DROOPY eyed and disheveled, I prepared for a class-long struggle to stay awake through my Western European politics lecture last Monday. I was pleasantly surprised (and rudely awakened), however, when Professor Gerard Alexander launched instead into an interesting discussion regarding study groups.
Alexander was not a big fan of study groups. To him, they were the academic equivalent of Napster and other music-sharing programs (despite the obvious difference regarding author permission). They blurred the lines of plagiarism and undermined the objective of tests to ascertain individual academic merit. In order to undermine the efficacy of these groups, Alexander removed the "identifications" portion of the final exam. His hope was that an essays-only exam would make it harder for study groups to have any kind of impact on a student's academic achievement.
Worried whispers and exasperated gasps echoed throughout the lecture hall. In an ensuing discussion, students struggled to make the case for study groups by citing anecdotal experiences with other professors or the organizational advantages of group study guides. Alexander remained unconvinced, and the policy remained in effect.
But at the heart of this microcosmic study group debate is something much deeper than final exam grades. What Alexander missed, and professors should understand, is that study groups are part of a collaborative learning process that furthers long and short term academic development. This function ought to supersede minor concerns about sharing ideas or affecting individual achievement.
First, just because exams are designed to test an individual's command of the material does not preclude group collaboration on understanding concepts, debating potential essay questions, or providing equal access to tested material. In fact, in social science classes like politics, anthropology or sociology, isn't an important purpose of the class to allow students to make sophisticated arguments?Following from this, would it not be beneficial for students to then debate their points as groups or even yo present their ideas in a coherent form so the rest of the class can understand them? Study guides are a central part of achieving the very objectives of education in a large lecture setting.
Learning and testing ought not to simply be a matter of meeting requirements. The objective of every professor and student at this University should be to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills and to be able to express themselves persuasively. This applies whether you are a civil engineer trying to explain your plans for a bridge or a mathematician solving a great puzzle. As the fourth question of my brother's high school guidance counselor questionnaire put it, "How do you display the skills and values we wish to equip our students when they graduate -- critical inquiry and research, problem solving, intellectual curiosity, and social responsibility (CIRPSICSR)?". The unpronounceable mnemonic will never catch on but the essence of the philosophy should.
Second, collaborative learning is not just something we ought to value abstractly. Empirically, research has also proven that it improves learning itself. For instance, most education researchers, such as Barbara Gross Davis of the University of California at Berkeley, agree that regardless of the subject matter, "Students working in small groups tend to learn more of what is taught and retain it longer than when the same content is presented in other instructional formats."Beyond retention and quantity learned, collaborative learning through group work and study teams also improves satisfaction with classes.
But so what if study groups achieve key objectives and work well? Isn't the potential price of more students undermining the honor system much too high? Yes, it is true that the mixing of ideas by nature allows for their proliferation. But students are very likely, and almost certainly, going to come up with similar ideas when they all read the same material and attend the same lectures anyway. Believe your professors or not, what differentiates a good essay from a bad one has less to do with novel ideas and much more to do with how you argue or defend a point. At the undergraduate level, professors for the most part do not expect their students to synthesize novel ideas about institutional arrangements in Western European politics. Hence, fears about the honor system are very much misplaced.
Instead of shunning study groups or apathetically allowing their existence, professors should encourage them as a form of collaborative learning. In this regard, Alexander was strangely right in his example of getting rid of the ID section, albeit for the wrong reasons. The ID section has to go not because it would reduce study group impact, but simply because such questions are mere exercises in rote memorization (which lasts no longer than the duration of the test), rather than requiring comprehensive argumentation. Professors should also encourage this kind of learning by offering to meet with study groups outside of class to answer pertinent questions or even providing discussion forums for that explicit purpose. In that way, learning can become a tool for intellectual development rather than a mere futile exercise in intellectual regurgitation.
Prashanth Parameswaran's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at pparameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.
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