**Out of 21 responses so far
Are there any classes or subjects that you wish were available that are not offered now? Which ones?
-"Any type of foreign language class"
-"Human Anatomy - Environmental Science"
-"African American Lit."
-"I think Kendall Students need more math to prepare them for not getting ripped off. While GRCC suits my needs fine, and is saving me a pretty penny, I would weep if Kendall's offerings were the only choice available."
So I saw the poster, and as a faculty member, I thought I would check out the sight and see if there was anything there that would be helpful and meaningful in bringing about change in the GE curriculum at KCAD, something that I am very interested in changing. I have to say that I am disappointed at what I found here. The questions in the survey are not the kind of questions that are going to get concrete enough information to do any good. For example, the survey asks students to rate their GE classes. Since you lump all the GE classes together, it would be hard for admin. or faculty to make specific, helpful changes. We wouldn't have enough information to start investigating what needed dto change. We also don't know how many GE classes a student has taken, and it makes a difference if a student has only taken 1 or 2 as opposed to a student who has taken 5-6. If a student is basing his/her answer on one bad GE course, we have no way of knowing (from your current survey) which course that is and it would be unfair to assume that this was the student's response to all GE course. Maybe a student has only taken Oral Rhetoric, for example, and found that course dredfully boring because the teacher just lectured and droned on and on. Or maybe it was a math class and the student got a 32 in Math on his/her ACT score so the required math class was felt like being back in elementary school. Do you see what I mean? Unless you ask questions about specific courses and then find out about those specific courses what specifically went wrong with the class, the information doesn't do a lot of good. Now the question regarding what kind of classes students would like to take is a good one. We want to offer courses that students are interested in and that can also meet bachalaureate requirements for general education. The "challenging" question is also too vague. How challenging a class is to a student depends largely on how prepared that student is for class. If a student really studies and is motivated about learning, chances are his/her critical thinking skills may be challenged in class discussion but he/she may not feel the test is challenging because he/she has prepared so well. On the other hand, the slacker, who never comes to class and never opens a book is going to feel that the easiest test is too hard and the teacher is mean.
ReplyDeleteI don't want you to think that I am against what you are doing. I am not. Actually, I'm FOR it. You can't fix something unless you know where it is broken. I just wish you had designed that survey to really find out some useful information that we can actually use to make the GE program at KCAD rival in quality the programs at any quality college in the country.
Dr. Prewitt,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to thank you for your criticism, it is valuable, duly noted, and in many ways I agree. I do have a brief response to the concerns you raised. First and foremost, on the subject of our methods of sampling, it is important to note a few things. The students sampled are intended to include ALL students, slacker and scholar alike, to receive as unbiased a sample as possible. If we only asked the 90th percentile students how they felt, we would be drastically misrepresenting the Kendall student body as a whole.
As to the concern raised about how many, or what, classes the surveyed have taken, there is few reasons this information has been left out. While I agree that this information would be valuable in targeting exactly where the problems lie, this is perhaps the greatest reason for its exclusion on the website. We did not feel that publicly singling out certain professors, or classes, was a wise course of action for a small body of students. We have however included a few questions asking students to address particular classes, or aspects thereof, that they found beneficial, or not. Those responses will be forwarded to the administration, along with all of our other findings. As to not asking questions about the students particulars regarding their academic progress, this has been done to further ensure the student's anonymity. I don't want to scare anyone off by asking what their transcript looks like.
I am, again, very grateful for your feedback, and am glad to see we have, at least to some degree, your approval. It's good to know there are others out there who feel students and instructors should be allieProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 in education, not enemies.
I get what you were trying to do, but there are ways to design a survey to do what you are doing more effectively. I wasn't suggesting that you only survey certain people, but that you collect the data by including a place where the person can indicate the number of GE classes taken at Kendall (1-2, 3-4, 5-6, etc.) just as a way for you, as the survey takers, to use the data more effectively. Since your survey results are not seen by the public (just to you, the survey takers), why would it endanger students to be totally honest about the experience? You are the ones with the information, and no one is telling you what or what not to share with administration, so couldn't you share the comments without revealing the student's name? It's your work, and I don't want to tell you what to do, it's just that I think you could make this so much more effective and useful without endangering anyone.
ReplyDeleteI am truly supportive of what you are doing in the sense that you are trying to raise awareness that our general education offerings need some work. I read this morning that someone suggested a basic accounting/business class. That's a wonderful idea, and I will call a meeting of the committee working on the curriculum to see if we can work that into the curriculum changes we are proposing next month. I would really appreciate it if you would inform me directly of any course suggestions like that. I don't know how many suggestions you are getting through the surveys or how many of those you intend to post here (and I'm not sure that I'll be able to check this blog every day), but I really want those suggestions. This kind of information--that is, courses students want to take--that I need to help make the changes we all want to see.