Same o’ Same o’: The Puzzle of Similar Teaching in Universities and Schools
Why does so much teaching in schools and universities look the same over time? To be accurate, however, what appears as timeless stability and similarity in teaching has obscured incremental changes. Now professors ask more questions for students in lectures,organize more small group work, and more use of new devices–from clickers to moodles–than academics had done a half-century ago. So, too, for K-12 teachers who have, again over time, made small and significant changes in their classroom teaching. There is more guided discussion, more group work, increased academic content in lower and upper grades, more adventurous teaching by larger fractions of teachers, and, yes, more and more teachers using high-tech devices for instruction.
Yet looking back on one’s experience in most university and secondary school classrooms, the teaching–even accounting for these incremental changes over the decades– sure looks like the same o,’ same o.’
Here’s the heart of the puzzle: In universities student attendance is voluntary; in K-12 attendance is compulsory. Note also that the complexity of the subject matter, freedom of movement, course choices, student ages, and teachers’ deep knowledge of their subject are other critical markers that distinguish university classrooms from