Whose Goals? Re-examining Course Development Process in Higher Education

The most ridiculous thing I ever did as a full-time tenured faculty was to walk in the classroom on the first day of class and hand out a syllabus that told students what they would learn, how they would learn it and how they would be evaluated.  I taught human behavior in the social and cultural environment. I was given the syllabus by our department chair and instructed to teach that syllabus since it was the department accepted version that had been carefully mapped to a sequence of courses, learning objectives and outcomes for the degree. (“What can I change?” I asked. Looking incredulous he simply stated, “Nothing.”) But through that act, something so intensely nuanced and processual as human behavior became reified and ossified. I taught about the behavior of others without integrating the behavior, choices, stories, experiences, and social locations of my students as part of the discourse. And in so doing, taught someone else’s story. Not theirs.  

Semester after semester, year after year I kept my fantasy of an ideal semester start alive. Here is what it looked like. I walk into a class and introduce a discussion of the topic including salient questions the topic raises for us. I talk about history, how and why we began to think about the topic, how our understandings changed through time and space, what those changes meant to people, how they were integrated into practice, policy and law, and how we apply it today. I talk about those who shaped discourse and those whose ideas were not recognized.

I then ask students if they have enough information to make decisions about what we would like to learn or if they need more information before developing a syllabus. If more, I assign them to research the field and come back to class with perspectives, avenues, and applications they would like to explore further. If they have enough, we begin to co-construct the syllabus, the learning outcomes, and the evaluations that will allow them to synthesize their knowledge into a coherent understanding of the material.

While my fantasy lives, so does a course development process that is the antithesis of a student-centered approach. It is a paternalistic model of higher education, that continually fails to ask the question, whose perspectives, goals, and stories are we teaching, and why must it always be ours? Without those questions, we continue to tell a reified story, while abrogating a process for learning that is critical to our students’ knowledge base. The essence of higher education is the ability to think critically with and about concepts, to ask questions. And yet we disable that from the start by telling students to accept our version and way of teaching a course and only later add critical thinking to the curriculum. But, when not integrated and applied, when not meaningful to everyday experience, critical thinking, like human behavior is objectified as a reductionist concept rather than a vital tool to think with.

I recently composed a short essay on LinkedIn where experts are asked to respond to a set of questions. The writing prompts are emblematic of the issue. “The first step… is to define your goals and objectives for your course or program. What do you want your students to learn and achieve?… How will you assess and measure your students’ progress and performance?”

These are not bad questions. But why are they the first questions? Why are we assessing our goals and objectives for students? Where are our learners in the process? Why do we shove them to the margins as objectified recipients of our wisdom? Why must we carefully choreograph a course as though it is a show and look for ways for our student to perform for us?

What if we flipped the script and began the design process envisioning the student seated before us? I don’t mean generically as we broadly conceive target audiences. I’m proposing empathetically picturing the actual individuals our curriculum will serve. We know real barriers and burdens stand between many of our modern students and the content we deliver. Perhaps that working parent tuning into an evening seminar sat through a 12-hour shift beforehand. Maybe the first-generation college freshman signing onto our 101 class holds uncertainty navigating unfamiliar academic culture. We need a marriage, a working partnership between we, who are content experts, and our learners who know their learning styles, passions, goals, objectives, dreams, and limitations.

Our learners carry living stories – stories that profoundly shape how they interface with us and the material we teach. What if accounting for and integrating those stories and passions became the driver rather than resting outcome in formulating courses? Here’s what it could entail:

  • Compassionately assessing real student experiences through dialogue, not just data.
  • Co-constructing course materials and outcomes addressing student goals and objectives.
  • Curating content resonating with articulated needs and perspectives.
  • Evaluating mastery through flexible demonstrations of competency.

This approach flips emphasis from transmitting expertise to empowering transformation. And we gauge effectiveness not by curricular fidelity but by witnessing renewed confidence emerging through support of students’ articulated journeys.

This learner-centered model is what we do at YU Global as we develop our curriculum. We aim to transform not just the lives our learners but transform a fossilized academy begging for a reflexive and organic approach to higher education.

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