I teach first-year seminars. We call curriculum education and a better life. The goal of the class is to have students having a 15-week conversation. We talk about how they make the most of their courses and our campuses and focus on how college experiences create a world that lasts a lifetime. In this spirit, last fall, I gave students a role model for how I spent my time.
In class, I shared a set of draft poems that appeared in my recent collection. I projected the version of the poem onto the screen one by one. I draw attention to the red ink through unnecessary words. I pointed out how to add, hit, add, hit and then re-add commas. I brag about carefully using my favorite punctuation marks – a delightful long-term em dash. Finally, I share all 32 drafts of this poem, from concepts to published works. When I stopped, a student in the front row quipped, “This doesn’t seem to work.” In response, I quoted Annie Dillard – “How we spend our days, of course, how we spend our lives” – I talked about the concept of “craft.” I suggest a faithful artisan to produce work, but this work will also produce them for reasons Dillard suggests. Finally, the time we spent on the project made us ourselves.
I asked the class to think about the time they gave to write homework. I encourage them to consider the time and time they read from the plan and then write. I told them, “These are investments, not just creating something before the deadline, but investing in your humanity.” I explained, “When you give yourself time to use your abilities, you end up changing the size of your mind.” I said, “You are changing yourself.” Then, I thought about the way college graduates are some kind of human, and the process of getting a degree is largely a process of becoming.
My students are very smart. They understand social practices. They knew how to act, so they humored me. They nodded, even though I found the facial expressions formed with a clear twist: “Maybe that’s how it works in your generation.” Without saying these things, they raised a little. History is important.
In addition to working on campus, I serve as a member of the Higher Education Council’s peer review panel. For the past 22 years, once or twice a year, I researched and visited the university to ensure the quality of its operations. When I joined the Legion in the early 2000s, HLC played a leadership role in the national assessment movement. Evaluating what students think of work and by proxying what they know and what they can do has become a benchmark for us to judge institutions and recognize them. Because questions about who students become during education are difficult to answer, and because the methods of answering such questions are unnecessary, we put these concerns aside while moving as a country to document cognitive outcomes of easily measured but narrowly defined university experiences.
In the early 2000s, the focus of the assessment of learning outcomes was consistent with technological advances at that time. Web-based platforms are still described as “learning management systems” that enable students to be evaluated anytime, anywhere in almost any situation. New, one-on-one focus on the cognitive outcomes of higher education, while working to legalize new online institutions that have removed time as part of education. In fact, our message is that we take stock of success by measuring the end product of education rather than the process of getting it. The students are very smart. They quietly pointed out our priorities.
Enter the AI. Today, we live in an era where students can send prompts into automated prose generators and have viable drafts of writing assignments in seconds. What should they think? We spent thirty years like results assessment is the only thing we value. As for about how or Where or Who to go with People engage in an educated process and our general approach is: “These are not things we want to know.”
Consider our focus in another area of human development: track and field. Suppose you are a cyclist. I believe technicians will soon create a robot that can ride a bike. Is it reasonable to replace robots in a day where life gives you so much things and you can’t find time to ride? I hope this sounds ridiculous. Most of the time we offer track and field, the results are not the point. On most days, on cycling, it’s not cycling. The key is you Riding a bicycle.
There is a set of similarities between the writing skills and the art of performing music. All require participation, practice and exercise of creativity. The difference is that writing practices are often presented alone outside of occasional public reading, while musical performances are essentially social activities. Imagine being a violin student. At the end of the semester, at your last recital, bring a Bluetooth speaker to a prompt for the song you’ve been practicing and pressing the play button to a music streaming service? Of course not. The key is not to play songs in the concert hall. The key is you Played this song.
In the AI era, students are disconnected from contact like fog on campuses from libraries to studios and labs. Our best data on undergraduate participation shows that Gen Z members read less. When suppressing tasks that require deep thinking, tasks and seriousness, students tend to see technology as a means to maximize efficiency. Should we blame them? We have spent years building systems and assessments to avoid questions about the process of students getting a degree earning.
Through our actions, preferences and even certifications, we build a set of values, which shows that the finish line is important. We tend to see that the route we get there doesn’t matter. Every campus I have visited has an office dedicated to measuring cognitive learning outcomes. I have not found a similar office designed to understand the quality, personality, or widespread influence of the process students participate in in the educational process.
What I want to say is that in the past, we began to give education. But at least in some quarters, we have conducted a long-term overall study of the university’s experience. In 1991, Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. How colleges affect students. In addition to a chapter of speech, quantitative and thematic competence, each version of the book contains sections about psychosocial changes, attitudes and values, and moral development. We should see the age of AI as a reason and opportunity to provide us with an expanded benefit to include an analysis of the broad formation process involved in education, rather than focusing only on narrow results sets. Fortunately, if we find a question about the quality of the time we ask students to invest in education, or the kind of people that college graduates become, there is a well-established literature waiting to guide our efforts.
My first year workshop included a semester Saturday retreat. The local museum hosted the event. We do a tour in the morning and then students give lectures throughout the afternoon. This day represents not only another course meeting. This is a celebration. We made it a potted plant, and the table we used had an impressive range of dishes: snacks, desserts, salads and pots filled with chili and soup.
The past year, at the end of the day, I was about to leave, standing by the table with three students. I happened to point out that half of the donations brought to Potluck were handmade. Others bought it in the store. The handmade dishes are almost gone, while effectively prepared, mass-produced cookies and salads are still sitting in plastic containers.
One student said, “Hmm.” Then she added, “It’s not just the ingredients on the table.” She continued, “What did you make? Who did what? What did they take?” She said, “That thing matters.”
I smiled and told her I agreed.
