The Achieving the Dream conference speakers, putting an academic spin on the Jim Collins management classic, Good to Great (2001), explained how pockets of innovation within an organization can lead to larger, organization-wide change, if a culture of intentional institutional redesign has been established. Too opaque? OK, let's quote Collins directly:
"Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and -- quite literally -- accident. What looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of 'Let's just try a lot of stuff and keep what works.'"
In order to promote such a change culture, you need data to identify and evaluate innovative "stuff," leadership willing to allow stuff to bubble up from below, formal and informal communication promulgating and supporting stuff, and time for reflection about stuff... time for reflection?
The community college audience at the workshop sat a little straighter at this last requirement. Reflection? Didn't Collins, the guru of greatness now not later, say, "A culture of discipline ... is a principle of greatness." Doesn't this drive toward discipline imply moving, moving, moving? 24/7? Who, we asked ourselves while checking the room number for the next session, has time for reflection?
Apparently we should. The speakers said our rush toward innovation has to be balanced with reflection on the data, the goals, and the "stuff." While action to initiate change is encouraged, action for the sake of action becomes unanchored, and possibly counter-productive without planned moments of reflection. We as instructors know that students need moments of reflection to move new information from short term memory to long-term habits. You can't teach, teach, teach without pauses for learning. That's part of any sensible lesson plan. Why would we expect any less for our colleges?
Fortunately for most colleges, the traditional school calendar provides scheduled moments for reflection. Right now, our school has begun a two-week break between the Spring Term and Summer Term. The hallways are quiet without the flow of students walking between classes. Final papers are collected, grades recorded, and schedules set up for the next session. Christian colleges might use the down time to conduct spiritual retreats for staff, faculty, and leadership. That's a great idea to move reflection from an exterior process to an inner core change. Unfortunately, public colleges can't go that route, though they do strongly encourage us --wink wink nudge nudge -- to take time to plan and recharge.
During semester breaks, we need to consciously and methodically step back from classroom activities, regroup our resources, and refocus our thoughts on our shared and personal mission of student success. In a word, it's time to reflect. Quiet still moments of reflection balance the busyness of the innovative stuff we try during the semester. During reflection, the daily detritus is swept clear from our pathways, vistas are opened, and, to quote a fourth-century consultant, Chang Tsu, "the whole universe surrenders." He must have been a teacher reflecting on stuff too.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Students are the Passion of our Data
When those of us in Academia discuss student success, we often narrowly focus on data points that support our favorite programs and initiatives. We know from experience that grant funding agencies and even our own local budget committees respond better to quantitative data sets rather than to stories of individual students. Logos trumps Pathos at budget time.
For example, speakers at an Achieving the Dream workshop this past winter outlined the dismal record we have in this country of converting developmental education students to college students. Speakers promoting the Carnegie Foundation Statway and Quantway developmental education math curriculum used data to show the disaster:
I was asked to report on the Achieving the Dream conference to a college committee this past week, which gave me a reason to review and reflect on notes and handouts, such as the Carnegie material. I, and others from my college, attended dozens of workshops over three and a half days. Each presentation was supported by data showing a problem, the implementation of a new idea to solve that problem, and post-data demonstrating incremental success.
That's all to the good, but what stands out from the conference was not the charts and tables of numbers, but the stories I heard of students helped by colleagues in Achieving the Dream colleges. One of the speakers, a data guy, put it best: "Students are the faces of the data; their stories are data with soul."
As instructors, staff and leadership in community colleges, we know that students feel isolated and doubled over by a seemingly uncaring collegiate system. Students of color told the conference attendees that they felt stupid, intimidated, and out of place in a "white people's college". They didn't believe they belonged in college until someone stepped out from behind a desk and worked with them. One former student, now a college administrator with a Ph.D. behind his name, said his success began with one person who persuaded him, "You are able. You have a right to be here. You can succeed, and I will help you."
Data may get us the dollars to run the programs that buy the desks, but one-on-one student engagement gets us the success. We can't overlook the stories of our students as we count their heads. Certainly, we have to use the data to secure funding to create an "infrastructure of opportunity available to every student," as a speaker said. That is the funding game. But while we work at that, we should never overlook the hopeful faces that the data sometimes hides. Students are the real passion that we, as academics, pursue. If the student is not our passion, then what are we doing here?
For example, speakers at an Achieving the Dream workshop this past winter outlined the dismal record we have in this country of converting developmental education students to college students. Speakers promoting the Carnegie Foundation Statway and Quantway developmental education math curriculum used data to show the disaster:
- Consider, they said, that 60 to 70-percent of our incoming students need developmental math courses.
- But, of those who enter the dev-ed courses, 80-percent never make it out.
- That's 500,000 lost students each year.
I was asked to report on the Achieving the Dream conference to a college committee this past week, which gave me a reason to review and reflect on notes and handouts, such as the Carnegie material. I, and others from my college, attended dozens of workshops over three and a half days. Each presentation was supported by data showing a problem, the implementation of a new idea to solve that problem, and post-data demonstrating incremental success.
That's all to the good, but what stands out from the conference was not the charts and tables of numbers, but the stories I heard of students helped by colleagues in Achieving the Dream colleges. One of the speakers, a data guy, put it best: "Students are the faces of the data; their stories are data with soul."
As instructors, staff and leadership in community colleges, we know that students feel isolated and doubled over by a seemingly uncaring collegiate system. Students of color told the conference attendees that they felt stupid, intimidated, and out of place in a "white people's college". They didn't believe they belonged in college until someone stepped out from behind a desk and worked with them. One former student, now a college administrator with a Ph.D. behind his name, said his success began with one person who persuaded him, "You are able. You have a right to be here. You can succeed, and I will help you."
Data may get us the dollars to run the programs that buy the desks, but one-on-one student engagement gets us the success. We can't overlook the stories of our students as we count their heads. Certainly, we have to use the data to secure funding to create an "infrastructure of opportunity available to every student," as a speaker said. That is the funding game. But while we work at that, we should never overlook the hopeful faces that the data sometimes hides. Students are the real passion that we, as academics, pursue. If the student is not our passion, then what are we doing here?
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Me and William: My Brief History with the Bard
There is a post circulating among English teachers this year, the 450th year of the birth of William Shakespeare. The prompt asks, "When did you learn to love Shakespeare?"
Thinking back, I was introduced to him in junior high school when we were given parts to Romeo and Juliet to study. Classmates trudged to the front of the classroom to perform the famous balcony scene (Act II Scene II) to a giggling crowd of classmates. The girls gamely tried to put life into the fair damsel, but most of the boys stood fixed like part of the balcony and recited lines in a hurried sign-song. I gave the exercise a little more effort and somewhere between "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" (line 2) and "Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast" (line 139), I found my calling and began an extra-curricular love of the Bard and of performing.
In college, I was cast in a production of The Merchant of Venice. I was the lone freshman among juniors, seniors and grad students, energetically playing multiple crowd roles of a Magnifico, Officer of the Court, and Reveler in the streets of Venice. The UW-Madison production at the Union Theater was far above my talent or previous high school experience. The grad students who played Shylock and Portia in particular were amazing. And, during the first dress rehearsal, this small town boy was introduced to an eye-opening lack of modesty as cast members of both sexes changed from one costume to the next just off stage without bothering with a dressing room. The Bard opens many doors.
After college, I became an audience member, not a performer and was rarely disappointed. Fortunately, I have access each summer to a nationally acclaimed Shakespeare troupe only hours away: American Players Theater in Spring Green, just west of Madison. Last year as a treat, we saw back-to-back same-day productions of first Hamlet and then Rosecrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard using the same cast for both shows. Again, amazing. The juxtaposition of Shakespeare and Stoppard told the story of the Hamlet's tortured soul from shifting front stage and back stage points of view.
Each time I see a new production or return to favorite lines, I am surprised and delighted by the simplicity and complexity of the words and phrases. It is remarkable that a man who wrote 37-plays in a 25-year stage career is still able to touch audiences with a remarkable clarity of human experience. The reason the plays are still relevant is that our central human experience hasn't changed all that much in 450 years. Whether you are a middle school student, a college freshman or a theater-goer with a lifetime of experience, the stories of Shakespeare ring true at whatever level you need at the time. That is the test of artistic genius and that is why we continue to love his words.
Thinking back, I was introduced to him in junior high school when we were given parts to Romeo and Juliet to study. Classmates trudged to the front of the classroom to perform the famous balcony scene (Act II Scene II) to a giggling crowd of classmates. The girls gamely tried to put life into the fair damsel, but most of the boys stood fixed like part of the balcony and recited lines in a hurried sign-song. I gave the exercise a little more effort and somewhere between "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" (line 2) and "Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast" (line 139), I found my calling and began an extra-curricular love of the Bard and of performing.
In college, I was cast in a production of The Merchant of Venice. I was the lone freshman among juniors, seniors and grad students, energetically playing multiple crowd roles of a Magnifico, Officer of the Court, and Reveler in the streets of Venice. The UW-Madison production at the Union Theater was far above my talent or previous high school experience. The grad students who played Shylock and Portia in particular were amazing. And, during the first dress rehearsal, this small town boy was introduced to an eye-opening lack of modesty as cast members of both sexes changed from one costume to the next just off stage without bothering with a dressing room. The Bard opens many doors.
After college, I became an audience member, not a performer and was rarely disappointed. Fortunately, I have access each summer to a nationally acclaimed Shakespeare troupe only hours away: American Players Theater in Spring Green, just west of Madison. Last year as a treat, we saw back-to-back same-day productions of first Hamlet and then Rosecrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard using the same cast for both shows. Again, amazing. The juxtaposition of Shakespeare and Stoppard told the story of the Hamlet's tortured soul from shifting front stage and back stage points of view.
Each time I see a new production or return to favorite lines, I am surprised and delighted by the simplicity and complexity of the words and phrases. It is remarkable that a man who wrote 37-plays in a 25-year stage career is still able to touch audiences with a remarkable clarity of human experience. The reason the plays are still relevant is that our central human experience hasn't changed all that much in 450 years. Whether you are a middle school student, a college freshman or a theater-goer with a lifetime of experience, the stories of Shakespeare ring true at whatever level you need at the time. That is the test of artistic genius and that is why we continue to love his words.
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