Pseudoteaching, pseudoengagement, and the dangers of equating teaching with performing

One of the best books I've read in the last 10 years was written by Dan Coyle, whose blog is also one of mymost recent post, Coyle discusses the concept of pseudoteaching, which I would define as high-energy and quite often entertaining teaching that looks impressive, but that leads to very little learning for students.  Coyle links to a great post from +Frank Noschese that explores the concept in more depth and provides two contrasting cases that further illustrate the difference between pseudoteaching and "real teaching."  If you have six minutes, watch them both below.
favorites to follow.  In his


#1 -- Pseudoteaching Example
Pay attention to

• How animated the teacher is
• How entertaining he is
• How much students seem to be enjoying the demonstrations
• Who is doing the talking

#2 -- "Real Teaching" Example
Pay attention to

• Who is doing the talking
• Differences in the looks on students faces (as compared to the pseudoteaching example)
• What the teacher is doing

See the differences?

The typical narrative of "good teaching," (especially in popular media) is nearly always aligned with what you see from Walter Lewin, the physics teacher in the first clip.  It's characterized by energy, excitement, smiling and laughing students, and a teacher with a big personality.  This is the cover story of good teaching that Hollywood, booksellers, and the general public likes to believe.  But, there is a more subtle narrative beneath this type of teaching.  Look again at the physics teacher and the way he views his role.  He proudly boasts of "rehearsing" each of his lectures to empty classrooms, two to three times before teaching them.  Consider what this means.  His role is to "perform" and this performance is the same regardless of whether he's "teaching" an empty lecture hall or one full of laughing students.  

Now, in contrast, consider the example from Cary Academy.  First, the teacher is noticeably absent from the clip, except for when he's being interviewed.  Instead of being focused on what the teacher is doing, this classroom is all about what the students are doing, which is engaging with challenging, real-world problems.  The news clip suggests that students are engaging in demonstrations and experiments, but the key difference here is that the students themselves are engaging in those activities (rather than watching a "performer" conduct them at the front of the classroom).  Even more telling is Dr. Matt Greenwolfe's description of his role which is to "create experiences for the students."  Rather than rehearsing what he'll be saying and doing (like Lewin from the prior clip), Greenwolfe spends his time planning experiences that his students can have themselves.  It's much less flashy (and so is Greenwolfe), but engages students as active participants in their learning, rather than passive observers.

This gets at another misunderstood term from the educational landscape--engagement.  Just as pseudoteaching is often confused with "real teaching," its companion pitfall is pseudoengagement.  The average citizen (meaning, someone with no formal training or background in education) sees the MIT physics clip and mistakenly assumes that students in those large lecture halls are engaged.  After all, they are smiling, laughing, and paying attention to the teacher.  In short, they're being entertained.  But engagement is not entertainment.  

Surprisingly, "real" engagement looks very different than the students we see in the MIT case.  If you really want to see it, watch the Cary Academy clip again and pay attention to the looks on the students faces.  No smiles, no laughter, no real indication that they're even enjoying themselves.  Instead, there is a look of concentration, focus, and even struggle or frustration.  And, that's what the best kind of engagement looks like.  Instead of looking like they're watching a movie (which Lewin's lectures might as well be taped performances), they look like they're at work, which is the whole point.  

Learning is work.  And, by extension, teaching involves providing environments and experiences that invite learners to engage in work.  In contrast, "performers" entertain and expect very little from their "audiences" other than laughs and applause.  Likewise, engagement is not entertainment (though it can be entertaining, but not in the same way watching a performance is).  

When we move from pseudoteaching to real teaching, and pseudoengagement to real engagement, not only do students have a more meaningful experience, but quantitative outcomes improve as well.  Case in point, Lewin's "entertaining" physics classes resulted in a drop in lecture attendance, as well as increased failure rates.  Greenwolfe's authentically engaging classes led to significant improvements in AP test performance.

For educators, our role is to help others understand these distinctions, which includes students, parents, other teachers, policy-makers, and legislators.  If we can't reframe the narrative on good teaching and real engagement, we're setting ourselves all up for failure.  Pseudoteaching and pseudoengagement are a little like educational pornography (which I've written about before here)--they serve as counterfeits to the real teaching and learning we hope happens in schools.  And, until we recognize and replace these counterfeits in conversations about education, we won't make much progress.

Institutional Innovation: Campus-wide improvement efforts, or lifeboats for a sinking ship?

The pressure for institutions of higher education to be "innovative" is rapidly growing.  While there are a few holdouts, clinging to romantic notions of what universities "should" be, it's commonly understood that the landscape of higher education is shifting dramatically.  Consequently, the "traditional" way of doing things won't be enough for institutions to remain viable into the future.

One of the most frequently critiqued "traditions" of the academy is the general education experience of undergraduate students.  This is particularly true for large research institutions where undergrads, especially first-year students, commonly find themselves in large, impersonal lecture courses or trying to make sense of complex general education 
requirements that leave students feeling fragmented and disoriented.

In response to these critiques, institutions frequently engage in small-scale innovations that are touted as improved alternatives to the typical general education experience.  The most well-known (and oldest) brand of these innovations are Honors programs, where students are promised things like "an unusally rich and challenging experience for capable and motivated undergraduate students" (from the description of BYU's Honors Program that appears on the Undergraduate Education homepage).  Another example from BYU is our new "Mosaic" approach to general education, offered as a program that "works for YOU and YOUR goals" and as a better approach than taking "random classes."  Finally, our most recent innovation--a series of three interdisciplinary general education courses titled "Unexpected Connections" and taught by administrators in the College of Undergraduate Education.  The goal of these courses, taught in close collaboration with the BYU Honors program, is to give students a "broader and more interdisciplinary education by making connections between . . . different disciplines."

At first glance, these "innovations" all seem fantastic.  What could be better than an "unusally rich" experience? A general education program that meets MY goals and that moves away from me having to take "random classes?"  Or, a broad and interdisciplinary education?  Isn't this what we're all striving for at our institutions?

Precisely. The undergraduate experience is assumed to be providing all students with these types of experiences.  But, ironically, when institutions emphasize curricular innovations like those above, they are in the words of Murray Sperber, "pointing the way to their lifeboats" (i.e. these small pockets of innovation), while inadvertently signalling that those who don't make it into the boats are, sadly, part of a sinking ship.  As innovative, enriching, and engaging as these lifeboats might be, they don't in any way compensate for the poverty of the ordinary experience.  This is the problem with innovations in higher education--they are often used as a camouflage for more wide-spread failures.  

So, what to do?  I'm not advocating for institutions to stop innovating.  Improvements to the general education experience, as small-scale as they may be, are a good thing.  But, only if they lead to one of two outcomes.

One path is to provide enough "lifeboats" that everyone is saved from the sinking ship.  In practice, this would mean allowing diverse, small-scale innovations to continue to occur on the margins, without worrying about wholesale changes to the undergraduate experience.  While it may be naive, an institution could make the argument that they have provided enough different "niche" opportunities that any student can have their "honors" experience, whether that's in a formal honors program, through participating in undergraduate research, or serving in some sort of peer leadership role (i.e. as a resident assistant, peer mentor, or peer advisor).  For this "many lifeboat" plan to work, it's imperative that campuses provide some means of helping each student find the lifeboat they'll need.  Providing adequate advisement resources and personnel seems like a good start, but this could be accomplished in other ways as well.  Without an intentional and strategic plan for connecting students with these niche opportunities, chances are only the most prepared and resourced students will benefit.

The second approach to more ethical innovation is one that moves away from providing "lifeboats" and focuses on improving the "ship."  From this perspective, innovation becomes a learning exercise for the institution at-large.  While the innovations and improvements may begin on the margins, the perennial goal is always to use these "experiments" to eventually make more widespread changes that impact all the students on campus.  The challenge here is making sure that innovations don't live and die on the margins, but that the best innovations are identified, rigorously evaluated, and then thoughtfully scaled up.

For institutions to innovate in the ways I've described here, they'll need both honesty and patience.  The honesty to admit that a handful of lifeboats aren't enough to save a sinking ship, and the patience to see worthwhile innovations through to the point that everyone, not just the privileged few who find their way to the lifeboats, benefits.

BYU and the Academic Arms Race: The quest for a Rhodes

My message to our peer institutions. . .is really a lament that universities too often elevate glitz over goodness.

The above statement came from a 2013 Huffington Post Column written by Luis Calingo, President of .  In the piece, he comments on the "gold-plating" institutions engage in as an attempt to improve the "prestige" and attractiveness of their campuses for parents and students.  Whether its luxurious residence halls, big-time college sports programs, or academically elite honors colleges, the goal is largely the same -- to stay competitive in the institutional arms race and provide fodder for shiny brochures and national tv spots that will attract students, parents, and (most importantly) their money.
Woodbury University

While BYU does a lot of things well, we can't in good conscience say that we aren't actively trying to run and win this arms race (see, for example, recent decisions regarding athletics and residence halls).  The most recent attempt to win the academic arms race has been focused on ending BYU's 15-year Rhodes Scholar drought.  The Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest and (arguably) most celebrated international fellowship in the world and provides funding each year for 32 of the brightest young scholars in the world to pursue their work at Oxford.

Clearly, it's one of the holy grails for an institution, garnering invaluable PR in terms of recruiting future students and faculty members.  And, the Rhodes Trust (who award and administer the fellowship program) have consistently delivered on their promise to use the award to prepare future leaders having produced the likes of Bill Clinton, Edward Hubble, +Cory Booker, Bill Bradley, and David Souther.  So, it's not surprising that institutions are keenly interested in producing Rhodes Scholars on their campuses.

But, what's the cost (literally & figuratively)?

In the same Huff Post column referenced above, Salingo goes on to comment:

In my view, the so-called arms race distracts--if not detracts--from the educational mission.  It does so by siphoning both resources and focus, and it paints a less-than-comprehensive picture of the institution beneath the shiny veneer.

He makes a strong argument (one that I've also made about Honors programs, and that is made even more articulately by Murray Sperber in Chapter 13 of his excellent book Beer and Circus) and raises important questions about the lengths institutions go to in order to run "the race" with their peer institutions (or, in many cases, those they wish were their peers).

Though BYU has been more insulated from the economic downturn that has ravaged higher education over the last ten years (in large part thanks to a very shrewd, wise, and I think inspired Board of Trustees), resources are still scarce.  Approvals for new FTEs, additional research money, or travel funds are becoming more and more rare.  So recent resource allocations for the newly-branded Office of National Scholarships, Fellowships, and Programs (formerly known as the Office of Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships--which didn't help the perception of the office as being elitist) have been both curious and concerning.

Over the last two years, a new Associate Dean of Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships has been appointed, an Associate Director of Prestigious Scholarships position has been created, and huge amounts of travel funds have been allocated for both of these individuals to spend extended amounts of time in the UK (as well as around the US) learning how to prepare students to apply for and win a number of prestigious scholarships and fellowships, most notably the Rhodes.

Part of the irony in all of this is that these activities fall under the umbrella of BYU's College of Undergraduate Education, whose mission is to "supervise and foster essential university-wide elements of the baccalaureate."  In all fairness, I think the Dean of Undergraduate Education at BYU is just taking marching orders from administrators above him who, for whatever reason, have made it their goal to make sure the Rhodes drought ends and ends soon.  I just hope we get our holy grail before we start teaching 2,000 section seats of American Heritage and get rid of the last few full-time faculty members teaching first-year courses.  These recent efforts and decisions are neither essential or university-wide and I think, bordering on criminal (at best, foolish) given the ample opportunities to improve the general education experience at BYU.

The Reading Terminal Market: A model for small colleges (and a great place to eat in Philly)

I was in Philadelphia last week for the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association.  One of the things I enjoy most when I am visiting new cities is eating good food, particularly "local" fare in local spaces.  My hotel (and the convention center where the conference was held) happened to be right next door to Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market, which many consider to be one of the finest food markets in the U.S.  In addition to being really interesting, the story of the market, including its struggles through the 70s and subsequent renewal in the late 80s, provides important lessons for higher education--especially small colleges.

The market has nearly 80 independently-owned small businesses, representing a wide diversity of products and services.  The brochure I picked up in the hotel lobby boasts that the market "has something for everyone," and this isn't untrue.  As I walked through the market nearly each day of my 8 day trip I saw bakeries, coffee shops, ice creameries, a flower shop, craft stands, meat counters, seafood markets, produce stands, and sit-down restaurants (if you're planning on visiting Philly, my personal favorites were the Down Home Diner, Bassetts Ice Cream, and Profi's Creperie).  Based on this description, it would be fair to wonder how the Market is different from a run-of-the-mill mall.  And, this is the lesson for small colleges.

One of the challenges for any institution of higher education is balancing the tension between identity and universality.  If an institution is too parochial, it runs the risk of attracting too few students and too little attention from other important stakeholders (e.g. key community & government leaders, funding sources, researchers), similar to the fate of a highly specialized boutique that can't manage to get off the ground.  Alternatively, if an institution becomes too broad or too general, it loses its identity and becomes unremarkable and run-of-the-mill, like a shopping mall.  The key for a small college is achieving balance between these two extremes--enough diversity to attract a good group of students and faculty members, but enough identity that it can carve out a space and home on the higher education landscape.

The Reading Terminal Market is a great model of this balance.  Like I mentioned above, the promotional brochure produced by the non-profit organization that manages the Market, touts that it "has something for everyone." While I understand the appeal for its brochure to make these kinds of claims, I'm not sure that the Market really offers something for everyone, like a typical mall might.  In fact, what makes the Market such a great model for small colleges is that they have made some very strategic decisions about the constraints they would place on themselves and their vendors.  And, it is these constraints, tempered by a small degree of diversity among the types of vendors they invite to house the space, that bring the Market the identity and vibrancy that allow it to thrive.

1.  Connection to history and values.  First, the the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority (the non-profit that runs the Market) has worked to ensure that the story and history of the Market have been preserved and represented in today's Market.  When the Market was re-built in the early 1990s, the Authority negotiated a preservation agreement that made sure that the refurbished Market would adhere to historic standards and maintain its historical integrity.  Those simple architectural decisions and constraints give the Market personality, voice, and signature that link it to its past and leave you feeling a bit like you've walked back into history when you walk through the market.  This creates an experience that visitors enjoy and remember--very different than walking into a shopping mall.

2.  Connection to the local community through signature services & speciality products.  When the Market underwent its initial reconstruction the Reading Railroad Company (who operated the Market until trains stopped coming into the terminal) recruited specific vendors who would tie the Market to the unique culture and history of both the city of Philadelphia, as well as the state of Pennsylvania more broadly.  This included a group of Amish merchants from Lancaster County.  They also made sure that Bassett's Ice Cream, who have been in operation at the Market since it opened in 1892, would remain in their original location.  Inclusion of these products and services diversified the Market's offerings, while grounding the Market in a local place and community.

3.  A personal, neighborhood feel.  Though I was an outsider at the Market, I felt like a local and felt like I had stumbled across something that only locals know about (which is actually not true of the Market at all).  The small vendor spaces, counter top dining, friendly merchants, and mixing of various types and demographics of people make the space feel like neighborhoods and communities should feel.  I was comfortable there, felt attended to by the merchants, and wanted to go back day after day.

Small colleges could learn a great deal from the Market.  Just as small businesses often feel the gravitational pull to become like the big-box stores around them, there is a tendency for small colleges to try to be everything to everyone.  The logic seems to be that the more we offer and provide, the more students we'll have, and the better off we'll be.  But, the reality is that identity, mission, and place are just as important has providing access to a broad range of academic programs and services.  The Reading Terminal Market has grown and innovated, but it has tempered this process by maintaining ties to its history and mission, grounding its work in the local community, and ensuring that it provides an experience that feels personal and supportive.  Likewise, there is a need for small colleges to pursue strategic and constrained growth and innovation by remembering the institutional stories and values that are at the core of their mission, providing a small set of signature programs that are ideally linked to the values and economy of the local community, and that leverage one of the greatest strengths of small colleges, which is their ability to foster a neighborhood or community of diverse, yet like-minded learners.

A potential game changer for college sports: Unionized athletes

Kain Colter, the outgoing quarterback at Northerwestern

Yesterday, Michael Tarm of the Associated Press reported on the National Labor Relations Board's ruling Northwestern University can create the first-ever union of college athletes.  While the ruling only applies to Northwestern, it has the potential to dramatically alter the landscape of college athletics, athletic department budgets, and the experience of student-athletes.
that football players at

At the core of the decision was the question of whether football players at Northwestern qualify as "employees" of the university?  In his ruling, Peter Sung Ohr, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regional director argued that the players meet the two major criteria for employees:  first, they are "compensated" through athletic scholarships and, secondly, they are under the strict and direct managerial control of coaches and athletic administrators.  In his 24-page decision, he went on to say that players are "identified and recruited . . . because of their football prowess and not because of their academic achievement," citing a lack of any real evidence that scholarship players are ever allowed to put academics first by missing games or practices in order to attend to academic obligations.

These are murky waters that Northwestern's players union, as well as the NCAA and all of its member institutions, are wading into.  College sports have long been held up as a model of amateurism and are viewed by many as the pure and wholesome alternative to the greed and commercialism of professional sports (this is particularly true at this time of year when the country is caught up in the romance and drama of the NCAA men's basketball tournament with its narratives of the underdog school and players who play for the love of the game).  So, if unionizing were to become widespread among college athletes, fans may not be so quick to view them as the noble, self-sacrificing "student-athletes" that are portrayed in the NCAA's recent marketing campaigns.

At the same time, Kain Colter (a former Northwestern quarterback,who has been the public face and leader of the push), his teammates, and their supporters have a fair argument.  For athletes participating in "revenue sports" (e.g. football and men's basketball), their lives look a lot like a professional athlete in that their in-season time commitment approaches that of a full-time employee, they do receive compensation (though minimal) for their involvement, and their lives are very highly structured by coaches who dictate how they spend their time and what other activities they are involved in.  In short, they look a lot like institutional employees, but without many of the protections that an employee in another part of the institution might have (e.g. coverage of "work-related" medical expenses).

At this point, the goals of the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA), which is the group that will represent the union, are to ensure coverage of sports-related medical expenses, advocate for policy changes that will help to reduce head injuries, and to begin discussions about the possibility of allowing college athletes to pursue commercial sponsorships.  It's this last one that will raise eyebrows, again, because it calls into question the notion of amateurism that has made college athletics palatable, even when its dark side has reared its head.

For the time being, this ruling only effects private institutions, and only football and men's basketball players on those campuses.  But, like ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson has pointed out (+Lester Munson), the ruling could quickly snowball to effect a much broader range of institutions.

There is a fundamental tension at the heart of this issue between protecting the rights of athletes and preserving the romanticism of amateur college athletes.  Is this the beginning of the end for amateurism in college sports?  Just a necessary protection for college athletes?  Which side of the fence do you come down on?  Which side of the issue should be more heavily weighted?

I don't want a perfect president

Last Tuesday, President Henry B. Eyring, first vice chairman of the BYU Board of Trustees announced the Kevin J. Worthen as the next president of BYU.  It was an exciting day and people seem excited and optimistic about the future here on campus.
appointment of

I was in the meeting when the announcement was made, and happened to be sitting next to a neighbour and friend who knows President Worthen quite well.  As soon as the meeting was over, and again as we were walking back to our offices on campus, my friend said:  "I've never seen him take a misstep."  

Typically, when something like that is said about a person, it is meant to be laudatory.  The message is "Here is a person who doesn't screw things up (or at least not publicly)."  Usually, we say things like this about people who we like, who we trust, and who we want others to see as competent.  So, in that sense, it was a perfectly reasonable thing for my friend to say about someone who he looks up to and sees as a great leader.

But, to be honest, I would have been much more impressed had I heard something like:  "Once I saw him take a misstep (and it was pretty bad), but then this is what he did to acknowledge it and try and fix it."  The reality is that every leader makes mistakes.  Most are behind the scenes and minor enough that they don't impact the organization on a general level, and no one ever knows about them.  But, occasionally (and I would argue at least once in every leader's tenure), they will take a major misstep.  They'll say something stupid, make a prediction that isn't just way off but that leads to losses, or make some other kind of decision that is highly public and, in hindsight, highly inadvisable.

When that happens, I'm much more interested in being led by someone who has learned to respond well in those situations (as I've argued before here).  As helpful as it is for the media and others to perpetuate the narrative of how skilled, competent and seemingly perfect President Worthen is, I'm waiting to hear stories of missteps, mistakes, and what he has done in the past when that has happened.  That narrative is much more telling and, I think, can build more confidence than sanitized stories of how everything a leader touches turns to gold.

We're not all Paul Ryan or Aaron Osmond: An argument for supporting all parents and all children

Last Thursday, in his remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Republican Senator +Paul Ryan (Wisconsin) took aim at free school lunch programs, using them as an example of the way in which the left offers "a full stomach, and an empty soul."  His remarks seem to imply that children who eat school lunches (whether they're subsidized or not) have parents who love them a little less than their best friend who brings her sandwich and apple in a nice brown paper sack (In a deliciously ironic move, he finished the speech by relating a story that was originally told by Laura Schroff, who I heard speak two weeks ago and who is actually an advocate for the programs Ryan seems to despise).

Ryan's remarks fit the pattern I've observed a number of times, from various politicians, over the last year or so.  The narrative goes something like this:    "The [opposition party] is morally wrong for providing free [fill in the blank].  Parents who take advantage of this [fill in the blank with federally subsidized program of your choice] are bad parents.  Good parents do [fill in the blank with what your "good parents" did to make you into the moral role model you are today].

A supporting case (or two) -- last summer, Utah State Senator +Aaron Osmond proposed that mandatory school attendance be abolished because it encourages parents to shirk their responsibility to educate their children (a view I've critiqued here).  He softened his stance somewhat later in 2013 and offered up a modified proposal that would require parents to opt-in to the public education system.  In Osmond's modified plan, those parents who avail themselves of public education's services would also be required to enter into a "Public Education Parent Participation Contract," that among other things would require them to attend all parent-teacher conferences, ensure all homework is completed, and cover the costs of any remediation received by their child.

Underlying arguments like those made by Osmond and Ryan seems to be the belief that every parent of every child is equally capable of providing the very same support.  Ryan believes every parent can and should make his child's lunch in the mornings.  Similarly, Osmond seems to believe that parents come in a two discreet types:  (a) those skilled and competent enough to educate their own children or (b) financially secure enough to cover the costs of their children's "remediation" (not sure what that means, but apparently Osmond has a nice tight definition for it that will avoid all controversy ).

Osmond, Ryan, and others making these kinds of arguments seem to have forgotten that parents come in a wide variety of "flavors."  While the brown bag lunch crusaders and laissez faire education advocates would like to believe that every parent has an equal (and, it seems, inexhaustible) supply of educational acumen, time, and money, the reality is that today's parents look a lot different than those that raised Osmond and Ryan.  There are parents who, despite their desire to be as helpful to their children as possible, don't have the intellectual, social, and financial capital as do others in their communities.

Osmond's proposal is presented as a way of "liberating" parents from the mandates of an oppressive government, however, this liberation only extends to a certain class of parent.  Osmond seems to have forgotten the parent who works 2 - 3 jobs, speaks limited English, or who can't afford to pay for remediation.  Ultimately, for a growing segment of the population, these plans masquerade as virtuous ways of supporting and liberating families, when in reality they are veiled forms of oppression for those without the privileges enjoyed by the naive lawmakers making the proposals.  Utah Senator Luz Robles, in responding to Osmond's original plan for ending mandatory education, said it best:

Not everyone might have a highly educated, Ph.D. mom or dad, what might happen to that child [who does not]?"

If Osmond, Ryan, and others are really interested in supporting parents, they can make good by considering how educational policy and legislation might be crafted to support all parents.  In a recent post on his excellent blog, my good friend +Greg Williams argues that any comprehensive attempt to improve educational systems has to acknowledge the critical role that parents play in their child's education.  He concludes his post with this provocative question:  "Why aren't we having more discussion about helping parents be great parents (emphasis is mine)?"

It's a tremendously important question and one I would posit to those who only seem interested in penalizing those parents who, despite their best efforts, can't support their children by offering home school, packing a brown-sack lunch, or doing the things Ryan and Osmond would have us believe are the hallmarks of a "good" parent.