At the end of our conference, our university sponsored a final dinner for us. Before we dug into a delicious buffet dinner, the dean had a chat with us.
He agreed that a significant issue was the miscommunication that occured between faculty, the university and admin. Often, much of this had to do with overly complex procedures, that created too many steps in a process to make it efficient. As well, the dean stated that the procedural rules often took priority over academic interests, and that this was not the way it should be. This actually was at odds with some of the content the HR staff had commnicated to us with regard to class management and motivational methods. Finally, the dean said that, while students evaluations were important, they were likely to be biased in favor of teachers who employed less rigorous practices; or, that teachers who might try to uphold attendance standards and performance criteria would be less popular. This assessment process needed to change, and he said that a meeting tomorrow with HR staff would address this issue.
It then was open mike time. Teachers raised some controversial items, and the dean gave the good answer each time. Unfortunately, when these same issues were raised during the conference proper, admin gave answers that were more self-serving, and seemed to implicate a failing of responsibility on the part of teachers. The dean, on the other hand, said he would "support the teachers for doing the right thing." He promised that IT failures would be addressed this semester. A new proposal made by the dean's assistant was for the creation of various task forces, to look into particular issues like evaluation, curriculum, office/security allocations, CA and self-assessment, teacher feedback, textbook, etc etc would be created. They would investigate, make concrete proposals, and present findings directly to the dean, who would spearhead their implementation. Questions were raised about dealing with discipline in the class, because incidents the previous semester had had the effect of reducing teacher authority/credibility when decisions were over-turned or challenged publically by HR staff. The dean supported the idea of more teacher autonomy in the classroom.
One of the greatest failings that I have seen so far is the complete disconnect between classroom work and the final exam content. The dean believes in "clarity and fairness". He believed that item contribution by classroom teachers would mitigate this problem. I think a simpler solution would be to apply the tests that the textbooks themselves actually contain as in-class tests and final exit tests. Finally, he said that under no circumstances should "students be given a mark they do not deserve." In other words, enough with instructions to "be generous" with marks for interviews that I heard during exam invigilation. we can actually uphold the rubric, and mark according to standard.
Will these statements be realized? Will they stand the test of time? Or will the dean succumb to vested admin interests and power blocs, and the same old same old be reinforced? This was a watershed speech by the dean. His capability, competence and committment were clear for all to see. I can only hope, as do we all, that his character will not shift under pressure; that his leadership, so evident tonite, walks the line.
No comments:
Post a Comment