“Taking
the ‘Management’ Out of Course Management Systems”
Tony Tremblay, English
This
brief reflection comes from what I appended to the recent Course Management
System survey that faculty were asked to read and consider. I responded
to the question “Do you have specific needs or desires that aren’t
addressed above, but might be addressed by such a system?” A number
of colleagues saw my response and asked me to submit it to Teaching
Perspectives for a wider reading.
I began by wondering why the question in particular, and the survey generally, were so leading. The tone of the balance of the survey worked from the premise that a course management system at STU is long overdue. Was the survey a set-up? And, if so, why?
I then reframed the question to ask what I thought was altogether more relevant and democratic: What do I need or desire? Simple. Less costly technology that limits choice, pre-determines outcomes, and gives students another excuse to sit on their asses in front of a television screen only slightly more interactive than the boob tube. Put another way, what I need are smaller classes, comfortable chairs, and desks/tables that adult learners can sit around to take notes, spread out materials, and share ideas in an environment conducive to exchange. I brought this up in a teaching forum a number of years ago and heard the response “well, we see your point, but don’t we have to do both, that is, don’t we have to improve high and low tech resources simultaneously?” At the time I thought that was reasonable, but the more I think about it, the less happy I am with that answer, an answer that, in an environment with a scarcity of capital, devolves to providing the minima for low and high tech. Moses Coady understood this well when he said “Spinach before Spinoza,” meaning that only when the basics are adequately looked after is it morally appropriate to proceed (morality was central to his point because he held administrators to the same ethical standard as practitioners). Were Coady alive and participating in this exercise today he might have asked if the fundamentals of our system (physical space and materiality) were completely adequate such that we could proceed beyond them.
I think his answer would be “No.” Mine is. While I recognize that improvements have been made, I still find the physical apparatus of our teaching spaces at STU often inadequate. This year I am teaching an honours seminar in JD108, a classroom equipped with one-armed bandits that provide students with about one square-foot of desk space on which they must spread out books, notes, and files while delivering their presentations. (Last week a student had her friend hold her cup of coffee while she delivered her seminar, nodding every time she wanted a sip.) If we had to present our scholarship on such a surface at an academic conference we would be livid. The point here is not to say “well, Tremblay just ended up with the wrong classroom, there are others” (in fact, as I discovered, there are not), but to question the wisdom of pushing ahead with a highly developed and costly course management system when we seem to have forgotten previous surveys that called attention to our deficiencies in lower tech areas such as classroom lighting, seating, projection capabilities, air quality, and laptop plug-ins. Why are we not revisiting those studies to see if any action has been taken on their recommendations? What is the use of a grand digital network when our foundations are still wanting, when we can’t regulate the air quality in our offices, or when our students sit jammed into classrooms trying to manipulate elbows, books, and Tim Horton’s cups in order to find space to write?
| What is the use of a grand digital network when our foundations are still wanting? |
Besides, don’t our students already spend enough time in chat rooms? By buying into a system that encourages them to spend more time on-line and less time with peers and professors, are we furthering the mission we set out for ourselves in the Goals of a Liberal Arts Education? I think not. Why, then, are we so eager to adopt the commercial, techno-imperial, largely de-limiting model of education as “outcomes,” “service,” “convenience,” “speed,” and “efficiency” at the real expense of what our institutional mission is: liberal thinking (thinking “otherwise” and “other ways”); action, involvement, and participation (which eschew virtual and anonymous proxy); and social and civic responsibility to the planet and each other. We speed the process of forfeiting these goals when we adopt systems that let students hide, skip class for what is stored on the prof’s website, ignore the library and its 2000 years of critical thought, and reduce dialogue to a crude and fragmented digital correspondence that erodes the language and coarsens human exchange, all the while turning faculty from intellectual workers to answerers of student e-mail.
Who or what, then, is really driving this process? The Maclean’s survey? MPHEC? Lobbyists and administrators who are trying to make us appear more accountable, our liberal arts focus less medieval?
I am not unaware of the resonance of a piece like this. I have been accused of having Luddite tendencies before. But, carefully read, my comments are not that at all. As I have said before, I would find it difficult to work without the communications technology currently at my disposal. I use our web-based resources, my own website, class lists (List-serves), and spreadsheets extensively. But while those tools make some of my work easier, none make my teaching--what happens in the classroom--more effective. The “teachable moment,” mentorship, and making meaningful human connections are all nontechno-logical. Yes, I use the technology, but why do I need a Hummer when my Camry is more affordable, reliable, and environmentally responsible?
| The “teachable moment,” mentorship, and making meaningful human connections are all non-technological. |
I think our capital is much more wisely spent in hiring a few more faculty and getting class sizes down--every study I’ve read, and all empirical and anecdotal evidence, shows a correlation between lower class size and enhanced learning. Our capital is also better spent in renovating our current learning spaces so they are more conducive to conversational exchange. I’m convinced we know these things, but I can’t figure out why we forget them so often.
Our effectiveness lies in finding
innovative ways to get more personal, not less. Our uniqueness lies not
in being the same as everyone else--adopting elaborate digital systems
designed for large universities with comprehensive curricula--but in being
different. In working like humanists, not functionaries. How do we proceed?
By helping our students slow down, not speed up. By helping them to come
out of themselves so that they may learn to think and speak and deliberate
with conviction, not defer automatically to media that purport neutrality
while, in fact, managing their lives. Politically, I feel much better
about helping students overcome their reluctance to speak, than furthering
their habituation to the servo-mechanistic. What faculty and students
don’t need right now is more management, thank you.
The premise that course management systems are solutions rather than environment-altering
media is fundamentally untenable, and must be challenged. As engineering
professor Alexander Berezin recently wrote about WebCT at his university,
McMaster, “The North American system makes it possible for a student
to graduate with a bachelor’s degree (at least in some programs)
without ever saying a single word to a professor. The trend to greater
emphasis on computer-based tests, optical scanning, plagiarism-detection
software, and submission of tests through the Web deepens this impersonal
educational machinery. The result is a creeping erosion of the academic
system and gradual transformation of universities to the Wal-Marts of
packaged education. Unless we find a way to restore a system of direct
contact between students and professors, our further sliding toa Brave
New World of robotization is likely to continue.”
(University Affairs November 2003 6)
Shock rocker Marilyn Manson and mild-mannered Catholic convert Marshall McLuhan delivered the same line, fifty years removed, on how to reach young people in an alienating world: “You want kids to check back in?” each asked. “TALK TO THEM.”
Editorial Note: We believe that some faculty members may agree with Dr. Tremblay’s article and others may not. We invite you to submit your reactions to this and other articles. We would like to publish them in our Spring 2004 edition of Teaching Perspectives.