Inside Higher Ed recently published a column written by a community college dean on the most important subjects one took or could take in high school — part of a larger conversation that originated on Twitter. Responses to the column mentioned:
- Theater productions, to learn how to work with other people who have different perspectives and objectives.
- A foreign language, to learn principles of grammar that allow one to become a better communicator in English.
- Typing, to learn how to communicate more quickly with less effort.
- Bookkeeping, to learn how to manage one’s personal finances.
Comments also referenced the processes through which the learning occurred. For example, one person mentioned that he gained a better understanding of the here and now when a history teacher worked backward from the present instead of using the traditional method of moving from the distant past toward today (which in high school is almost never reached).
The column and the comments got me thinking about the same question as applied to college. What undergraduate course was the most useful to you, and why?
As I wrote a few years ago, I generally don’t remember anything about the content of my college courses. Sorry, James Clerk Maxwell, I’ve forgotten how to use your equations. But I do have memories of what actions I performed when I originally learned the content and how I felt when that happened. The general process stuck. The specific outcome did not.
While I have tried in my own teaching career to better emphasize process over content, I still don’t get the kind of feedback contained in the Inside Higher Ed piece. My university doesn’t collect data on this level from alumni. So maybe it’s time I started doing it myself with a survey.