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Materials Engineering and the Challenge of Teaching
History in the Community College
Marc Dollinger
Pasadena City College
| MY
FRIEND SAM, a materials engineer in the oil industry, once tried
to explain what he did for a living: "When an explosion occurs in
a refinery pipeline, it is my responsibility to find the cause."
If Sam discovered a faulty pipe, he would design a new one. As he
explained, "Building a better pipe is easy. Just buy more expensive
components." But increased spending risked the intervention of cost-conscious
managers. Investing in cheaper supplies, on the other hand, heightened
the risk of a dangerous and costly breakdown. "Building a better
pipe for less money," he concluded with a smile, "that's materials
engineering!"1 |
1 |
| Sam's
explanation serves as a powerful metaphor for teaching history at
the community college. Historians at two-year institutions also
face contradictory impulses. We must maintain high academic standards
in a student population often under-prepared for serious analytic
scholarship. "Building a better pipe regardless of cost" in the
community college history class might seem easy: deliver lectures
at the highest intellectual levels and engage difficult historiographic
issues. Demand long research papers and assign a reading list comparable
to the reading lists of lower-division four-year university courses.
This approach would promise to prepare students for upper-division
work, would honor the matriculation agreements formed between community
colleges and their respective transfer schools, and would infuse
the two-year college with an academic culture which valued historical
inquiry and discovery. It would help retire the anachronistic label
"junior college," which denotes an inferior intellectual experience,
in favor of the designation "community college" which promises to
bring higher education to the masses. |
2 |
| Yet,
we must also insure that our courses remain accessible to our students.
Many community college students arrive in class unprepared to read
more than the textbook. In an informal survey of my history students,
for example, I discovered that fewer than half had ever written
a college-level paper. Indeed, only a handful of students in any
given class had graduated from a high school history course that
demanded a thesis-based essay. At Pasadena City College, as is the
case in many community colleges, students come from dozens of countries
around the world and face even more difficult barriers. Most of
our international students enter the United States history survey
with little or no knowledge of this country's past, and some have
weak English-language skills that make lectures difficult to understand
and complicate the reading and writing process. Many re-entry students,
balancing full-time jobs and family responsibilities with their
academic commitments, have lost the sort of intellectual focus enjoyed
by many traditional four-year college students. |
3 |
| In
addition, many of my students arrive on campus with little exposure
to academic culture. Decorum suffers when students routinely enter
class late, leave early, fail to take notes, and on rare occasions,
refer to their instructor as "teach." Few understand historiographic
concepts and more struggle with the notion that history is interpretative.
The minimalist reading and writing standards of their high school
history class have created limited college expectations. They clearly
prefer narrative lectures and when they learn of my "one book a
month" reading requirement, many protest. Some, in fact, put pens
to drop slips on the news that they will be required to write a
five to seven page analytic paper. A classroom bursting at the seams
with first-day students soon reveals a host of empty desks. If community
college historians try to adopt the reading and writing course requirements
of the major four-year universities, students will search for more
familiar and less challenging classes elsewhere. We will lose the
students in greatest academic need and retain only those already
prepared for transfer. |
4 |
| The
challenge of maintaining high academic standards among under-prepared
students crystallized for me in my first three years of college-level
teaching. During this time the uncertain nature of the academic
job market saw me working at no fewer than eight different colleges
and universities. These assignments ranged from the community college
to the four-year public university to a major research university
and an Ivy-league caliber private college. I witnessed a wide variety
of students and struggled to develop history curriculums to meet
their diverse capabilities and needs. Of course, students at the
most elite-level school enjoyed the highest degree of academic preparation.
Most had attended private high schools and many had already experienced
residential academic life in boarding schools. During office hours,
several students expressed anxiety about participating in class
discussions because they thought that their classmates might expect
every comment to reflect "graduate student intelligence" and they
feared intellectual rebuke. Students dismissed the narrative story-telling
aspect of lectures in favor of historiographic debate. Overviews
of nineteenth-century immigration patterns, for example, inspired
spirited debates over the role of gender and class in gilded-age
America. No one questioned the amount or intensity of the readings.
(This, after the department chair rejected my first-draft syllabus
because of its "weak"—six monographs and one text—reading
load.). Students expected analytic writing assignments. School policy
prevented instructors from proctoring their own exams and campus
tradition dictated that students devise their own questions for
their papers. |
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| Historians
dream of teaching in such an academic culture. Students arrive in
class prepared (or are able to finesse their way through the historical
debates). Papers reflect a high level of intellectual analysis and
mastery of the English language. Class discussions often continue
during office hours and, in the recent past, in internet-driven
chat rooms. Almost every student will earn a bachelor's degree and
many will continue to study at the nation's leading graduate schools.
Students at the highest-level colleges and universities accept the
language of academic culture from day one. They know that they will
be expected to read and write. They understand that there are few
academic limits to what a professor can demand. Devising an educational
strategy for this sort of undergraduate population is not difficult.
We can deliver straight lectures, augment with readings, engage
students in debate, and expect them to grasp the concepts. They
have refined the learning technique in high school and know how
to process information and package it in a form acceptable to the
instructor. Instructors at elite-level institutions revel in the
opportunity to make interesting and insightful conclusions about
history, to show new and innovative connections between themes and
events, to teach current historiography, as well as to transmit
substantive information about the past. |
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| Some
community college historians, especially those trained at Ph.D.
granting universities, enter their new classrooms with this elitist
attitude, intent on "improving" the quality of education. They strive,
in vain, to mirror their own academic upbringing. Over time, many
learn that "building a better pipe" in the community college classroom
demands much more than just emulating traditional pedagogy. We must
translate the meaning and purpose of history to students who approach
our subject from a different academic and life perspective. On the
most basic level, we must explain that history demands multiple
interpretations, must make explicit connections between historical
evidence and the conclusions we draw, must teach analytic writing,
and must demonstrate the importance of broad thinking rather than
rote memorization. On a more sophisticated plane, we must reinvent
our curriculum to meet the needs of many students who, thankfully,
do not view their college courses as rungs to be negotiated on the
long journey up the social mobility ladder. |
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| While
many might lament the educational challenges of community college
instruction, it offers historians important and valuable opportunities
for professional development. All too often, my four-year college
students focused on what they needed to earn an "A" while my two-year
undergraduates challenged me to explain why they should care. This
community college reaction may appear to reflect indifference but
it actually reveals a yearning to know why history matters and why
a college education is important. These are the types of questions
all historians should routinely engage. It keeps us focused—and
honest. We are forced to justify ourselves and our discipline on
a regular basis. We must re-evaluate what we do and why we do it.
What is the purpose of studying history? What will our students
gain from our class and how must we adapt course material to meet
those needs? What limits should instructors place on the scope of
our teaching? Do different student audiences demand different approaches
to history education? |
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| Some
community college historians make the mistake of trying to solve
our "materials engineering" challenge by weakening the academic
requirements of their courses. They reduce the number of reading
pages to account for their students' family and work responsibilities.
They offer multiple-choice exams in an effort to insure that students
understand the basic historical narrative. They all but eliminate
the writing component. Students find great comfort in the familiar
pattern of memorization while instructors, especially those serving
on an adjunct or non-tenured basis, reduce the risks associated
with challenging the academic status quo. In educational terms,
it is of course possible to argue that these strategies recognize
the importance of building complex skills on a firm foundation:
that a student cannot reach the highest levels of learning without
solid training in the fundamentals. |
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| Yet,
this teaching style often sacrifices the thematic and analytic approach
that should define the undergraduate survey. Just as emulating four-year
universities fails to meet the needs of community college students,
returning to remedial education proves just as ineffective. Students
taught in this way will leave their two-year institutions without
the skills necessary to compete at the upper-division level. While
it is common for some community college historians to assign a textbook
alone in a survey class, upper-division instructors demand that
their students read as much as a monograph each week. A series of
short multiple-choice quizzes might help students understand basic
historical contours but they would not prepare students for courses
that demand critical thinking. History courses that rely on rote
memorization also tend to ignore compelling historiographic debates.
Students may know what happened but they fail to learn important
causal relationships. They study flashcards and timelines instead
of broad interpretative questions. |
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| Since
neither educational alternative addresses the needs of community
college students, how can historians create an academically challenging
program and still maintain a high level of student success? That,
to paraphrase Sam the materials engineer, is the art of community
college history teaching. It is a formidable challenge and one that
should engage every historian in the two-year setting. The community
college version of building a "higher quality pipe for less money"
opens new windows of educational opportunity for historians. It
forces us to rethink many of the most basic assumptions about the
nature of history, its purpose in the lives of our students, and
its place in higher education curriculum. Community college historians
must explore the creative space between these two approaches and
forge new teaching styles that recognize the limitations of our
students but still strive for a meaningful college-level curriculum. |
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| We
can "build a better pipe" by introducing educational aids, "affective"
teaching techniques, and student outreach. It is important to offer
a holistic educational experience within the lecture hour. By creating
a repeatable and predictable lecture, discussion, and testing style,
by providing students with necessary educational support, and by
reaching out to students on an individual basis, historians can
introduce community college students to greater intellectual challenges
while still addressing the need for remediation. |
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| Educational
aids such as will be described below can help community college
students better understand the thematic and historiographic approach
of a university-level history class. They can help explain difficult
concepts by offering students a roadmap through the professor's
argumentation. Pieced together over the semester, they can organize
the major themes of the class, help students understand the larger
context of each lecture, review previously-covered material, and
foreshadow future events. At the end of the term, educational aids
can also serve as excellent study guides for the final examination.
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| At
the beginning of each semester, students in my classes receive a
course reader filled with all the educational aids they will need
for the course. It begins with a letter of welcome designed to ease
student anxieties. The letter contains sections devoted to the particular
needs of re-entry students, non-native English speakers, students
with weak high-school training, and students who have had negative
experiences in other history courses. If we are to take our commitment
to teaching a college-level course seriously, then we must begin
our classes by reaching out to students and letting them know that
we understand the challenges they will face. Many successful students
have related the importance of that welcome letter. It reassured
them to know that their instructor understood their fears, presented
a vision of college success, and offered a plan to achieve it. |
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| The
reader also includes the course syllabus and several study guides
on lecture-notetaking, analytic writing, and study skills. Since
a thematic approach defines the course, I include the essay-based
midterm, term paper, and final exam questions in the course reader.
This gives students the opportunity to focus their reading and class
discussions on the questions at hand. They gain a clearer sense
of the course themes, can focus on the best study strategies, and
reduce their test-taking anxiety. Many form study groups and venture,
together, to office hours to debate their answers. |
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| The
bulk of the reader contains lecture outlines, one-page overviews
that organize the historical evidence and focus the day's lesson.
The outline opens with a single historical question used to frame
the lecture. The lecture outlines help students develop study skills
by modeling the type of question students will face on their essay-based
exams and introduces a disciplined academic approach to the study
of history. It shows them how to organize their thoughts in a logical
way, develop an argument, and defend assertions with evidence and
analysis. The undergraduates begin to understand that historians
approach each era or theme with a set of controlling questions that
guide their selection of evidence, analysis, and conclusions. The
historical question is followed by a thesis statement that defines
the instructor's position on the subject. By listing my own theses,
I establish the interpretative nature of history and let my students
know that different historians can come to competing conclusions
on the same issue. This is also a great moment to teach different
historiographic interpretations and challenge students to formulate
their own ideas based upon the evidence from the lecture and the
course readings. At the bottom of the outline, I include two or
three books of related interest. While few students have actually
read them, they do offer a powerful reminder that our lectures barely
scratch the surface. Students learn the value of the written word
and are introduced to the debates that separate one historical interpretation
from another. Within the reductionist confines of the lower-division
survey, these "suggestions for further reading" offer a powerful
bridge to the more challenging work ahead at the upper-division
or even graduate level. |
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| Period
music can help bring an "affective" quality to the community college
classroom. In the ten or fifteen minute passing period between classes,
an instructors can do what I often do, prepare an audio (or video)
selection from that day's lecture topic. For a lecture on the Great
Depression, you could play "Brother Can You Spare A Dime," "Happy
Days Are Here Again," selections from FDR"s first inaugural address,
or one of his fireside chats. A lecture on post-war popular culture
could include footage from Elvis' debut on the Ed Sullivan show.
A civil rights lecture might include images of the Greensboro sit-ins.
By beginning the music or video in the minutes before class begins,
students enter the classroom with an immediate immersion in a particular
historical experience. They sit, watch, listen and start thinking
about the topic even before class begins. By starting the learning
experience before the scheduled hour, tardiness is discouraged and
students are encouraged to ready their pens and notebooks before
the lecture begins. |
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| An
anecdotal story can provide an important segue from the end of the
introductory music to the beginning of the lecture. As the music
fades (precisely at the appointed start time of class), the lecture
can begin with a dramatic human interest story which captures the
day's major theme. An opener of this sort can provide the "hook"
to interest students in the subject. For the lecture on the civil
rights movement, I open with a dramatic retelling of Rosa Parks'
refusal to give up her seat and explain how that moment helped launch
the modern struggle for racial equality. For the New Deal lecture,
I describe conditions for one impoverished American and then introduce
FDR's pragmatic approach to easing the nation out of economic depression.
Every anecdotal opening closes with a single sentence that connects
the story to its larger historical themes. The civil rights anecdotal
opening, for example, closes with the sentence, "Rosa Parks, the
Montgomery Bus Boycotts, and the Civil Rights Movement...our subject
for today." The New Deal opening ends with the sentence, "FDR, the
New Deal, and social reform in 1930s America...our subject for today."
Students soon learn that each story fits into a larger historical
context. At this moment, just two or three minutes from the start
of class, students are seated and focused with lecture outline,
notebook, and pen poised. It is an easy transition to read and explain
the historical question and thesis from the day's outline. |
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| The
anecdotal opening also helps develop academic discipline among the
students. Administrative details, announcements, and other class
business is conducted after this dramatic beginning. Students learn
that their class begins on the hour, not five or ten minutes later.
They observe an uninterrupted continuum between the introductory
music, the anecdotal story, and a review of the day's historical
question and thesis. Tardiness decreases once students realize that
by roll time, the lesson is already well underway. Affective educational
techniques also help students gain a deeper appreciation for historical
change and for the essential differences between their own lives
and the lives of their ancestors. Whether by reproducing famous
American speeches in the minutes before class begins, donning a
hat to simulate a presidential address during an FDR lecture, or
even dressing in period costume to represent the 1960s in dramatic
fashion, I teach students that history is participatory and interesting. |
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| While
historians are not required to address remedial educational needs
in the survey course, I have found it impossible to maintain a college-level
curriculum without it. Students cannot be expected to compose a
five to seven page analytic essay in a history class if they have
never had the opportunity to write a paper in high school or college.
Demanding a strong thesis and polished prose on a first-attempt
college paper frustrates both student and instructor. Students cite
the paper requirement for my course as the number one reason for
dropping the class (the reading list places a close second). Retention
improved once I divided the writing process into its component parts.
Within the first few weeks of class, I offer a single lecture on
the topic, "how to write an excellent essay" in which I review the
definition of a thesis, the components of a paper, and the process
by which students should approach their work. Since students have
already received their questions for papers in the course reader,
we work through several examples, composing model theses and outlines
on the board and talking about how they might approach each question.
Five years ago, I required a paper worth thirty percent of the grade.
Now, I ask for a thesis statement and outline three weeks prior
to the due date (worth ten percent of the grade) and reduce the
paper value to twenty percent of the course grade. This helps discipline
students to begin their work early, offers the instructor an added
opportunity to help them get on the right track, and discourages
plagiarism, a perpetual problem, by forcing students to think for
themselves. |
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| More
and more students have been taking advantage of a no-risk paper
rewrite option as well. With only a single paper to write, students
often felt frustrated that they could not benefit from the lessons
they learned. To encourage students to continue thinking and writing,
I welcome paper revisions. In order to qualify for this opportunity,
students are required to discuss their graded paper with the instructor
during office hours. By demanding a one-on-one meeting, I gain a
valuable opportunity to help students. I now believe that the vast
majority of learning occurs only after a student has committed his
or her thoughts to paper and has the opportunity to discuss them
with the professor. These are the moments when students "get it"
and break out in spontaneous smiles, head nodding, and even occasional
laughter. I also require that students resubmit their revised essay
within a three-week time frame and attach both the old and new versions
of the paper. By demanding a timely revision, an instructor can
eliminate the inevitable procrastination which, all too often, leads
to no rewrite at all. I ask for both copies of their papers so that
I can quickly determine if any substantial revision has taken place.
All too often, students correct a spelling error or two in search
of a higher grade. When I starting receiving last-minute garbled
outline-format "papers" (and students asking to be given an "F"
so that they could take advantage of the rewrite option), I added
a requirement mandating that all students submit complete, best
effort, first-draft papers in order to qualify. |
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| At
a recent meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical
Association, Professor Dale Steiner of California State University,
Chico offered a powerful argument in favor of instituting group
quizzes. While I, like Professor Steiner, had once viewed group
quizzes skeptically, I experimented with them at the community college
and enjoyed great success. Rather than perceiving group quizzes
as exams, I came to understand them as substitutes for class discussions.
I improvised, using Steiner's model, to help students develop the
skills necessary to compose analytic essays. For each group quiz,
I asked students to formulate one-sentence thesis statements for
the week's reading. When papers, midterms or final exams approached,
I asked for thesis statements on the upcoming questions. For seventy-five
minutes, students discussed and debated the week's reading. They
thought about how they might answer their test questions, learned
from one another, and gained valuable experience in formulating
arguments. Students who would never speak in a class discussion
found it much easier to talk to a few of their friends. It encouraged
students to read since they now had to answer to their classmates
and friends rather than their professor. It gave me an excellent
opportunity to read their thesis statements and help them develop
critical writing skills before they walked in for the exam. It did
wonders for morale as students thought they were afforded an extra
opportunity to "ace" their tests. In fact, the group quiz achieved
many of the historian's educational objectives. It encouraged accountability
in reading, promoted open dialogue, developed critical reasoning
skills, and afforded the instructor the opportunity to walk about
the class listening, engaging, and learning from student discussions.
It built a better pipe for less money. |
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| An
effective community college history instructor must place one metaphorical
foot in the high school history classroom and the other in an upper-division
four-year university lecture hall. We should never abandon the basic
pedagogic qualities of college-level history: a thematic approach,
emphasis on critical thinking, and exposure to historiographic debate.
Yet, we should structure our courses in ways that help develop the
skills necessary to compete. Bridging that gap should define our
teaching and make us all great materials engineers. |
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Note
1
An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Organization
of American Historians 1999 Annual Meeting held in Toronto, Canada.
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Pasadena City College History 7B
Pasadena, CA Dr. Marc Dollinger
Lecture
Outline:
Elvis' America
Your musical introduction included:
- Hound Dog
- Jailhouse Rock
- Can't Help Falling In Love With You
- Heartbreak Hotel
Historical Question
- How did the life of Elvis symbolize the social
contradictions of the 1950s?
Thesis
- Elvis embodied many of consensus America's greatest
attributes just as he pointed out the era's major failures.
While the "king" enjoyed great commercial success with the "baby
boom" generation, his embrace of African American musical styles
alienated him from mainstream audiences and foreshadowed the
social protests of the 1960s.
Challenging the Consensus: Elvis As A Symbol Of
Dissent
- One exception: Elvis and Mass Consumerism
- Elvis and the New Sexuality
- Elvis and Juvenile Delinquency
- Elvis and Race Relations
- Reinventing Elvis
Presley's Legacy
- In the Ghetto
Suggestions for further reading include:
- Simon Frith, Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure,
and the Politics of Rock'n'Roll
- James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America's
Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950's
- Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty
in the U.S.
Pasadena City College The Critical Essay
Pasadena, CA Dr. Marc Dollinger
Hints For
Composing An Excellent Essay
- Make sure you articulate a strong THESIS STATEMENT.
A thesis statement tells the reader exactly what argument you
are taking and why. Even if the question doesn't appear to ask
for an argument, make one anyway.
- Answer the question. This seems obvious but all
too often students start off on the right track and then quickly
diverge into a generalized discussion that misses the point
of the question. Don't invent your own questions to answer.
- Support your thesis statement with historical evidence
from the readings, lecture, and/or sections. You will probably
only be able to consider one or two pieces of evidence per example.
Don't overpack your paper with historical evidence that you
are not able to explain and analyze.
- Analyze, don't summarize. This means that you need
to explain HOW or WHY the evidence you chose supports your argument.
Asserting a thesis and listing evidence is not enough. Everyone
in class is drawing from the same body of evidence yet many
of your thesis statements will differ. The only credible way
to distinguish one paper from another is to see how you connect
your evidence to your argument.
- Take time to think. This is the hardest and most
important step in writing a paper. After you've finished the
reading and selected the question to answer, spend some time
thinking about how you will go about answering the question.
This is a good time to talk to classmates or your professor.
Unfortunately, this is the first step students sacrifice as
they hurry to write their papers the night before they're due.
Don't skip this step. It often means the difference between
an excellent paper and an average one.
- Make sure your paper reads well. Check for spelling
errors. Insure that your grammar is correct and that the paper
is double-spaced with standard one-inch margins. Don't try to
squeeze 10 pages of text into 5 pages (or stretch 2 pages of
text into 7 pages) with creative use of fonts, spacing, and
margins. If your paper runs short, it's a good clue that you
need to ANALYZE more. If it runs long, chances are you've SUMMARIZED
too much.
Good Luck. Have Fun. Bring in rough drafts and I'll be happy
to read and comment.
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