Practical Implications of "Academically Adrift"

More pragmatically, here are ten conclusions (some of them counterintuitive?) that could be drawn from the book.

1) Academic rigor is the key to student learning, and that means, more than anything else, time on task. Our JBU data would indicate that we’re requiring more work on average than many institutions do, but still not nearly as much as the authors would recommend. Would we as a campus community be interested in moving more toward some of the minimums that they suggest (at least 40 pages of reading per week, at least 20 pages of writing per semester, at least 2 hours and preferably 3 hours of assigned work “out” for every hour “in”), especially for our Core courses? (Oh, and by implication, our semesters should be as long as we can make them? )

2) Faculty scholarship and teaching are inversely correlated, at least at the national level, and especially at R1 schools. That doesn’t seem to fit the general patterns here at JBU (our “best scholars” tend to be our “best teachers” as well), but might this general conclusion be another reason to consider allowing more flexibility in our evaluation system for those who want to put more time into teaching, service, and spiritual mentoring instead of scholarship?

3) The clear implication of the book is that “difficulty” and “rigor” should be emphasized more than “engagement.” This is easier said than done, of course. I’ve yet to see a college that has created a successful “learning focused” assessment process at the individual course level. Also, I’ve made money available to divisions to pilot “learning outcomes oriented” assessments at the individual course level that might replace some of our existing instruments. I’ve had very few takers and none of them “successful.” But the door is certainly open to more of these types of efforts (that’s an invitation to talk to your division chair and then to me). We might also consider weighting even more heavily than we already do the “difficulty” and “rigor” elements of our evaluation and ancillary budget systems.

4) Studying alone is superior to studying in groups. The authors explain that collaborative learning can indeed be a better way to educate students, but that most faculty members don’t know how to run such collaborative processes well enough to leverage their potential. As a consequence, group activities in and out of the classroom do foster engagement and retention, but they on average hinder the development of the types of skills that CLA tests for.

5) The Collegiate Learning Assessment is the best instrument available to assess student learning. In the past, we’ve skipped the CLA because of the cost and time involved and the questions about its accuracy at the individual student level. But CLA has clearly garnered some momentum, and this book will likely further that momentum.

6) Living and working on campus may foster both learning and retention. At worst, they don’t undermine learning. Not so living and working off campus. Those clearly undermine both retention and student learning. Being a residential institution certainly helps us in all sorts of ways.

7) High expectations from faculty members are crucial (this is the main argument from Teach for America as well). Medium or low expectations aren’t much different from each other in their effects, and they both clearly limit student learning.

8) Which institution you attend matters in fostering student learning. Which professors you take within that institution, however, matters even more. Teach for America and other groups have been making the same argument.

9) If you want to learn critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing (i.e. what CLA tests for), get a degree in the Sciences, Social Sciences, or Humanities. If you want to be challenged to read at least 40 pages a week and write at least 20 pages a semester in a course, get a degree in the Social Sciences or the Humanities. The more academically prepared you are entering college, the more likely you are to major in exactly these “challenging” areas.

10) Capitalism is evil! (Thought I’d throw in that subtext conclusion from the book for those of you so inclined.)