Building Better Behavior

A college student who was finishing an elective course in philosophy wrote a letter to her professor, giving it to him as she left class on the last day. In it, she shared her deep sadness and disappointment that many of the students in the course, most who were majoring in philosophy, did not act like “good” people, despite having intentionally chosen to study the ideas of the greatest philosophers. She said that her peers came to the course already knowing much about the moral philosophers they studied and seemed to understand the books and do very well in the course…but also casually and proudly admitted to one another during study groups that they cheated in some of their classes. More than just a couple said hateful things about their significant others, laughing about it. Racist comments were not rare, nor were admissions of theft. “How is it,” she asked in her letter, “That students who learn so much about how to be good can behave so badly?” Her professor admitted later to friends that this letter shook him. It wasn’t that he was ignorant of some of the crimes? sins? moral failings? of his students, but that it no longer depressed and disappointed him. It was what it was; his job was to teach the course content. Or, as this student implied, was there a greater obligation there?

---

We know that it is perfectly possible to study moral philosophy and yet be an immoral person – the field of moral philosophy contains at least as many liars and cheats as any other field. But it should also shake us, at least a little bit, when the content of a course is all about how to be a good person and students who ace the course behave immorally and unethically, as a matter of course.

It is when the course content is so divorced from student behavior that we see that there should be at least some connection between what students learn and how they behave as people. Shouldn’t there?

Is the same true for a history course? A math course?

The answer is YES if we believe that education is more than amassing knowledge and should also include the concept of growth (personal development). Learning yields knowledge. Learning how to learn requires self-awareness and the willingness to improve and develop as a person because one isn’t just taking in information but attending to and expanding their capabilities.

From that perspective, we can say that ANY COURSE should focus, at least to some degree, on helping students develop positive or “good” behaviors. (We must remind ourselves that this isn’t growth and “goodness” in any rarefied philosophical or spiritual sense, but as understood within the context of a culture, society, and discipline.)

It should come as little surprise that one of the foundational steps in designing learning-to-learn courses is determining which long-term behaviors the course should help students develop. Long-term behaviors are the qualities we want students to exhibit habitually, and which relate to key aspects of performance that are valuable and meaningful for the learner, the profession, the institution, and society.

Any individual learning experience is just a small piece in students’ ongoing intellectual development and performance growth. Long-term behaviors give substance to the courses in a program by motivating both students and faculty to build learner performances that align with a disciplinary profile. These behaviors inform curriculum developers as they structure lessons in a course so that students can more easily understand why each activity is required and the effect the activity will have on their entry into a given profession. This continual focus on their life goals can motivate students in their course work.

The following 8 steps will help identify optimal long-term behaviors for any course:

1. Picture students in situations in which they will be expected to perform well as professionals. (This is the setting)
   
2. From these contexts, target those attributes that students should exhibit in relevant situations. (These are the qualities the students should demonstrate as professionals)
   
3. Reflect on current student deficiencies that might be revealed in these contexts. (Where are the students now with these qualities compared to where they will need to be?)
   
4. Prioritize these targeted attributes. (Concentrate on where the gap between actual and desired is widest.)
   
5. Visualize these targeted attributes in the contexts in which you have visualized them. (What do the qualities look like in the setting? Those are behaviors.)
   
6. Develop the draft versions of the behaviors. (Describe the qualities in action. Those are the behaviors.)
   
7. Establish the levels of performance for the behaviors. (This is so performance in these behaviors can be built and improved.)
   
8. Review with colleagues and professionals to assure that the behaviors chosen are ones that are valued, and that the quality levels are appropriate. (Check/validate your reasoning and assumptions!)

Measurable learning outcomes link learning objectives with long-term behaviors. In this way, they are not just the basis for course/curricula design but a visible thread that runs through it. And that’s as it should be, if we expect those behaviors to eventually be a visible thread running through the lives of our students.

(If you’d like to learn more about long-term behaviors and course design, you’re welcome to join us for a special 1-Day Course Design Workshop on June 8! Learn more and register HERE.)