November 5, 2024

2 thoughts on “NY Times Wants to Reengineer College Lectures Because They’re Racist

  1. I would not be surprised if Ms. Paul owns a company that just happens to be in the business of selling “instructional supports”.

  2. I’m an educator and I certainly find active learning techniques to be effective. However, the emotive language that its advocates use to push these teaching tools onto educators is risible. If one actually examines what the techniques are designed to do -get students to review the material daily instead of cramming before exams, have students ACTUALLY do the assigned reading, get students to pay attention in class instead of messing around online -one realizes that these are skills that good students should already have by the time they reach college! I remember when I was a freshman (12 years ago), I was told by my adviser that unlike in high school, no one was going to make sure I did the problem sets, and no one was going to hold your hand and make sure you understood the material. It was up to me to make sure I kept up. Sink or swim. Increasingly, college is becoming what high school used to be – a basic prerequisite for the mediocre masses instead of an institution of higher learning where highly motivated individuals pursue knowledge and skills to advance themselves. Active learning is the natural extension of grade inflation, designed to coddle the paying customer and delay their inevitable realization that nothing comes to those unwilling to work for it. Finally, note that these techniques don’t eliminate racial disparity -the overwhelmingly white or Asian kids who were getting A’s in traditional lectures are all getting A+’s in active learning classes. Its just that non-Asian minority students are now getting C’s instead of failing, and frankly C’s in Physics 101 isn’t going to get you a job at NASA, yo. Thus educators should certainly adopt these techniques to avoid having to grade mind-numbingly stupid exam answers, but calling those professors who choose to do things the way they’ve always done them racist is just plain demagoguery.

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