Having, as I just did, read Brittany's impressions of the article, I find myself inclined to agree with her on a few key elements. Yes, the brevity of the article does adversely affect its depth, and yes, the major insights Hillocks offers are little more than innovative applications of the scientific method. However, I think it would be shortsighted to write Hillocks off entirely for these perceived shortcomings. Slowly I'm gathering the suspicion that eager young graduate assistants are rarely the intended audience for teaching theory authors like the ones we're reading. This is certainly not to say that we can't and aren't benefiting for the examination thereof, but Hillocks' intention seems far more directed at teachers who have become entrenched in the process and have, over the course of the years, perhaps lost sight of the loftier elements of the teaching profession. It is easy to say "That will never be me" when you haven't gotten your hands dirty yet. I would imagine that, when you've been teaching for five, or ten, or more years, and you're juggling classroom management with lesson planning, grading, and the like, there will be days when you, for lack of a better word, phone it in. Certainly I'm not trying to justify the negative examples we've read here and elsewhere, but I'm also not trying to vilify them. If they put theoretical material behind glass marked "In Case of Emergency" like they do fire extinguishers, I would recommend we file this article there; there may be no fires to deal with currently, but it never hurts to have a safety reminder to rely on when (and I'll include "if" for those of you eternal optimists) time has dulled our bright-eyed enthusiasm ever so slightly.
A purely nuts-and-bolts question that was raised for me by this reading came from his section on frame experiments where he describes an on-the-fly changes that turned out to be very beneficial for his pal Jim's students. During ONTAP, the syllabus building workshop I attended described a syllabus as the contract between an instructor and the students for all the work of a semester. Recognizing that, where should the balance be made between reflective flexibility in material and accountability to the prior notice that the syllabus lists? I'm certainly not advocating the position that the syllabus is God, and that no deviation should be made under any circumstances; I'm just curious if there would ever come a point that too much variability could be counter-productive or harmful.
See you all in class.
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