How the British degree lost its value https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2019/08/great-university-con-how-british-degree-lost-its-value
So much of this is supply and demand. The supply has gone sky-high, so the value (or perceived value) in using the degree as a distinguishing factor is diminished. If it was all about the learning--and it most certainly is not--the supply wouldn't be such a problem. David Hapgood described this phenomenon almost 50 years ago. Nothing's changed, except that it is more so.
From a teaching perspective, the article is dead-on right regarding the emphasis on regurgitation of data rather than learning how to think and research independently. The consumer mindset is good when one is seeking information about where to attend, but a hindrance once the instruction starts (we want the high mark we're paying so much for, so tone down your expectations, thank you very much). I took my research doctorate residentially in Britain, which gave me the chance to teach and to get to know the students. Overall, the students were very intelligent, mostly from elite secondary schools that gave them skills for university on paper, but as the article states, they were not used to being pushed. Being a second-career type and not desperate for positive teaching reviews, I chose to push. In Britain, the format is usually as follows, even for first-year students: large lectures (predominantly by full time faculty), followed by multiple small tutorials or seminar discussions (less than 10 students, led predominantly by doctoral students). At the first meeting of the tutorial, I told my students that I would treat them not as undergraduates, but as first year graduate students. I told them that the tutorials would be run by them, and I would be the safety net, and step in to help steer if the discussions got out of control. In other words, they would have to research the historical figures and texts that were under discussion, come in with well thought-out questions to guide the discussion, and be well enough prepared to answer questions from the rest of the tutorial. In return, we would finish a few minutes early each session, and I would show them how to organise arguments, avoid logical fallacies, etc., and review for the exams (which as a postgrad I didn’t set and couldn’t see beforehand). I then passed around a sheet for my agog students to sign up for which week they would lead. On the surface, this sounds like an abdication of teaching on my part, but it’s actually much easier to give mini-lectures in tutorials, spoon-feeding while they nod and write. Talking only about the parts you’ve prepared in advance is not stressful and gives the ego-feeding impression that you knows everything. Doing it my way meant that I had to be braced for the discussion to go in directions I hadn’t anticipated, and therefore I had to be much more prepared myself. The discussion did sometimes take unexpected turns from which I had to steer us back to the core information they needed to learn, but often those diversions were very positive in themselves. The other tutors thought I was nuts to take the risk, but my students were always the highest performers. To my surprise, not one of them complained that I was putting much more on them than students in other tutorials. They loved it, because as one of them explained, they could drift through without strain, but they realised they were learning exponentially more, and by grasping it for themselves, were bringing it all together at a higher level. Many still keep in touch. It probably also helped that I lugged a tea kettle in each week, because those little tutorial rooms were freezing cold.
