Faculty group ready to tackle book criticizing lack of learning on college campuses
Registration for “The TLC Responds to Academically Adrift,” a day-long conference to be held this Friday, filled up before the registration deadline, said Fenton senior Maye Conley.
“A lot of teachers told students they could go for extra credit,” said Conley, a student panelist for the event.
This is the second annual conference to be hosted by the Teaching and Learning Collective, or TLC, a faculty group in the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences focused on improving student learning and performance at CMU.
This year’s conference will be a response to the book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. The book, published last year, examined student learning at colleges and universities across the country, and found that students were not learning how to think critically and were “drifting” through school.
“(Students) are getting lots of information, but they aren’t thinking in a mature way about complex themes,” said Merlyn Mowrey, TLC co-chair and conference co-director.
The authors, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, gave five presentations at CMU on Oct. 3, 2011, to approximately 600 people, Mowrey said. The conference will build on Arum and Roksa’s presentations and book, with presentations and panel discussions focused on different aspects of the problems presented in the book.
The free conference will include three sessions and lunch. Session topics range from the impact of electronic devices on student learning to how to best design courses to help students learn more effectively.
Conley is one of six students participating in a panel on student reactions to the book and presentations.
“The authors did a good job of presenting the issues,” Conley said. “But they didn’t give any solutions. We will be presenting some of the ideas we have come up with.”
Mowrey said the ideas presented by Arum and Roksa apply to CMU and she hopes the conference will lead to changes in the university.
“The book is very provocative and speaks to everyone in the university,” Mowrey said. “We need to turn the focus [of the university] back to student learning and away from other things. We need to bring intellectual rigor and intellectual development back.”
