I always loved getting cotton candy when I went to the Firemen’s Carnival as a kid. But as huge as that pink ball appeared, it was all just fluff.
Lately, following what many of our colleagues have been talking about, I’ve been trying to decenter content and to use it as a vehicle to test skills. This starts with getting rid of that ball of fluff at the bottom of your syllabus’s first page and taking the time to write good learning objectives.
Rather than that ex post facto list of what you want students to know (i.e. content, facts), write an objective that states what you want them to be able to do. For example, on the original version of the syllabus for my food history course, one course objective was “Students will know and be able to think critically about food in the Renaissance in Italy.” First of all, that knowledge (facts about food in the Renaissance) will be mostly if not wholly useless to most students in the future, other than for cocktail party banter. Second, the phrase “critical thinking” means absolutely nothing; it’s undefinable and un-operationalize-able to test. I would recommend you delete this verbal equivalent of Hamburger Helper from your pedagogical vocabulary.
