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From: hen@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Bill Henneman)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching (Student's responsibilities)
Message-ID: <18514@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 11 Jan 88 13:27:26 GMT
References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <115@mccc.UUCP> <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <6511@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: hen@bucsd.bu.edu (Wm. H. Henneman)
Followup-To: comp.edu
Organization: Boston Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 51

From bu-cs!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!jade!violet.berkeley.edu!ed298-ak  Mon Jan 11 08:27:00 1988
Article: 863 of comp.edu:
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Path: bu-cs!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!jade!violet.berkeley.edu!ed298-ak
From: ed298-ak@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching (Student's responsibilities)
Message-ID: <6511@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 10 Jan 88 03:36:28 GMT
Date-Received: 10 Jan 88 05:04:21 GMT
References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <115@mccc.UUCP> <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: lagache@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 33
Keywords: Student attitudes, Social expectations.
Summary: Student do not go to college to learn, they go to "succeed".

In article <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> moreno@umn-cs.UUCP (Andres Moreno) writes:
>Recent postings on the net reflect a much needed attitude towards improving
>the quality of teaching in colleges.However, I must point out that
>ultimately, the student is responsible for his or her own learning.
.
.   (Additional material deleted)
.

	This is of course what should be true, but the fact of the matter
	is that students do not go to college (or any other educational
	institution) to learn - the go to succeed, where success is 
	measured by the social norm of the times.

	Jean Lave of U.C. Irvine has done some interesting work in which
	she found that students's actual behaviors on learning are very 
	very different from even what the students stated they were up
	to.  Fundementally, students would do whatever it took to 
	succeed in the class as long as it was accepted in their social
	group.  Thank God, that happened to include a lot of learning!

	At the college level, things are different.  It is possible to do
	a lot of short term learning in order to pass tests, with little
	or no long term retention.  Thus, I don't think it is reasonable
	to "farm out" the bulk of the learning to the students (at least if
	one is hoping that students keep what they learned) without doing
	something to get the students really hooked on learning the stuff
	(as opposed to passing the test which after all is the only measure
	of success in our dehumanized world).

						Edouard Lagache
						School of Education
						U.C. Berkeley
						lagache@violet.berkeley.edu