[The Montana Professor 17.2, Spring 2007 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
L. Dee Fink
San Francisco; Jossey-Bass, 2003
295 pp., $37.00
Johnny W. Lott
Director, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Mathematics and Education
The University of Mississippi
jlott@olemiss.edu
In his book, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses, L.D. Fink states in closing that he hopes readers will "examine the ideas in this book closely, not to determine whether they are true or false but to determine whether they are useful" (255). This summary in many ways epitomizes this reviewer's reaction to the book. There are many ideas presented about teaching and how it should or could be done at the university level. Virtually all of the ideas given are part of a schema presented by Fink in his quest for having most faculty members change how they are currently teaching. In his zeal for that quest and contrary to his statement in the closing, one is challenged to determine whether some of the background for the ideas is true or false in order to decide if the ideas might be useful.
In order to begin to understand the schema Fink presents, one must be familiar with what he calls "significant learning," "integrated course design," and "better organizational support." In his presentation, Fink defines both the terms and how they might be incorporated as integral parts of a faculty member's teaching. "Significant learning" in the book has a taxonomy that includes (1) foundational knowledge, (2) application, (3) integration, (4) human dimension, (5) caring, and (6) learning how to learn (30). In this taxonomy, foundational knowledge is what most professors expect of students; it is the nuts and bolts of the "information of most courses" and is needed for any additional learning about the subject. Application refers to the skills and critical thinking that most professors desire in student learning. This also refers to managing complex projects. Integration implies the ability to make connections among different sorts of learned ideas and expands intellectual power. The human dimension of significant learning deals with the learners' discovering something about themselves and their interactions with others and how this interaction might happen more effectively. Caring reflects possibly a change in student attitude either about themselves or what they are learning. And learning how to learn enables a student to continue learning beyond the classroom (31, 32).
In presenting this taxonomy of significant learning, Fink tries to move beyond Bloom's taxonomy and to push the ideas there a bit farther./1/ It is the case that many who believe strongly in Bloom's work will simply aver that Fink has only restated parts of what Bloom proposed in his taxonomy. But Fink insists from the beginning that faculty members who want significant learning in their students must build an integrated course designed with learning goals that go beyond simple content mastery and include the parts of Fink's taxonomy as subgoals all along the way. He states (without evidence) that "if teachers use a combination of significant learning goals, it will be possible to create some interaction effects and synergy that greatly enhance the achievement of significant learning by students" (33). He proposes general course goals (34) that are later put into play in specific examples from classrooms in music education and geography. However, this reviewer continually struggled with how one might measure such things as "personal and social implications of knowing about the subject," "care about the subject (and learning more on the subject)," and "know[ing] how to keep on learning about this subject after the course is over." The goals are admirable; measuring them appears nearly impossible for an individual instructor.
As much as I tended to agree with Dr. Fink on many of the major ideas in the book, I found many things to be niggling distractions. Examples include his descriptions of three kinds of thinking where I questioned his distinctions in the field of mathematics. His examples--"How is this mathematical proof flawed," "Prove [a given proposition]," and "How is trigonometry applied to the construction of bridges"--for critical thinking, creative thinking, and practical thinking are simplistic and led me to question his examples from other fields. Another distraction is the book's organization and layout from an editorial standpoint. The book is constructed in an outline format which is not a bad thing for understanding, but the number of layers of the outline with different type sizes, italics and so on, gave this reviewer pause to wonder what the truly big ideas were in some sections. This happened so frequently in the book that no specific pages are given here. Were it not for the occasional summaries to help pull some of the concepts together, I would have struggled throughout the book, fighting the outline format, trying to determine which ideas were of most importance.
Fink's numerical evidence throughout the book is weak. There are too many unspecific words such as "some," "many," and so on. When such "evidence" is juxtaposed with an abundance of sports analogies, distractions mount.
Aside from the distractions, Fink's notion that faculty members need to change from simply stating topics that students need to learn to his more comprehensive significant learning taxonomy has much appeal. Though his taxonomy is given without a great deal of evidence in its support, it does resonate with people who are dissatisfied with what students are currently doing. The new taxonomy may not go as far as Fink indicates in his claim that the content version of learning is linear and his is multi-dimensional (56), but this may be the result of Fink's oversimplification of "traditional" learning and teaching and not the fault of his taxonomy. He claims that the content-centered traditional paradigm is not what faculty members dream of but what many settle for in the absence of a move to a more active learning process with students involved in their learning (57).
If one accepts Fink's taxonomy and tries to change teaching methodology, then one has to move toward a learning-centered approach to teaching (60). And moving toward a learning-centered approach to teaching (if one is not already using that approach), one must necessarily change the design of the course being taught. Fink recommends an integrated course design that meshes learning goals, teaching and learning activities, and feedback and assessment (65). Learning goals will have to be expanded beyond content only; learning activities will have to engage students and not allow them to be passive learners; and feedback and assessment need to be frequent, immediate, discriminating (based on criteria and standards) and done lovingly (or supportively) (95). Each of these aspects and many more are discussed in the book in fairly good detail. This is one of the better sections of the book in this reviewer's opinion.
In describing the design of the course, Dr. Fink falls into one of the traps that he advises faculty members to avoid in courses. The book is a passive learning tool and needs a method of making it more active for readers. Some nods to this include the use of websites for more research, but it is only a book and lends itself to passive learning. In his workshops, Dr. Fink provides that activity portion for significant learning, but it is missing from the book. This passivity is uncontrollable in most books; the active portion has to be triggered by the reader doing something.
One idea presented in the book for a class is use of a double-feedback loop (115) to get beyond passivity in students. That is that the professor assign readings, not lecture on the readings, hold students accountable on a regular basis with quizzes over the readings, and use an in-class activity that forces the students to use what they have read. This instructional strategy has value in many situations and can be integrated easily into classes.
In Fink's book and likely in his own teaching, he presents the need for better organizational support for university faculty members to change the traditional lecture-two quiz-final examination mode for teaching classes. The need is both research-based and anecdotally based and reminds one of the current movement in the U.S. Department of Education to make colleges and universities more responsible for student learning. Both the Department and Fink indicate that it is an academic responsibility of the university and of individual faculty members to "know" what students know and to improve what is being done for significant learning. Fink in particular indicates that we are beyond the stage in academia where we can continue to blame failures on students' inabilities to complete assignments in a way that we deem acceptable, their "poor" high school backgrounds, or their poor participation in classes. Professors have a responsibility to overcome some of the excuses for non-learning. And the university has a responsibility to make sure that the professors can be rewarded for providing significant learning experiences. Additionally, national organizations (225) share in the responsibility for aiding universities in making changes in the typical reward system involving "teaching, research, and service."
Fink describes how six needs of faculty need to be approached by action from higher education administration and organizations involved with higher education such as curricular organizations (233-36). Those needs include faculty awareness of the need for change, encouragement for peers and administration for change, time to make change, support for making that change, cooperative students who recognize that innovation in teaching is not a bad thing, and recognition and reward for making change. None of these needs is trivial; one basically does not stand alone; the time to start is now.
In summary, Fink has many good ideas, some of which could be implemented as stand-alone efforts. His better ideas deal with systemic change for faculty, the university and beyond. His favorite example, Alverno College, is good, but the book would be enhanced by more examples like Syracuse University for larger universities. For the book to be used widely, it needs a systemic university effort as a minimum. If even an entire department or college could agree to consider his ideas, it would be an agreement of grand importance. But lack of universal agreement from a department or a school does not mean that an individual faculty member cannot learn from this book. This reviewer did; it is a useful book, and it is laudable.
Notes
[The Montana Professor 17.2, Spring 2007 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]