Confronting Expectations in the Classroom

Students tend to like everything neatly laid out; they want to know exactly where they are; they don’t welcome the introduction of multiple perspectives, especially when no master perspective reconciles them; they want the answers. But sometimes (although not always) effective teaching involves the deliberate inducing of confusion, the withholding of clarity, the refusal to provide answers; sometimes a class or an entire semester is spent being taken down various garden paths leading to dead ends that require inquiry to begin all over again, with the same discombobulating result; sometimes your expectations have been systematically disappointed.

Stanley Fish, (2010, June 21). Deep in the Heart of Texas. New York Times

Fish’s concern is primarily with student evaluations of educators; his point is that the relationship between a present action or performance and a judgment of value is different in different contexts. As he notes, if a waiter asks “Was everything to your taste?” one can respond immediately and authoritatively. But when it comes to learning, the context is different. Being able to judge value for learning that has occurred must be based on the efficacy of that learning. Constraining the efficacy to the current classroom or semester is a dangerously narrow way to define the impact and import of learning.

Leaving aside the thorny issue of student evaluations and their questionable utility for the moment, let’s deal with his observations about the aspects of learning that can so disappoint students.

We know that students are prone to react the way he describes…but what do we DO with our knowledge? We have generally lived longer and experienced more learning than our students. We can look back on our learning experiences and determine the learning that benefited us and the learning that, while interesting at the time, ultimately did little for us. We cannot take our experience and perspective and give them to our students. Instead, we feel rather like Cassandra, knowing what they need and how they’ll be able to use it, but forever unable to convince them of those things. “Because I know best/better” is hardly a compelling argument and, unfortunately, appeals to a rather authoritarian if not mystical mindset.

But if we can’t impart our wisdom, what can we do?

Consider that asking,

“What did you expect?”

after-the-fact

is never as helpful as asking,

“What DO you expect?”

at the outset.

Put another way, perhaps we can target the expectations that students (and educators) have, with respect to learning. If we demonstrate and communicate openness about the actual course of learning – that it is not an act of continual accretion but very often an act of unlearning/learning or performance/assessment or thinking/testing (two steps forward, one step back), are we not helping them have, if not more reasonable expectations, then at least an appreciation for the fact that their expectations may sometimes diverge from reality? If we focus on managing expectations, we are far less likely to ‘ambush’ students by allowing them to hold unreasonable expectations.

To do this, we must insist that expectations are made explicit whenever possible, on the part of the students as well as on the part of the instructor.

In the Classification of Learning Skills, the Cognitive Domain skill cluster Generalizing includes the skill clarifying expectations (defining a desired standard of quality or outcome). And the Affective Domain skill cluster Practicing Intellectual Management includes the critical skills enjoying productive struggle (finding satisfaction in working on unclearly defined problems) and managing dissonance (seeking consistency when addressing unresolved intellectual conflicts).

How often do we embed any of those learning skills in course activities?

Beyond this, how often do we consider elevating consciousness of those skills through discussion?