 |
|
 |
|
 |
    |
| Review
of Hugh Sockett's Creating a Culture for the Scholarship of Teaching By Sherry Linkon |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Review
of Hugh Sockett's Creating a Culture for the Scholarship of Teaching By Sherry Linkon |
|
|
|
|
|
© Copyright 2000 by Sherry Linkon. The right to make additional exact
copies, including this notice, for personal and classroom use, is
hereby granted. All other forms of distribution and copying require
permission of the author. |
Expectations and Ideals Another obstacle Sockett identifies is the gap between students' expectations and faculty ideals. Speaking from more personal experience, I suspect that Sockett underestimates college students' interest in genuine learning. Over the past year I have surveyed and interviewed over 100 students at my urban state university, a commuter school where we might expect to find many students with the grade-focused, instrumentalist, get-the-diploma-and-get-out-of-here attitude that Sockett describes. I've also talked with colleagues whose work involved conversations with hundreds more students, and while some students do fit Sockett's profile, many are deeply curious, grateful for opportunities to think critically and explore new ideas, appreciative of formative, qualitative comments, and, perhaps most surprising, anxious to talk about their experiences as learners. Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but I have found that when I invite students to think about ideas like understanding, their own learning processes, and the purpose of education, they respond enthusiastically. In many cases, they complain that faculty are too driven by grades, too instrumentalist, unwilling to take the time and care to help students learn to think on their own. It may well be, then, that rather than being an obstacle, students' expectations may provide an opportunity for faculty to both learn more about their own teaching and simply teach in ways that are more satisfying.
|
