By Professor Doom
Admin: “Be sure to pass out your syllabus on the
first day of class…”
Every college
course must have a syllabus, a summary of the course material. It isn’t just
mindless paperwork, the syllabus is important when the student tries to
transfer his course to another institution, which is entitled to know what,
exactly, the student knows. At least, that’s the theory.
Admin: “Be sure to
include the course number, course name, section number, room number, and times
the class meets on the syllabus…”
Every year, admin
adds another requirement to the syllabus. I try very hard to keep my syllabus
down to one page—it’s not so much about the environment/saving paper, I just see
no need to flood the students with information that they generally don’t care
much about.
Admin: “Be sure to
include our statement regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act…”
Every year,
another line or two was added to satisfy administrator requirements…and I removed
more actual class information from my syllabus to keep it to a page.
Admin: “Be sure to put
in writing what you consider cheating, and what the penalty for cheating will
be…”
Another line
here, another line there, it all adds up.
Admin: “Be sure to
have an outline of what assignments are graded in your course, especially
tests, and what will be on those tests…”
It was tough to
have everything on the syllabus I wanted, also comply with administrative
requests…and keep that syllabus down to one page. Finally, a request came down
from the Masters of the Universe making it impossible to keep it all on one
page:
Admin: “Be sure to
include the required learning outcomes and associated assessments matrix on
your syllabus…”
What, pray tell,
is the “required learning outcomes and associated assessments matrix”? Well,
it’s another foolish thing from Educationists. Educationists have a creepy
powerful influence over education, and it doesn’t matter how unproven, how
demonstrably ineffective their ideas are. Even when we know Educationist
ideas are harmful, we’re still forced to use them. I’ve mentioned before the
idiotic Bloom’s
Taxonomy theory which influences higher education, but a recent event
brought back memories of that “matrix” I was required to put on my syllabus,
when I was at a bogus community college:
You really do
have to pick your battles in higher education, and compared to the near
constant fraud, incompetence, and corruption I was already dealing with there,
I wasn’t about to challenge community college administration over these new
matrix things. The professor suing was actually removed from teaching; this is
what comes of resisting Educationists nowadays.
The college has
maintained that the requirement is linked to accreditation requirements.
Yeah, that’s
crap, and it’s what I was told as well. The gentle reader is welcome to read accreditation
requirements in detail and see this is a lie (there is an institutional
requirement, but that’s an administrative chore, not a faculty one). Those
requirements incidentally, list absolutely no penalties whatsoever for
violation of those requirements, which is why so many of our schools violate
accreditation with open impunity. What matters is subservience to
administration, but I digress.
So, what exactly
is that matrix? Administration at the community college helpfully gave us an
example, and it looked something like this:
Admin: “Here’s an
example of a Student Outcome and Assessment Matrix for Speech 101:”
Outcome
|
Assessment
|
Learner will be able to speak clearly
|
In class participation, class presentation
|
Learner will be able to analyze and evaluate discussion
|
Tests, peer review
|
Learner will be collaborate and identify multiple perspectives
|
Group project, group presentation
|
I’m simplifying
the above chart a little, but it was a whole page of stuff like the above.
Admin passed out the example chart to all faculty. I picked my battles at this
place, and as much as I wanted to keep my syllabus to one page, I admitted that
was now impossible. I went back to my office, and typed up a matrix for my
courses, adapting the example to fit each course (eg, for algebra, I would have
“learner will be able to solve a system of equations” as an outcome, with
“tests, homework” as assessments--we don't have students, incidentally, we have "learners," because changing words around is about all Educationists know how to do when it comes to improving education).
I keep referring
to that school, where I worked to change its status from “unaccredited” to
“accredited,” as bogus, and I honestly don’t do so lightly, so allow me to
relate the ultimate effect of including those student outcome matrices on our
syllabi (beyond doubling the amount of paper we wasted on syllabi).
So, three years
later, we have an accreditation review. These things are mostly a joke. All
accreditation does is ask administration to self-assess how good a job
administration thinks the school is doing (I’m serious, this is all
accreditation is, which is why we can have schools everyone knows are fake,
stay in business for decades), and ask for some documentation of what goes on
in our classes. “Some documentation” is a bit of an exaggeration, all they
really ask for is our syllabi…more accurately, the syllabus of one of the
classes taught at the institution.
Accreditation
asks for a syllabus, and admin provides the pseudo-chemistry professor’s
syllabus. Our accreditor notes that the Chemistry 101 syllabus, for some
idiotic reason, has a Student Outcome and Assessment Matrix for Speech 101
attached to it. To clarify: the chemistry teacher, like a good little automaton
(he was an extraordinary sycophant) simply stuck the “sample matrix” admin had
told him to stick onto his syllabus, and nothing more.
Accreditation rightfully
thought that a Chemistry syllabus with Speech outcomes was invalid, and so
asked for another. Admin dutifully pulled out another syllabus, from a social
studies course. Sure enough, it too had the same Student Outcome and Assessment
Matrix for Speech 101 as the last page as well.
As did the next
syllabus. As did the next syllabus. Finally admin thought to submit my syllabus,
their 5th choice.
Admin: “We had to
submit a syllabus five times. The accreditor found your syllabus satisfactory.”
--I asked why it took
so many tries to get a valid syllabus, and that’s how I got the story I’m
relating here.
Now, the gentle
reader should understand, the reason why so many community college faculty had
that Speech matrix appended on the end wasn’t a protest; these guys had no clue
what was going on (at the community college level, competence is neither sought
nor encouraged by admin), and just followed the instructions from admin as best
they could. I’ve discussed before that higher education is mostly a
sycophantocracy now, and I assure the gentle reader it’s at its worst at the
community college level. So many faculty there were so clueless, they would
tell me “you should just follow orders” with no understanding of the potential
for evil in doing so. They, of
course, always followed orders from admin.
I’ve mentioned before how at community
colleges, the syllabus is a complete fraud, that faculty have no intention of
following what’s on the syllabus. Studies,
of course, back me up, detailing how many of our community colleges are simply
unhinged, filled with exactly the fraud I’d seen many times with my own
eyes.
To further
emphasize what a joke these places are, at my school these syllabi, with a page
of essentially complete gibberish stuck on the end, were passed out thousands of times, in dozens of classes, over the course of years. Not only did no faculty go “You
know, it seems kind of stupid for me to have Speech outcomes on my Biology
syllabus,” but not a single student looked at that syllabus and said “Yo teach,
why do we have these stupid outcomes for a different course on our syllabus?
Are we really going to learn this here? Why do I get these identical weird
looking box things in other courses?”
I trust the
gentle reader now understands why I have such a grim opinion of many community
colleges: even at an accredited school, I know with certainty that many of the
faculty and most of the students have not the slightest idea what’s supposed to
go on in a college course. I don’t blame the students, for what it’s worth.
He's going too far,
but the fact that we're pressured to use the almost Orwellian phrase
"learning outcomes" instead of "results" or
"goals" or "aims" indicates how dumb and irritating some of
this ed-speak gets. Education departments, people look down on you for good
reasons.
--a comment from a news piece on the lawsuit.
I totally
respect the professor bringing the lawsuit for not wanting to put this stuff on
his syllabus; it’s very clear that it’s just an administrative make-work
project of no relevance. It’s not a fight I want to have, but I wish him the
best with his lawsuit all the same.
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