And while one is not teaching one has to hurry up with research or composition because if you did not finish your project you will not be able to do it during the term.
After you will forget your idea (say in a year from now) and will more or less have to start from scratch.
There is no time for vocations of any kind. People have nerveous break downs and many are depressed.
On the other hand people who worked in academia in the 70s - 80s  did very well, did not have to work in such a difficult conditions.

When do you WORK though t-p?

Well this "widening of perspectives" certainly used to be an ideal. However, it has now been superseded by the infamous Learning Outcomes.

Now anybody not immediately familiar with current HE may be mistaken for believing that the term "learning outcomes" is just another way of expressing the ideal outcome of having widened perspectives. This, however, is erroneous! It is in fact the opposite. 

The technical term "Learning Outcomes" is another example of the business-speak gobbledygook that all current academics have to learn (and indeed waste time attending seminars to discuss).

What it means is this: it is a predefined list of actual points of knowledge, information and experience that the students will have amassed by the end of their course of study.

It is not their own list, developed by the individual as study and research progresses and interests and specialisms develop; it is a checklist of predefined elements of "indispensable knowledge" (rather like those many points of information that must be learnt before a Learner Driver can pass the Theory Test!). Every Course Leader is required to list, in the course documentation, precisely what students taking the course must eventually know, and be capable of demonstrating in order to Pass the course.

Naturally, this is not a one-sided operation. There is therefore another complementary piece of gobbledygook that has also been invented so as to complete this nonsensical striving for "transparency". This has been allotted the technical term "Assessment Criteria", which must also be exhaustively tabulated and explained in detail in all course documentation. This indicates (ideally) how - in terms of the "Learning Outcomes" specified - the examiners will award every single mark with regard to the eventual quality of performance shown by each student.

Students no longer, therefore, "work in order to discover" but rather "work in order to cover the preordained checklist". The knowledge they will ideally amass is therefore only that "knowledge" that has been revealed to them before they ever begin their work (though, of course, they actually have to get to know it in substance rather than in outline). But it still remains only what has been predetermined by somebody else and does not in any way (except by pure accident) stray into other territories that result from what used to be a more continual and personal process of awareness and discovery.

In short (by taking a plumbing example), the following might exactly describe a one-year module:

Learning Outcomes: by the end of the course, students will have learnt the correct method of dismantling a kitchen tap, replacing the washer, correctly reassembling the tap, and thoroughly checking that its operation is rectified.

Assessment Criteria: marks will be awarded as a result of individual practical examination, and the following banding will be applied for the reasons stated...

90-100 First class work showing completely correct dismantling, repair, reassembly and testing.
80-90 Good work showing mostly correct dismantling, repair, reassembly and testing.
70-80 Reasonable work showing many correct stages in dismantling, reassembly and testing
60-70 Mediocre work demonstrating some incorrect stages in dismantling, reassembly and testing
50-60 Poor work showing numerous incorrect stages in dismantling, reassembly and testing
40-50 Substandard work in which most stages in dismantling, reassembly and testing were incorrect
30-40 Wholly inadequate work showing little or no understanding of the processes required for completion of the test
20-30 Totally inadequate work barely demonstrating an understanding of the function of a tap or the properties of water
10-20 Work of such overriding poverty as to show that any attempt at completion would be a danger to health and safety
0-10 FAIL

Now this nonsense has to be provided for each and every single HE module of study. I have to say that this does not chime in any way with the university process from which I was fortunate enough to benefit as a student.

Baz

Quite right martle! It's now been over 4 years since I had to do all this, and that omission would never have got through into the documents.

Baz

Incidentally, I see all out smartarsing has thrown this up in the sponsered [sic] links:

'Realsmart' Learning Suite Assessment for Learning
www.smartassess.com

Indeed - and when they tell us that...


...one assumes that it is not their spelling.

Baz

I'm not the thought police (at least I don't think I am - do I get a bonus to my salary if I am?) but I also do see that learning outcomes can prove to be a useful indicator for staff and students. This is possibly a generational thing coming from national curriculum and all that but it's been a great help to me to look at the descriptors for next year's teaching and have an idea of what I'm supposed to have covered during the teaching weeks in a field that is not my own.

At this stage in my career I'd much rather look at these things as something that I have to work with. This means that I'm going to use them as tools to serve what I want to do rather than (as I've seen colleagues in Another Institution do) see them as ends in themselves (the glorification of paperwork). I'm lucky in that the PGCert, which I'm beginning this term, seems to be set up in order to best enable this (well at my institution anyway) if the students are willing and able.

I'll even confess to finding sensitively worded criteria to be helpful. They're not the only guideline to how I mark, but often I'll have a set of specific things that I'm looking for when I'm marking and I don't necessarily see what's so wrong in sharing those with the students... In an age when class sizes are rising for every subject (obviously this isn't a trend restricted to HE, but in comparison this is a fairly recent exponential leap) the feedback that would have been possible when I was an undergraduate is now impossible, and sensitively worded criteria at least explain a little bit about what we're looking for in each band.

There are plenty of students who continue to work in order to learn (IMO at least) but they are not in the majority. It seems to be an indisputable reality that most students learn strategically in order to pass their degree. I wouldn't say I'm happy with that, but at the same time it's their choice. The students who continue to work in order to learn will always ask the interesting questions and they're the ones that you end up spending more time on (on top of the hours that you've promised to everyone of course) and they're generally the ones who do better. This is only based on the last 5 years experience while teaching first as a postgraduate then as a lecturer. I may well be singing a different tune in 10 years time, but this is where I am now.

It's surely a sign of deep fear when the existence and expression of a simple opinion constitutes the 'Thought Police', unless one needs a sheltered environment in which to exist.

'Learning Outcomes' is not the most attractive concept, but as far as 'widening of perspectives' is concerned - how can one gauge whether such an end has indeed been achieved - in particular, how can it be gauged in such a way that is meaningful to those without a vested interest in assuming it has i.e. those in the institutions making such claims?