conversation. Most importantly, the students themselves would be doing the integration of knowledge rather than the faculty. This, after all, is the moment we find ourselves in: an age of "truthiness" in which the influences of the classroom are diluted by students' other lives as workers and members of social networks. I read with interest the articles in the latest issue (episode?) of Aspect online. There is much to be gleaned from this and the other articles. Still, as the one who I wager has taught more students in the core over the past two years (about 400 in World History 1 & 2) than anyone else at the college, I cannot help but be struck by the voices that are not part of the conversation. I am not naive enough to think the core is only about the students, but they need to be engaged more directly (not simply through surveys) in these conversations. Similarly, the army of adjuncts and one-year temporary faculty such as myself are the ones who are right now teaching the core and probably have some worthwhile insights.

Here’s my modest proposal: recognizing that curricular changes can take time to implement and recognizing the importance of improving the core quickly for the sake of the students and the college, let me offer one non-curricular suggestion that would help to achieve the kind of synergy that Jude Nixon’s wife’s devilish French “game” has in mind: enroll incoming students as a block in their first semester of History/English/Speech, etc. and look for ways to extend the classroom into the residence halls. Is this beyond the realm of a computerized registrar.

In my experience, students learning as a cohort could achieve far more efficiency in learning than even faculty integration. It could create true 24-hour learning communities, empower students, and require little of faculty. The classroom walls would crumble and we could create a critical mass of students engaged in a perpetual conversation. Most importantly, the students themselves would be doing the integration of knowledge rather than the faculty. This, after all, is the moment we find ourselves in: an age of “truthiness” in which the influences of the classroom are diluted by students’ other lives as workers and members of social networks.

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