Advocate Online

Yes, because the learning process and the learning environment are not really separable.
Bob Barber *

When we say that students should take an active role in planning and carrying out their education—that learning activities should emphasize collaboration, that schedules and formats should be more flexible—we're already saying that learners should participate in the construction of their learning environment.

But this participation has to be organized on more than one level to be effective. Partly, it's creating the opportunity for individual teachers to approach their classes in a different fashion. But it's also creating the structural means by which student experience and ideas can be systematically incorporated into academic planning at the institutional level.

For example, how can all the envisioned flexible learning options be thoughtfully designed, to fit the pressing needs and learning styles of today's students, without involving students in the planning?

Who better to work with online instructors on how to design successful online learning environments than students who are taking or have taken online classes? Why else would teachers be signing up to take online classes themselves to see what it's like?

Or how better to seriously consider how interaction among students themselves, without necessarily the direct participation of instructors, can be recognized and enhanced as an important form of learning?

It's often said that the learning environment should prepare students for the world of work. And so it should, including by developing the skills of participation in the design and implementation of learning activities.

*Bob Barber is a computer instructor at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. He's an active participant in the Strategic Learning Initiative, Lane's collectively bargained, faculty-led partnership with administration for restructuring the learning environment at the college.

No, independent judgment by faculty members in designing their courses is essential.
Ned McGuire *

Many caring and committed college educators believe that sharing decision making and the authority to plan curricula with their students will result in a more dynamic and productive learning experience.

Unfortunately, this generalized enthusiasm for student-centered learning often doesn't produce enough tangible benefits to justify its costly side-effects.

These side effects include: losing under-achieving students who can't function successfully without some traditional classroom structure, the erosion of challenging course requirements under pressure from students who feel entitled to As and Bs, and, most damaging in my opinion, the loss of public esteem for teachers in general. This last consequence reflects the widespread impression that if students are able to assume such significant control, faculty members must not really be qualified professionals like doctors and lawyers.

I personally value my students' insights into the process of becoming educated. But this does not in any manner take away from my solemn obligation to demand the very best of them and myself at all times.

And I can't do that if I am negotiating the terms of success itself with consumer culture-oriented young people. No concerned educators would disregard student evaluations of their courses, but these same feedback surveys are now frightening college faculty into "feel-good" inoffensive teaching.

That's not what our students need. Our students need teachers whose years of experience and knowledge provide a challenging and rigorous context for academic excellence to occur.

*Ned McGuire is a learning specialist in reading and writing at Massachusetts Bay Community College in Framingham. He's also the vice president of the Massachusetts Bay Community College Professional Association, a local NEA higher education affiliate.