New Ways of Teaching and Their Effectiveness

I am not in education measure, but I am trying to learn somehow since I born, and I am planning to teach as well. So, I think I might tell something about this subject a little bit…

The traditional way of teaching is not effective as Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown said, I agree with that. Also, I agree with what they are saying about creating a learning community and I am sure it works perfectly for most students. But, I think K-12 and college students need a teacher in person anyway. They might need a teacher to direct and help them.

Sam’s example is a good one in the article and it seems a really successful way of teaching. On the other hand, not all of the subjects are suitable to learn with this technique. Or if a child learns certain things with this technique, maybe they can concentrate to one or two specific subjects during a specific time, otherwise, it would be hard to maintain that learning process for more than couple subject for a long time. If we want to replace traditional 45 minutes lecture style with something new, this technique does not seem applicable to all curriculum at the same time.

Also, creating a student-lead learning environment idea might work better than the traditional approach to create a better learning environment in schools. Because each generation is different and begins to be even more different in time. They know what kinds of environment would be better for them not to get bored and help them to learn better.

Motivation and social support are successful tools for creating better environments. Those tools have also been using in health behavior theories to change people’s behaviors. So, being in a social environment affects people’s motivation and ability to change their behaviors and it is really smart to use those in educational settings.

These new ways of learning may not cover every student. For example, I like that interaction between the teacher and me when I am in the process of learning. If I learn by reading, it is so easy to forget, but I can learn easily if somebody teaches me in person. As Robert Talbert said in the conclusion, balance is important to create the most effective learning environment. Lecture is important not only as an information transfer, but also sharing experiences and helping students at some point. On the other hand, activities are important for students to learn the subject better and develop their other skills such as socialization, self-confidence, reaching the information by using an appropriate way, and motivation.

Prepare, plan and expect (revel in) the unexpected

 

Don’t lecture. Use technology. Technology is distracting. Lecture sometimes. Give students freedom. Be accountable for educational achievement.

The thing about education is that everyone has an opinion on how it should be done, which sometimes leaves those of us in the trenches feeling as if we are wandering the countryside divining for water — we know it’s worked when it has. But just because we know when a project or activity has worked doesn’t mean it will next semester.

One semester I had students imagine they were artistic directors for a theater. They had to present a group of plays to their theater’s board of directors, which means they had to talk about the plays, interpret them, share their inherent value, and explain how they could be staged meaningfully for modern audiences, etc. The first semester I did the projects students were completely involved, adding advertising materials, sketching out stage designs and responding critically to their peers. It was magic. The next semester the students went through the paces and fulfilled the projects, but I hadn’t captured their imagination.

We’ve all been there. We feel responsible, but there are aspects of the class dynamic (interpersonal relationships, exhaustion, hunger, time of day, yadda yadda) that are beyond our control.

Mark Carnes makes a great case for a type of curriculum called Reacting To The Past in his article “Setting Students Minds on Fire.” Students who participate in Reacting To The Past-style seminars assume the identity of characters from history and must understand their lives and the historical context to understand the characters’ motivations as they immerse themselves in the past. It sounds amazing. But does it work every single time? Is there always that magical moment of kismet as students become so involved in the course that they stay up late discussing the lives and times of their characters? In other words, does it always find water?

I imagine not.

Moving forward, I think the best thing educators can do is admit that there can’t ever be one prescription to cure the ails of classroom drudgery. Instead of feeling disempowered as diviners, we need to trust our own instincts and skill. In our search or thirst-quenching moments of fully-involved students, we have to be willing to change course during the semester. If students are responding strongly to one theme or text, we should stay with that topic ‑ ditch the class schedule/calendar or find a way to cover the next prescribed topic by expanding discussion/projects/involvement with what students are enjoying.

In “A New Culture of Learning,” Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown describe giving students freedom within bounds — play with rules — as a way to grow student passion. I’d suggest that we need to enter a classroom without knowing what all those rules are. We need to be freed enough ourselves to set boundaries as they need to be set and do away with others when they begin to constrict. Each semester is a new game and the rules should never be exactly the same. Educators should feel the confidence they need to feel the subtle movements of the diving rod and adjust accordingly using an assortment of tools (including technology and lectures) in the never-ending search for water.

Distracted enough without adding more

Some great reads this week on the schedule.  I thought the article about setting student’s minds on fire through active learning (https://www.chronicle.com/article/Setting-Students-Minds-on/126592) was a great reminder that sitting in a chair while someone lectures is not really learning.  I’m grateful most of my teachers have gotten us more involved than that.

I also found the article about phones and laptops in the classroom to be interesting (https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/01/24/578437957/laptops-and-phones-in-the-classroom-yea-nay-or-a-third-way).  Although I see benefits to technology in learning, I definitely find myself siding with people who want cellphones out of the classroom.  Kids (and I include myself and my collegiate associates) are distracted enough without adding more distractions.  I would hate to count the number of times I check my cell phone to see if I have new messages, even when I’m not waiting for anything in particular.  (In case you were wondering, there are plenty of apps to help you track how many times you check your phone – see https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/apps-smartphone-use-_n_6096748.html.  Of course, the irony of an app to see how often you use apps is not lost on me.  But it can be an interesting reality check to realize how much of your life you waste on a phone) I think it’s a sad state of affairs that we have gotten to a point where we find it shocking that teachers wouldn’t want kids to have phones in their classrooms.  Class should be a time for learning, discussion, interaction, and respect, and I can’t think of too many cases where having a phone actually helps that.  When screens of any sort are out, you’re ability to engage in a meaningful discussion is compromised, even if you’re eyes are on the teacher or classmate, your mind is elsewhere.  Aside from that, have we really gotten to a point where we ignore how disrespectful it is to be on a phone while someone else is talking?

This may be a shock to everyone, but students will not die without their phones.  In fact, few things are probably healthier for young and growing (or old and stagnating) minds than to disconnect from our phones for a while.  We live in a world where we can’t go more than a few minutes without being fed another piece of click bait or a message or a post or something.  I think that has hampered our ability to focus and learn and communicate.  We are not doing our students any favors by fostering that behavior.  We are addicted to technology.  If you want to read an excellent case study, check here https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/14/google-glass-user-treated-addiction-withdrawal-symptoms.

Maybe one of the most convincing arguments to me AGAINST phones in a classroom is watching people try to justify the need to have them in a classroom.  I thought Jesse Stommel’s argument was weak when he said that we shouldn’t put limits on phones in classroom simply because those would be a “form of control,” and that would be bad?  Learning, conversation, social interaction, literally everything we do is subject to controls of some sort.  And that isn’t bad.  Again, this may be shocking, but it is okay to have rules of engagement for our classrooms.  Are there bad ways to set those up?  Of course! I don’t think you have to be authoritarian to set guidelines for your class.  Setting rules controlling when phones can’t be used also allows you to set rules for when phones, media, etc. CAN be used in your class.  To go back to Stommel’s point about having a discussion with your students about attention and what works for them, I have no doubt most of the kids missed that discussion because they were on their phones.

I see benefits to involving phones or computers in useful ways in class if we use them productivly.  “Asking the oracle” through google is a great way to learn, search, and discover. But if we and are students can’t handle disconnecting when the searching is done, our phones are no longer a tool for learning.  They’re just one more flashy distraction.  I love that my kids’ teachers have carts with laptops they can wheel in and out of class.  When the computers are out, they’re using them for something beneficial, and when they are back on the cart, they are back to engaging with the teacher and each other.  We can’t do that with our phones (although it’d be funny to see someone try), but I think the principle is a sound one.

I taught high school students for 2 years and, as you’d expect, ran headlong into the phone issue.  It gave me an opportunity to experience both sides because we had two semesters where we didn’t use phones and 2 where we did.  The discussions we had in our phone-free semesters were orders of magnitude better than those where we allowed phones.  Students who slept or read their phones the whole class were suddenly more engaged and actually appeared interested.  Turns out, shockingly enough, that if there isn’t a phone to occupy your attention, you have to fill it with something, and, if you happen to be sitting in a classroom, you might as well fill your attention with that.  Which brings us to the point about teachers just being boring which is why students use their phone.  Although teachers are often boring, that may be the worst argument of all.  Anyone who thinks a teacher can compete day in and day out against a flashing phone screen, games, and YouTube for all their students is naive or ignorant.  Obviously, if we ask our students to disconnect and remove distractions from their lives, we better have something worthwhile to fill the void, which is why I like the article about active teaching and getting students involved.  If we remove distractions and then use the newly discovered phone-free time to actually engage students, I think we will be amazed what we can accomplish.

Sorry for the long rant.  I love my phone and my computer….and my tv…..and on an on.  That’s probably exactly why I’m so sensitive to this topic.  I think I’ve zone out of entire classes just because my laptop was more open than my mind, and, based on what you see daily in our classes, I’m not the only one.  There is an argument that, if we, as college students, want to miss lecture by being on our phone, that’s our choice as adults, but, I don’t think that applies to K-12 where people are still learning how to be responsible with media.  I think the analogy of giving kids unlimited candy while they are trying to learn to eat a well-balanced diet was a good one.  Kids are learning and one of the things to learn is how to be responsible with media.  Even in college though, I think our phone/computer use doesn’t just affect us.  It’s distracting to everyone around you and I know, from observation and personal experience, that it makes things harder for the teacher.  It’s much harder to guide a meaningful class discussion when a sizeable part of the class is tuned out, often visibly so.  At least when you zone out without a phone, it isn’t quite so distracting to everyone else.  As a society, we need to recognize the benefits of disconnecting from media and connecting to each other, and I think that is definitely true in education.

Third Way!

large_lecture

The article about Laptops and Phones in the Classroom: Yea, Nay or A Third Way? Clearly discusses the different points of views whether to use the technology in the class or completely forget about it. Like everything else in the world, technology could have pros and cons. To me it is interesting that teachers might have extremely different points of views toward the same issue.

What I believe about the technology is, basically there is nothing wrong with it. However, the procedures and instructions are in need of significant revisions. As a student, I had experienced the both environments. I remember I was in high school in which any sorts of “technological-related” devices were banned (phones, iPads, etc.). In that atmosphere, we had to focus more on the subjects that the instructor had been teaching us although it went really slow and sometimes boring. However, we were not distracted much from the lecture. I have to say that the distraction for some students even with those rules and disciplines happened sometimes, since they eventually found something to be distracted with.

Along the same lines, I remember a completely different experience, where students were allowed to have their phone and tablets with themselves in the classroom. Like it is mentioned in the article by Kamenetez as well, even more than third number of our searches were irrelevant to the topics in the class. I remember doing all sorts of things and not doing anything related to the concepts being taught in the class myself. Watching soccer games, checking out Facebook, or even playing games with other classmates during the lecture! which I know it was due to the lack of knowledge about how to use technology in a suitable manner. To be fair, it had some advantages too at that moment, the overall lecture was not that boring and the information more efficiently was transformed to the students. Even using apps at some point to control the students was not a practical idea, because that was a coercive approach and did not gain much at the end of the day. Students would do whatever they want to one way or the other!

Having the experience of both environments, I would say the best way that worked out for me was to be self-governing. If teachers showed us the benefits and importance of their work at beginning and encourage the students to participate in debates and hand-on activities, the students would not allow themselves to be distracted by any means. I guess a lot of us had this feeling in many classes that what’s the use of this stuff for us, what I am doing here! So we eventually forgot about the lecture after receiving the grades while we were not fully aware of the importance or the effects of it.  And that is the main reason of the distractions during the class. Distraction would happen no matter using technology in the classroom or banning it! But, the self-governed, motivated and happy-to-be-in-class student could prevent it from happening.

Changes in Education

I’m inspired by Jean’s Teaching Innovation Statement. There are many great components that are described in the statement that I wish were implemented more widely. Jean described lectures in a very real way. There are many factors that break the attention between the student and the content. Other students, personal lives, technology, feelings or unimportance or irrelevance, and general lack of interest are all barriers that stand strong in the average lecture.

It wasn’t really I started my doctorate program where I felt that my professors were genuinely interested in me and what I had to say. I believe that graduate school is mostly successful at implementing some of the changes that Jean made to her class. Individualized programs and classes, freedom to allow learning styles, preferences, abilities, schedules, and comfort levels to dictate how objectives are met and content are mastered. The problem is that many undergraduate programs and courses do not extend the same type of instruction. Online learning might be an option but it is hardly as involved in the way that Jean describes. Hands-on activities, well-developed assessments, feedback, and video or in-person lectures are some of the components that are void in courses. Some schools, programs, and courses have been successful at implementing some of these components. I believe that there has been an effort to change the landscape of education. And rightly so, because gone are the days of colleges with only traditional students enrolled. Our lives are different than they were years ago.

I wonder how education might change if more classrooms (face-to-face and online) began to look like that of Jean’s. Do you– the reader–believe that things would be different with more accommodating options? Or is it ambitious to think that real change may come to the education system with options like these?

Electronic devices in classrooms?

Some may argue that using electronic devices such as cell phones and laptops should not be allowed in classes due to all kinds of distractions they may cause, while others believe that these devices could be considered as in-class tools to assist learning process of students.

Personally, I have witnessed many undergraduate students using their laptops for non-academic purposes in class. However, to me, this does not seem to be a valid reason for banning laptops in classrooms. In fact, instructors cannot control the attention of students. If students choose to distract themselves in the class, they will find a way to do so whether they have laptops or not. However, instructors can grab students’ attention by utilizing some active learning strategies and motivating students to be involved in the process of learning.

In my opinion, instead of constantly worrying about all kinds of distractions electronic devices can cause, it would be better to embrace the changes and try to get the best out of it.

Laptops And Phones In The Classroom: YAAAAYYY!

In her article, Anya Kamenetz explores different attitudes towards using electronic devices in the classroom. While some teachers find this habit as “distracting”, “unhealthy”, and useless others see positive points in using laptops and cellphones during classes. After reading this article, I really could not decide whether I am happy with using of laptops or cellphones in the classrooms or not. To be more precise, I am skeptical about the approaches to control how and to what extent students should use these kind of devices.

My concern is about the students’ ability to choose what they want to learn. I believe there is a different between a primary school pupil and a college student. The former does not have the control over the content he/she is going to learn. For the good or bad, all of us have to learn some level of math, literature and sciences by a certain age. This makes me think, if we do not “choose” what to learn then we allow ourselves more freely to be distracted as soon as we lose our interest in the topic/teacher/and etc.

Photo from: https://modernpsykologi.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/istock-175408082.jpg

Therefore, in my view in K-12 education, to the point that students are forced to take and learn a course, “self-governing” sort of policy for using laptops and cellphones not only is not fair but also does not make sense! We have not given them the primary freedom to choose what they want to learn and then we expect to have all their attention in a democratic way!

However, when it comes to college because of the freedom to choose the courses, asking students to use laptops and cellphones upon their will, makes sense and is fair. Although, there might be many other incentives to take a course (getting a certificate, and etc.) rather than pure interest, yet due to the inherent optional characteristics of the university courses, students feel more internal obligation to focus on the course material. In this case, self-governing over technology is in line with the values of higher education!

Fun Learning Needed

The readings this week really resonated with me – for one main point made. Traditional, lecture-based, note-taking centered courses are boring. Yes, yes, yes.

After I finished my undergraduate degree, I thought I’d never go back to school. I was eternally board with sitting, listening, and pretending to take notes (that always ended up looking something like this).

https://i0.wp.com/sites.macewan.ca/inspire/files/2015/02/IMG_1083.jpg?resize=255%2C191

Approaches to cultivating knowledge are inspiring and seem quite fun, from both a student and educator perspective. However, I feel that educators – myself included – have a long way to go before successfully utilizing these concepts in learning environments. All too often it seems that ‘active learning’ is applied to courses in the format of endless discussion among classes and groups, which can be just as exasperating  as note taking – at least in my opinion. Discussion is important for understanding diversity in ideas and problem solving techniques, of course, though has a place as lecture education does.

I say that needed are more examples and toolkits of such education models for educators that integrate technology, community, and problem solving techniques for application to real-world issues within all fields and specialties, spanning from design to nutrition science.

 

New aged learning, the death of a master

Obi wan says “strike me down and I’ll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”  I might be playing around with the context and the full delivery of the line, but maybe that is what we need. We need to be struck down, metaphorically, to allow our pupils to grow and flourish.

The crux of every reason why we should like lecture revolves around the lecturer themselves. The person has all this knowledge, wisdom, and insight into the topic at hand. Because of these things, they know how to transmit that knowledge to eager learners in a way that makes sense. I do believe there are times when lecturing is appropriate. However,  as we strive to change the way we teach, we have to let go or minimize the need to lecture. I don’t think that is easy to do as it is say. I can feel the offense that Douglas Thomas took when his class largely phased him out of lecturing. He spent years studying this stuff, and now they should listen to his wisdom on it. Or another scenario being, hey everyone I have this really great lesson. Oh never mind, y’all want to about your experiences in the game. I can also sense the uncertainty he may have in letting go of control of the classroom. It seemed that he had failed since nobody wanted to receive his thoughts in lecture. Lo and behold it worked.

I think letting go of that control and experiencing some uncertainty are the biggest challenges in trying to become a more student centered teacher. Not every case will be as instantly successful as this one. Thomas had a unique mechanism to work with by using Star Wars Galaxies. I do worry that instructors would have to go through multiple iterations of a class before they are able to find something that works. In this age of accountability, that may not be a luxury instructors are afforded. I don’t believe it needs to as dramatic as Thomas’ class, where he was nearly phased out of his own classroom, but it needs to be better than a straight lecture. Borrowing an idea from Parker Palmer, I think we need to hold the tension between the two to make it work. Maybe death of a master was a bit dramatic, but it worked well for the video.

Entertainment vs. Enlightenment

If your professor stood in front of your class and said “my purpose during the course of this semester is to set your mind on fire,” what would you envision the semester looking like in that moment?  An enlightening and motivational speech every day in the classroom?  A fiery debate in every class?  Or maybe your grades going up in flames?…

Whatever you imagined, it may or may not have been what the professor intended.  What I think Mark Carnes intended when he wrote “Setting Students Minds on Fire” was that he wants his class to be driven by the students and the students to be passionate about the topic.  He began his article by saying that a high percentage (perhaps close to 50%) of students who enroll in college do not finish.  Some attribute the cause to lack of funds, but Carnes argues that it is lack of motivation… basically, classes are boring.  If the experiences that students have in the classroom lead to motivation and passion for their education, then they will likely find a way to finish.

Now please bear with me while I interject a brief comment here on the distinction between classes that are “entertaining” and classes that are “enlightening” or “motivational.”  If you think that college is meant to be 100% entertaining, then you will be sorely disappointed.  College is not meant to be that way.  As with every other thing we commit to in life, even our dream jobs, there is always a bit of drudgery that we have to get through to get to the good stuff we enjoy.

However, I think we can certainly deliver classes that are enlightening and motivational on a regular basis.  As Carnes discusses in his article, we can involve students in quests or games that involve their problem-solving skills.  We can provide context and deep meaning to what they are learning so that they will apply those concepts to their own lives.  Think about what you could do in your own classrooms and in your disciplines that could genuinely interest the students in the material.

While you are doing that: remember to carefully tread the line between entertaining and enlightening.  I think some of you will agree that you have had professors give lectures in which they were obviously trying to merely entertain you and keep you awake during the class.  Did you leave those classes feeling motivated?  Feeling excited about the things you are learning?  Feeling like you couldn’t wait to talk to your roommate about what you were discovering during that class?  Probably not.  But maybe a few of you have been in classes that really got you thinking about the material and how it applied to your life.  How did that class make you feel?  How did it affect the rest of your semester/career/life?  How would you describe your experience?  I know how I might describe a few of those rare experiences:

My mind was set on fire.

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