Contract Learning: Pros and Cons

"Allowing students to decide which grade they wish to strive for, which activities they will engage in, and how they will demonstrate that they have satisfactorily completed their studies permits a teacher to seize upon powerful motivating forces within individual students ... This notion shifts responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student, but at the same time offers an incentive by insuring success under known conditions. Students are challenged without being threatened." (Frymier, 1965)

Research and implementation of learning contracts within the classroom has been taking place for more than fifty years.  However, for those of us who have not interacted first hand with a learning contract, it may seem like a foreign world.  Here are some things to keep in mind about learning contracts in order to be more informed about whether they are the right fit for you in your own classroom.

What is a learning contract?

A learning contract is a written agreement between you and your students on an individual level that identifies the content that each student will be learning, specifies the methods and strategies that will be used to learn the content, and specific resources that will be used in order to learn the content.  From there, the student compiles specific types of evidence they will be using to demonstrate learning and how the evidence will be validated.

How do students know what to include on learning contracts?

Teachers may choose to allow students to creatively come up with their own ways to demonstrate learning, or more frequently, teachers provide a list of pre-approved options for students to choose from.

What are the benefits of learning contracts?

Students are required to become more self-directing and more responsible for their own learning.

Choice is a powerful thing.  Studies have shown that students learn material more deeply and permanently if they learn through projects of their own choice instead of direct lecturing or teaching.

Using learning contracts directly creates individualized instruction between teacher and student.  Since both you, and your students will be creating a contract together, you continue to stay engaged in the learning process together.

What are the negatives of learning contracts?

Research proves that required learning contracts are not nearly as beneficial as those that are willingly agreed upon.  Therefore, it is suggested that you offer the choice to enter into a learning contract, and allow students to choose between that or a required project that doesn’t allow the same amount of choice.

Students may break the contract.  Before determining that learning contracts are something that you want to utilize as a teaching tool, you should first consider what consequences you are willing to enforce should a student break their learning contract.

Interested in creating a learning contract, but not sure where to begin?

Click here for instructions on how to design your own. 

Tip Provided By:  Jessica Moser

Teaching Tip: "Today We Will"

Disengagement and lack of accountability are just a few issues that are commonly seen in college students.  With ever-growing classroom sizes, how do we continue to keep students engaged and accountable for what they’re learning?  Two words: learning objectives.  As seen in successful primary and secondary classrooms across the globe, students tend to work best when they understand what their learning objectives are for each class period.  Thus embarks “Today We Will” learning.  

A concept taken from listing learning objectives, “Today We Will” requires only 2 things. 

1. Teachers write “Today We Will” and then a list of the main things they hope their students to learn or take away from their class that day.  

2. Teachers keep that list up for students to see for the entirety of the class period.  

Simply listing the objectives for class that day provides students with a road map of what they can expect and listen for throughout class.  This keeps students engaged in a checklist of sorts, allowing them to keep track of each of the main points your lesson focuses on, and what they should make note of as important for future classes, assignments, projects, or exams.  

A “Today We Will” list also prompts student questions if they become lost or confused on a particular topic.  Writing out your objectives makes students more accountable for making sure they fully understand each concept before the class is over.

Keep in mind that your "Today We Will" list doesn't have to be absolutely specific.  You might choose to include a statement like, "Today we will go over three big questions that are on the midterm." Not only does this make students more attentive, it also encourages them to attend class, arrive on time, and compensate for any portion that they may have missed.

Tip Provided By:  Jessica Moser

Dr. Anne Hlas on Attention

Attention is a limited resource and one that must be established, directed, and maintained. Dr. Anne Hlas, Department of Languages, provides strategies on how to structure your class to get the most out of student’s attentional resources:

The first 10 minutes of the class is the most attention rich time for students. When we are passing back papers or going over logistics the beginning of class, it’s not as effective as if we were to use that time to target new material. Last semester, my student researcher, a colleague, and I conducted research on attention where 274 students—from all different levels of Spanish—were given clickers so they could self-report when they were having an attention lapse.  In addition to learning that students were paying more attention the first 10 minutes of class, our findings also suggested that more active learning techniques, such as cold calling (randomly calling on students), interactive speaking tasks, and working on individual white boards, may also increase attention.

For more information on this subject, consider checking out the book Brain Rules, by John Medina. 

Interview by: Jon Pumper

Setting the Tone: Consistency

I once had a Morality teacher in high school that was a dense 6’5, 230 pounds. He looked like a man who would beat morality into you if it didn’t go against the very subject he taught. Perhaps it was this odd dichotomy that allowed him play the role of “good cop/bad cop” so fluidly: he was at once adored by his students as he was the main cause for their gastrointestinal issues. 

Early on in the course, he played a rather unfortunate trick on us. He had recruited a student to show up late to class the next day. When the student showed up—ten minutes into class—the teacher started screaming at him. I think he may have even thrown a chair: he was extremely devoted to his character. While the class watched in silent horror as the student left the room, the teacher surveyed the class, daring anyone to speak up. Of course, no one did. He sat down and took a distinct bite out of his second package of Ho Hos.

Then he started laughing. The student came back inside, took a bow, and we all slowly realized we had been duped. He framed this as a moral predicament, challenging us to consider why we didn’t stand up for our classmate when he was clearly being unfair. While this elicited some pretty good discussion, I couldn’t help but think that wasn’t all that was at stake here. What was really being challenged was our will to fight the environment he had established in the classroom since day one, an environment where he was uncontestably in complete control.

I had never realized how much command, how much presence we allowed this man to have. His bluff wasn’t even a gamble: he had known from the onset that we were going to be paralyzed against his injustice, unwilling to contradict a man who had firmly established his dictatorial authority. He was asking us to oppose him as a teacher, and we cowered as students.

I feel very ambivalent towards him now. I do not know how I feel about his iron grip that he held on the class.  But I still respect his ability to set a tone and maintain it. We knew from the first day what we were to expect from him and he never deviated from it. While his method for maintaining command may have been questionable, his consistency never was: he had a class climate that was a sweltering 90 degrees and terrified six days of the working week. And no student, morality lesson, or weatherman was willing to challenge that.  

Write up by: Jon Pumper

Teaching Tip: Dr. Tom Kemp on Anecdotal Asides

Student attention spans have always been short, and they are only getting shorter. Dr. Tom Kemp, professor of Economics, gives a tip on how to get students through dense (but necessary) material:

Pay close attention to the class; that’s how I know when to break it up. When it’s clear that the majority of the class is no longer paying attention to what I am saying, it’s not really useful to continue. There’s more value in breaking into something else in order to get them back into what I’d like to discuss. I’ll tell stories, create goofy analogies, or continue a running gag: there is always a side-story to be told, something that is relevant to the course but is more engaging than the theoretical material that we need to cover. Don’t be afraid to draw on real-life experiences: students may find this useful as a scaffolding device for their own learning. 

Interviewed by: Jon Pumper