GTD On Hold: Preparing for a large class

Distracted by Work
The GTD implementation has had a set back as I settled into a focus on preparing for my 55-60 student class in Cognition, Emotion and Personality. Our whole first year class has to take this course, and for many students this is their introduction to psychological science. In prior years I tried to make the course absolutely painless, with a minimum of requirements. I decided this year to change the tone of the course from "Its easy" to "Its challenging," and see what happens. I had observed over the years that students tended to be less serious in the class, pay less attention to the speakers. Every week except for this first week, there is a visiting professor who comes and introduces the students to the constructs in his or her field, then describes his or her own research, and finally discusses clinical implications to his or her work. One would think it should be easy to teach this class, that is from my perspective, because I only have to lecture in the first class. However how the students receive each visiting professor has been an ongoing problem. I think by turning the overall tone of the course to "this is a challenge" might help in encouraging students to pay better attention to all the speakers. The most obvious thing I'm doing differently is I have announced on the syllabus that there may be several "pop quizzes" during the trimester. Translated into "You have to do the reading and pay attention to the speakers; we (myself and the TAs) will find out if you are not keeping up with the reading."

The minute papers method
Another new thing I am bringing to the class is what are usually described as "minute papers," to be collected weekly at the end of each class. What is a minute paper? A minute paper is a very short statement collected from each student at the end of each class. Students are asked to write on a 4 X 6 card, a response to two questions: 1) What was the main point you learned from this class? and 2) What is the biggest question you have remaining, at the end of this class? The students will be told to sign their cards, and turn them in when they are signing out and leaving. (I have students signing in and signing out, as that is how attendance is ordinarly noted in the courses we are mandated to take, Post-licensure, called "Mandatory Continuing Eduction for Psychologists (MCEP). My students may as well learn about this now, before they finish up the three years in residence, required for the doctoral degree in psychology.

Upping the Ante
Introducing a higher level of difficulty in this class is an experiment. I think that the prior atmosphere, in which I tried to convey that there was no way, short of failing to attend classes, that one could do "poorly," ended up making the class feel too sloppy, or too disorganized, an entity without hard edges around it. Students would wander in and wander out, come late, leave early. Because there was no real consequence to signing in late, or to missing content in the lectures, those who thought they would not like, or understand psychological science, did as little as possible, and failed to take the experience seriously. This was a loss to them. The visiting professors in the course are not only well-known for their work as scientists; they are also well-known for their skill in teaching. They take on the task presented by the course, treating it as a challenge. The challenge is to make their area of specialty attractive to students who are clinically focused and who are for the most part, afraid of science. Many of the students suffer from what Claude Steele named "stereotype threat."

Stereotype Threat
In stereotype threat, students who had in the past, wanted to be or tried to be ambitious in a given area, were discriminated against both subtly and overtly, because of their group membership, i.e. their sex, race, ethnicity, class background. In an ingenious series of empirical studies, Steele found that he could set up a situation in which students perform more or less poorly in a given academic area when reminded by some cue, of their membership of that group (sex, race, ethnicity, class, etc.).

In one of Steele and Aronson's early studies they presented a group of students at a high status university with a test. In the first condition they told the students it was a "test of intellectual ability" and in the second condition they told the students that it was a "test of problem solving ability." Results demonstrated the African American students responded to the first condition by doing poorly on the exam, with scores significantly lower than what would be predicted on the basis of their college entrance exam scores. In contrast, those students who were presented with the alternative condition, that is the students who were told it was a test of problem solving skill, did significantly better with socres that were in line with what would be expected based on their college entrance exam scores. The students were responding to the stereotype of African Americans, doing poorly when they thought the test was an IQ test, and doing significantly better when told that the test was measuring problem solving skill.

Stereotype threat and women in science and mathematics
These experiments were repeated with women's performance in math as the central topic. Women are expected to do poorly in mathematics. This is still so accepted by our culture, that Summer, then president of Harvard University, in a talk to a group of female academics, suggested that women were not cut out for science. Imagine what would have happened if he had said he same thing about a particular race or ethnicity. In fact he would not have dared to say something like that about another group, but the opinion of women is still so low culturally, that he had no problem coming out with his sexist and discriminatory statement. In the women and math experiments, there were two conditions. In the first the women were informed that men usually surpassed women in this particular test, and in the second condition the women were told that women ordinarily did as well as men in this test. As might be expected (on the basis of Steele and Aronson's first study), women who were told men suprassed women did not do well on test. However when women were told that women did as well as men on the test, their scores were significantly higher than women tested with the first condition.

Challenge not remediation
Graduate students in clinical psychology are predominantly female and thus are vulnerable to discrimination in areas of math and science. It should be no surprise therefore, to have students of clinical psychology fearful about any class or seminar associated with math and science. They often begin the class with the expectation of failure. In prior years, I presented this large lecture series with that in mind, therefore making it as easy and undemanding as possible. The net effect was to reduce the challenge, but in doing so, I inhibited effort, ambition, aspirations and in the end, I inadvertantly, inhibited performance. Steele's recommendation in situations of stereotype threat, is to increase challenge instead of "remediaion." That is, make a course or seminar more challenging than is the norm, and have the expectation that students will rise to the occassion and get the message that they can do it. I think in my earlier editions of this course in psychological science I was taking the "remediation" approach, which in and of itself, conveyed the message "You can't do it." Thus my effort to make the situation anxiety-free, in the end conveyed a kind of discouragement for the students. Now I am experimenting with raising the challege (challenge instead of remediation) and perhaps this will be inspiring to the students, as it carries the implication that they can do it, they can face the challenge and be successful.

I expect some students will test me immediately, complaining about the lengthy readings, complaining about the final paper, and then more quietly, complaining about the "pop quizzes" mentioned on the syllabus. I have to keep calm, rather cool, poised, and holding my ground steady. I have to convey absolute conviction that they can do the course and do exceptionally well, with effort. I have to be ready to reward those who go the extra mile, grapple seriously with the material, and get into the spirit of the science based lecture series.

I am going to track the progress of this class here on my blog. Please comment here, or privately, I want to hear everyone's opinion on this experiment.