Close your eyes and imagine the typical classroom. Chances are that you imagined a middle-aged man, standing at a lectern, droning on about f/p/s electron orbitals or the civil war’s status quo antebellum socio-economic effect on the primarily agrarian communities of the southern United States.
Drone Professor Droning on about Drones
It is no surprise then that the neo-liberal educational model that has been around for quite some time has lost it’s effect as of late, and has been subject to several experiments on its improvement. Some of these experiments we read about in past weeks, some we read about this week, and some I have experienced and participated in as a part of my tenure as a perpetual student.
Khaled Adjerid PhD graduation, circa 2045
Jean Lacoste conducted one of his own experiments with his classroom of, from what I can surmise, can only be 100’s of students, by individualizing the content, making all of it available and allowing the students to pick and choose both how they consume the information and how they assess themselves. Unsurprisingly, the students all did well, had many fewer questions for him, and everyone was happy.
“I want each student to feel important…I want to reach every single student in the class….I decided to individualize the entire course…I developed numerous formative assessments so students could accurately evaluate their progress throughout the semester…Even my heavy email load was improved as nuisance policy/special consideration requests were replaced by thoughtful questions about course content. I haven’t had this much fun since I left the small classroom.”
-JEAN LACOSTE
What?
How is this even a real thing? First off, this solution doesn’t work for 2 reasons. The first is that it requires the instructor to develop a wider array of content that the students are free to pick and choose from. The instructor spends time developing in class, online, digital, video, handouts, etc. content that the students then get to pick from at their leisure for a more personalized experience, as if it were a Starbucks menus.
“I’ll have the grande online lecture with a venti homework and a skim final exam please”
Secondly, it doesn’t solve the problem that the author outlines in the introduction where he says that he doesn’t feel that he can connect personally with the students and the students don’t feel the professor can give enough feedback to each student or learn their names. This can only be solved by getting to know each student, spending time with their assessments, meeting them in office hours, and having quality interactions with them. This is piled on top of all of the other duties they may have, thus promptly killing the professor.
“RIP in Peace Professor Lacoste, at least you knew our names”
-His Students
I don’t want to be a negative Narendra, so I do want to point out that there are some of his methods that do contribute to a positive learning environment and a more personalized education. This does tend to give a sense of ownership to the learning and the material which can be a positive outcome, I just don’t feel that the entire learning, lesson plan, and assessment should be left to the students.
On a final note, there was a statement from the Carnes reading that stood out to me and I wanted to make a note of:
“No one can say that the future president of the Harvard Law Review (and of these United States) was not college material.”
– Mark C. Carnes
I disagree. The famous quote from Einstein that says about judging a fish’s worth by assessing it’s ability to fly always comes to mind. Not everyone is ‘cut out’ for every field and should be assessed by the same measure nor should they all be required to attend colleges. I have seen many engineering students who WERE NOT ENGINEERING MATERIAL. They tried at it many times, eventually, they found their home in AgSci, Business, or Psych; something ‘easier’ they admitted to me, to which I correct, “not easier, but more suited to their style of thinking and skill set”.
Others perhaps are not suited for college at all, rather for trade schools or apprenticeships, which were common and led to well paying careers up until the 70’s and 80’s before colleges became profit centers, not learning centers. These professions are now derided and looked down upon as being for the uneducated lower class, despite the fact that one who is successful in these trades can make well into the six figures, especially with an entrepreneurial mindset.
A plumber is one job they can’t outsource to China
I believe that one of the most important issues surrounding the development and implementation of great teaching strategies is trust. As Robert Talbert stated in “Four Things Lecture is Good For,” there is a place for lecture in the classroom. However, people learn by doing, not by watching and listening. When planning a teaching unit, I think that it is good to start with standards and objectives (statements of what your students should know and be able to do), then find and create activities which will help them attain the objectives. Lecture is used to explain and discuss how particular knowledge is structured and to model ways of thinking or processes. Freeing students to learn by doing projects such as those shown in the Digital Media video requires trust on the part of the teacher. The teacher must trust the students to learn knowledge and skills that are not explicitly presented to them. While the teacher can create a project that requires mastery of a given set of objectives to complete well, the teacher cannot guarantee that all students will see the material that she would have presented were she lecturing. Instead, the teacher must trust that the students will learn what is needed. This is difficult for most teachers to do. One solution is to combine student-centered learning with frequent and brief formative assessments which provide feedback about what students understand and misunderstand. The results of these assessments could be used to guide students when necessary.
Standards- and objectives-based projects that result in student learning are difficult to design and exhilarating to facilitate. Fortunately, there are many examples to be found online. For instance, one year I had my IB Physics students launch a space balloon (idea stolen from MIT). I proposed the project and my students (mostly aspiring engineers) loved it! I provided materials and got FAA approval. They did the rest. Even 6 years later, they talk about it on Facebook. I have also had students keep Galilean-inspired skywatch notebooks, lead star parties, create scale models of the solar system, and design and build egg launching devices. Given students that struggle on state-required tests makes this type of teaching more difficult and much scarier, but not impossible. If teachers trust their students to learn from small projects, then measure what they have learned and adjust instruction accordingly, they can build greater trust over time. Greater trust can lead to greater student autonomy (more room to fly or crash and recover!). Over time, teachers and students (and in the case of K-12, parents, and administrators) can build a system that is rewarding for both teachers and learners—a system with autonomy, creativity, and trust.
I think that lectures are a critical part of the learning process for students. It is a superb starting point for learning a new skill from an “expert”. Robert Talbert explains what lectures are ideal for in his article, “Four things lecture is good for.” I have to agree that when I am new to learning something, I would like to have someone to show me the ropes. It allows me to try and understand the perspective of an expert, and eventually develop my own perspective.
There have been times when I try to get ahead in my classes by reading the textbook to cover the information. However, most of those attempts have been unsuccessful because I have a very hard time understanding the material and relating it back to the real world. The best lecture based courses that I have taken are course that are taught by professors that has real world experiences. They are able to take the engineering theory that they are teaching and correlates it to how they themselves have applied it to various problems. They shared their insights on when it is applicable to use certain theories, assumptions, and techniques to solve certain problem. In a sense, they are sharing their expertise on recognizing what type of problem are at hand and what tools are the most effective at developing a solution.
Once the fundamental knowledge is transferred to the student, the learning structure has to change in order to allow the student to continue developing the skill. There is a balance between learning from an expert and practicing the skills to become better at it. Here is an interesting video about how develop a skill in 20 hours.
This video gives a prime example of how if a person wants to learn to throw a football, they would first have to learn the basic techniques. They will have to learn about the football size, grip positions, body position, and etc. This information would be most effectively covered in a lecture environment. Once an individual has a good understanding of the fundamental, then they have to apply and practice that skills. As the person is gaining more experience, more questions began to arise. As the questions arise, it is time to revert back to consulting the experts.
I personally feel that there has to be a balance between the difference styles of teaching. For me personally, I learn the best by struggling and experiencing what I have learned. Once I struggle to a certain point I began developing questions to seek mentorship from others. But I find it very hard to understand what others tell me if I have not personally experience it.
I have been stricken with a migraine this weekend, so looking at a computer screen has not been an easy task. But in the spirit of this weeks topic, I decided to use my imagination to still post a blog. I am having my lovely wife type for me while I dictate. How often will we as teachers have to use creativity and imagination to meet our student’s leaning needs? Next time a challenge come you way what is something you will creatively do to figure out an answer ?
I am now working on my third degree and I have taken classes at no less than 9 colleges and universities between my first semester as an undergraduate in 2004 and spring semester 2017. Most of the courses were components of working toward a degree but many were also for fun (French 101 at Monroe Community College and Colloquial Egyptian Arabic at the University of Chicago, for example).
In that time I have had exactly two large lecture hall style courses. The first was Introduction to Sociology at Ithaca College in fall 2004 and the second was International Public and NGO Management at Syracuse University in fall 2009. The majority of undergraduate courses I took were pre-digital lectures (no PowerPoint, professors speaking from notes or extemporaneously) and my Master’s and Ph.D. level course work has been mostly discussion based seminars.
My focus has been decidedly social science and humanities and so I allow that my experience is likely quite different than the, perhaps, more rote focused lectures in engineering or physics. Yet, I have to say, I love lectures. I learn very well from sitting and listening to someone with a good grasp on a topic explicating it for an hour. I realize many people do not learn well this way and I certainly wouldn’t advocate this as the sole method of instruction (or in all fields).
But, the lectures I have been fortunate to attend (even the two large lecture halls) have also been reflective and interactive. Instructors didn’t simply read off faded notes. Questions were encouraged and posed to the class. So, in my (again particular, situated) experience lectures can have the benefits that Robert Talbert describes. They can be great for giving context and for telling stories. Good lecturers are in many ways performers. They present material in interesting and entertaining ways and that facilitates, at least for me, learning.
As I noted, I am acutely aware of the plurality of learning styles, needs, and preferences and that not everyone learns best this way (or enjoys sitting through a lecture). In light of this, I’m very much in favor of finding what works and, per Mark C. Carnes, incorporating games (of all sorts) into education. I’ve always liked video games and chafed at the idea that they can’t be art or that they are waste of time, etc. I and others I know learned a lot of history in middle school from playing through campaigns in Age of Empires in which Saladin’s forces face off against European crusaders. And who can forgot learning the valuable lesson of only shooting as much buffalo meat as you can carry from marathon sessions of Oregon Trail in elementary. The below video even says the game was created to teach history!
I was also a Dungeons and Dragons player in my salad days and I learned, for example, what a halberd and a glaive were that way. Not only that, but such games teach problem solving skills: Do I negotiate with or stab this goblin? D&D (as those of us in the know call it) involves a lot of math and literacy skills as well. I learned that rolling a 1 on a 10-sided die is the same probability of rolling a 1 or 2 on a 20-sided.
In any case, text-based and creative role playing games like this, and the more explicitly educational versions Carnes writes about can be great educational tools. I would have loved to take one of his classes. We did a lot of role-playing/simulations in my international relations Master’s program, in fact the program’s capstone project is a cohort-wide (~100 students) two day simulation of UN climate change negotiations and it was a great experience. There can be no doubt that, as sociolingiust James Paul Gee (2003) argues, (video) games can teach us in various ways.
Finally, I’m aware I started my post-secondary education right at the cusp of the digital education age in a sense (my first semester of college we actually filled out paper course request forms!) and so my experience straddling that line may be different than the “digital natives” of a half or full generation behind me. Yet, I want to be careful not to, excuse the gruesome metaphor, throw the baby out with the bath water. We should take seriously the idea not only of a shift from “a teacher-oriented system featuring lectures delivered to passive audiences” to a “learner-centered process in which students become more actively involved in their own education” but an incorporation of both types of learning and teaching. There are those, such as me, for whom the former works well and is an enjoyable way to learn. I can’t be the only one? Can I?
References
Gee, James Paul. 2003. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Have struggled for a long time, I decide to write it out.
I feel at a loss. After taking the class for a month, I can see clearly my distance with the general students. Every time when I blog, I am struggled with what kind of things to write, what kind of attitude to present, and how deep can the thinking and writing would be. It is hard for me, I have to say, to write to the public. I feel mixed and I don’t know what to blame, except myself. I feel like, the time is coming for me to make decision on how should I go on. And I should really make a careful reflection on my whole life up to now.
I am fragile, to some extent, that I care about other people’s opinion on myself. I tend to be easy-going, positive, and quiet on comment. Sometimes, I may have my own opinion and I may think in mind how to express. But I seldom speak it out. Some other times, I just really can’t understand the saying and can’t follow. I feel bad of myself for my poor understanding of English and cultural difference in some aspects. When I speak less, I tend to think less, as I’m dominated by my subconsciousness that I will not say it out. I try to hear other people’s saying and feel like I may (or may not) think the same way as them. I feel like I don’t have to think on my own as there is no need for me to express my own opinion. However, the more I think in this way, the more I realize how dangerous I am in such a dumb situation. If I speak less, I would think less. And as I think less, I would have less and less to say. Realizing this, I began to think, how did I put myself in this situation and why did I do so.
Why don’t I like to say things/opinions out? It seems I don’t have such a custom to say things/opinions out. I remember since in my early education, I was told to be quiet on class. I knew that every question/problem that the teachers asked would follow with correctly standardized answers. And I knew that I just need to “literally” remember the answers and I could get a good score on exams. Grades were always the unique assessment of students’ performance in my early education. It seemed I didn’t have the motivation to ask new questions or give new answers. “Practice makes perfect” – a golden rule for studying. I kept memorizing book contents and practicing exam questions. I left no time for creative and critical thinking as in my mind it was just a waste of time and made no use for exams. I was told (can’t remember exactly, maybe I was just self-proceeded) to study whatever useful for getting higher scores. I kept this kind of studying experience and went to a decent university. Still, life in university wasn’t full of creative and critical thinking as majority of the students were spending time on tested study and experiment. The way of passive thinking seems to root deeply in my mind, and in the mind of the major society.
Study is an important way to create and promote thinking.Thinking is a skill that needs practice. However, such exam-base assessment of study has severely impeded the purpose of study, which is to facilitate individual’s deep thinking. Once students fail to get the chance to exercise their thinking rationale, they tend to be more passive, more indecisive, and more easily affected by other people’s saying. This situation is how I have seen from the general society. People in my nation tends to mute their thinking and saying in front of the public. They consider themselves too trivial to have other people hear their voice. And they think their voice may have little possibility to make any difference to the things/events and to the society. In the end, they turn out to be more conservative in expressing themselves as they never think of themselves to be unique to the society and to be contributable to the society if they can just speak out their desire and thoughts. Majority of them are immersed in their own circle, waiting for the minority to change the society and accepting any results that left to them.
It seems that something went wrong, either the societal culture, or the education system. I can’t decide which leads to which. The education system has been objectivized to fit the societal pursuit of money and power, instead of humanity, science, arts, and beliefs. People tend to pursue whatever useful to make money/make a living, to buy house, car, to educate the second generation, even with the same system of objectivized education. They may realize how skewed the education system has been to deprive their desire on learning things they really enjoy. However, they don’t think their voice can make any change except their own anxiety. they turn out to be silent to endure the secular life.
The society is cruel. It distorts what is really valuable and what is merely trivial. The objectivized education system has led to little critical and creative thinking but obsolete and sophisticated way of living. To make real change, we have to reshape the society’s value perspective. We have to reform the education’s evaluation and assessment to be able to reflect and inspire extensive and intensive learning. We have to give students the opportunity to achieve their dream in their desired and valued way. We have to show them how important, unique, talented they are to the society and how they can lead the society and the world to a bright and prosperous future by their effort and their voice.
Now, after all these words, I feel really a relief. I’m glad that I realize how I was affected by the objectivized education system. And I realize how important I can be to speak out my thoughts to the public, to inspire the majority to express their thoughts, and to make actions together to change the status quo.
This week’s post “Setting Students’ Minds on Fire” reminds me of a Ted talk called “The game that can give you 10 extra years of life”. In this Ted talk, Jane McGonigal introduced a set of real-life games called “SuperBetter” which can help people to adopt a new habit, to overcome depression, and a life challenge. She said that SuperBetter is a gameful way of living to be stronger and happier. I was fascinated by her idea and purchased this app from app store.
In this app, it has several “powerpacks” such as “Being Awesome”, “Absurdly Grateful” and “Fun Days”. In each “powerpack”, there are several “quests” (daily and weekly goals), “power-up” (things that can trigger positive emotions) and “bad guy” (obstacles to overcome). “SuperBetter” asked me to do three “quests”, activate three “power-ups” and battle one “bad guy” every day. You can either play it alone or with friends if they also install this app. This program tracks your progress by what you have done and provides scores of resilience in physical, mental, emotional and social aspects. I played this game for one semester and enjoyed the self-development. Finally, I stopped to play “SuperBetter” because it took me too much time, but I like the idea that game is not only for entertainment, but also can be used to adopt a new habit or skill and overcome life challenges.
This idea is more commonly used in nature. For example, lion cubs learn how to hunt by playing with their mothers and peers. Although what we are learning is much more complicated than that of lion cubs, I hope a gameful way of learning can be adopted into our life. Could someone design the multiple choice questions like a brain training game in the app store? Could teachers guide students to play with 3-D graphs to improve their understanding of abstract mathematical equations?
Many game companies are investing a lot of money to develop attractive games on our digital devices, because people would purchase. Our students spend a lot of money on tuition, but there is little incentive for teachers to develop games beyond primary school education. I think this may because most teachers do not have enough time, money or energy to do this like a company. Also, some of them might think that it is impossible to teach their materials through games, and others may doubt the learning outcomes of games. I was wondering under what situation games provide favorable learning outcomes compared with traditional methods. In that situation, how to provide educators enough incentives to develop and adopt games into their classrooms remains to be a big challenge.
I have always been a huge fan of games since I was younger. Whether it was a card game, a board game, a video game, a role-playing game, miniature gaming, or even live-action roleplaying, I was doing it. Even as a 40 year old graduate student, I still meet with friends once a week for a gaming night. It is something I always felt connected to and helped me form connections with others. The genre of games doesn’t matter either. It can be fantasy, science-fiction, or historically based. One of my all-time favorites that I experienced early on in school is historical wargaming. I remember playing a game of Axis and Allies during my lunch breaks with some classmates while we learned about World War II history. The game took almost the entire school year to complete. During my undergraduate, I worked at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, LA. The educational department at the museum used wargaming to help teach history to school groups that would visit the museum year-round. The following comes from their website:
Wargaming has been around for a very long time. The game of chess is a simple form of wargame, first devised in India long ago. Risk and Battleship are other simple wargames. In historical wargaming, participants work with either historical battles, or historical armies in hypothetical situations. In modern wargaming, a battle typically has two applications. In its first (professional military) use, military forces attempt to model hypothetical battles that might, but have not yet, occurred. Often known as simulations, wargames of this type help real military commanders understand potential problems before actual men and material are deployed. In the second (civilian hobby) form of wargaming, real or hypothetical battles from the past are recreated. Participants discover what could have, or did, occur — and why. Participants learn what could have been done differently to change outcomes. Learning from the past can help prevent mistakes in the present. They also have fun, and build friendships, while learning! The National WWII Museum focuses on board or miniatures games, rather than electronic wargames. We do this for several reasons listed below.
Development of social skills.
Board and miniature wargame players sit across from each other. They see each other and directly interact. Large games involving teams promotes team building, management skills and resource management in a cooperative environment. In recreating difficult military situations, players vicariously gain glory in victory, or suffer dismal defeat in the social setting of the group. As they do so, they develop real human friendships. Game friendships, formed through sharing the hobby, can last a lifetime. Unless playing with someone in the next chair through a shared network, electronic games only provide a limited comradeship through disembodied voices, though possibly from across the globe.
Development of critical and strategic thinking.
In most board and miniatures games, as in life, players must generate a workable strategic plan to be successful. Games encourage consideration of future challenges, and the best responses, before those challenges occur. In many electronic games, advance planning may not be feasible, as game challenges may remain unknown — and the mission may only involve a body count.
Game scales and probability can be misrepresented in electronic games. Board and miniatures games generally let you know — in advance — the probability of various occurrences in the wargame and put the probability in your hand in the form of dice. Math skills are reinforced by the player’s personal game calculations. This makes the board or miniatures wargame a better historical educational tool. In electronic gaming, computers handle all calculations and probability is located in the device’s random number generator. The player has no idea how easy or hard a function is, unless they reboot to play multiple sessions.
Accuracy.
Electronic first-person shooter games often immerse the player in an exciting, ongoing environment, but single person e-games often provide little understanding of the risks involved beyond the player’s role. The role of leadership can be misconstrued. However, it is true that electronic first-person shooter games more accurately portray the often horrific violence of war. This is abstracted in board and miniatures games, but those do a better job of educating players as to the larger scope of battle. This debate has informed The National WWII Museum’s educational wargame choices; as an institution, we hope to introduce youth to a critical time in world history. We also recognize the desire to involve parents in gaming.
All wargames sacrifice realism for playability, the question is how much — and whether it is acknowledged by the game developers. If a gameplay situation seems questionable in light of reality, it probably is. Learn more and come to your own determination about the accuracy of that game and the reality of that battle.
Development of creativity.
In miniature games, hobbyists often research the military units they are using, and often try to replicate the paint scheme of the real military unit. They must also analyze (and, in miniature games, build) the map, the roads, hills and other historical terrain fought over. Books, magazines, multimedia and interviews are all used in the discovery process. This process requires patience and creativity — and makes for a better learning experience. It also provides a more complete, and thus more interesting, panoramic overview of the battlefield. Electronic games are constrained by the scenarios and responses programmed into them, thus they generally offer low replay value. Board and miniatures games played against human opponents allow for the creative flexibility of the human mind.
In March 2016, I was in Atlanta, GA for the International Studies Association Conference. I was there to present and to listen to others present research in my field. My mentor and I had just finished lunch when he told me that he had a meeting to get to. I responded that I would see him at the next session we were both planning on going to when he told me that he wanted me to accompany him to his meeting. At that moment, I had no clue that my life as an instructor and the way I taught world politics was about to change.
My mentor and I met the CEO and co-founder of an online simulation called Statecraft. In the world of Statecraft students take the reins of power, becoming presidents, kings, military dictators, Secretaries of State and Defense, intelligence chiefs, and political advisers (among other roles). They are free to use their country’s diplomatic, economic, and military resources to build or to destroy, to work for the betterment of all countries or to focus on maximizing their own country’s wealth, power, and quality of life.
Statecraft has been designed to replicate core dynamics of world politics, so students will face the same challenges, opportunities, and tradeoffs that real world leaders confront every day. In so doing they will gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of world politics and gain insight into a host of critical concepts, theories, and real world cases.
I was excited to begin using Statecraft in my Introduction to World Politics course. I saw the potential for using the simulation to teach concepts in the course. It would either reinforce material that was already taught or allow me to foresee future concepts that needed to be taught sooner rather than later because of what was occurring in the simulation. The simulation is fully automated so the instructor does not need to spend much time preparing for the simulation. The instructor is also asked not to be directly involved in the simulation but to be merely an observer.
I knew ahead of time that the Summer I semester was only 6 weeks long and the simulation usually takes 7-10 turns to work well. If I were to do 7-10 turns, that meant that the turn periods would have to be short (3-4 days) instead of the typical week per turn model. The other foreseeable issues were: 1) getting the students to stick with a timetable for the simulation that required a quick turnaround, 2) getting the students to submit memos regarding their actions in the simulation on time due to the quick turnaround, and 3) getting the students to read the Statecraft student manual, take the Statecraft manual quizzes, and take the Foreign Policy Attitude Test (this sorts the students into their respective countries) before the simulation went “live.” I was also concerned about the final paper I would assign my students that said,
“Suppose that as a political scientist you were interested in explaining precisely why things unfolded the way they did in your Statecraft world (wars, international agreements, alliances, etc.). How much importance would you attach to each of the factors of geography, starting resources, individual leaders’ personalities and beliefs, foreign policy beliefs, domestic faction demands, the United nations and other international governmental organizations, regime types and attributes, the structure of the international system, norma, and any other factors as causal forces driving these events? Explain why. Conclude by discussing whether or not these factors’ importance in Statecraft accurately reflects their real world importance, and why.”
I first used the simulation in an online version of the course during the 2016 Summer I semester. There were no attacks by one country to another. Although, there was a “United States” like country that threatened to attack other countries if they did not destroy the terrorists within their borders. Overall, the actions in the simulation resulted in peace amongst the countries by the end of the simulation. The students enjoyed the simulation and their biggest complaint was that they wanted more time to play the simulation. There was also some criticism by students that I was not “hands-on” within the simulation and that I referred them to the manual too often instead of outright answering their questions about the simulation. My response, in my head and not to my students, is that I cannot hold their hand in life and in this simulation. They have to make all of the decisions in the simulation and deal with the repercussions of those decisions just like any leader in the actual world. A majority of the students only viewed Statecraft as a game and did not see the learning that was embedded within it. I also think these same students thought that a summer online course would not be as rigorous as one taught in the fall and spring.
I used the simulation again during the 2016 Fall semester. This time, the students had similar yet different reactions. During the Thanksgiving break, one of the countries, Nukehavistan, (that had decided to be a pacifist country when they set up their country attributes) attacked Westeros without provocation. When other students asked why Nukehavistan did this, their leader stated that he played computer games similar to Statecraft and that he was a master of said games and that he was pretty much bored and knew that this would help him “win” the game. Again, some students only saw this as a game and did not see the inherent learning within Statecraft. The attack angered the rest of the countries in the simulation and by the last turn of the semester, nuclear weapons had been launched against Nukehavistan by Nettopolis. All of the students that saw the benefit of using the simulation stated that it made my class one of their favorite classes that semester and during their entire time at Virginia Tech up to that point. I will teach the Introduction to World Politics course again during the 2017 Summer I semester and I plan to use Statecraft again. I am just trying to see how I can make my students’ online experience better, so I am open to any suggestions.
During the last turn of the Fall 2016 simulation, Nettopolis deployed nuclear weapons against Nukehavistan.
The best undergraduate class I ever took… had nothing to do with my major, but taught me more than any other class.
When reading Jean Lacoste’s Teaching Innovation Statement, I swear I was reading work from my previous professor, John Boyer, who taught World Regions in the Department of Geography. His infamous course, taken by ~2,000 others at the time, was designed in such a way that even given the massive class size, still felt very individualized. While I am not aiming for a career in academia, if I were to ever become a professor, I would consider adopting many of Boyer’s teaching methods– and they align with Jean Lacoste’s as well.
World Regions implemented a point system, so that you could pick and choose how you wanted to earn an A. This ranged from attending lectures to virtual lectures, and everything in between– news assessments, international films, readings, attending cultural shows/exhibits, and much more. Although there was a lot of work required to get an A, you had the opportunity to customize the course to best fit your needs, interests, and schedule. There were ample opportunities to receive credit, so the only excuse to not do well was simply laziness. Having the ability to customize the content of the course gave students, including myself, a sense of self-efficacy that I had never experienced in another college course. It forced me to be proactive about my assignments, which in turned inspired me to really be involved and engaged in the content I was learning. In fact, this course inspired me to actually pay attention and care about politics while thinking globally. Boyer was also very transparent about the way he assigned grades, and his courtesy for our schedules was very respectful.
Here’s the link to Boyer’s page about his course— it is a really interesting piece to read for those who want to learn more. It discusses specific content of his course, but also explains his reasonings for teaching in the way that he does.
Here are some highlights from this page that I find inspiring:
“My life mission is motivating, educating, and inspiring students to be fully engaged in the rapidly globalizing 21st century. In our increasingly connected and complex world, personal (and even our country’s) success depends upon a global awareness and global engagement to meet the challenges of our time…and the vehicle I use to forward this goal is a course called World Regions…”
“We need to have a public aware and empathetic (not sympathetic) of different peoples and diversities of cultures around the world.”
“Regardless of major, discipline, or future occupation, all of our students need greater understanding of global and international issues to develop a realistic perspective of where we fit in the global scheme. Student success in career, citizenship, and even their personal lives will increasingly hinge upon a deeper understanding of, and integration into, this wider world.”
“I am passionate about motivating, educating, and inspiring students to be engaged in the 21st century world and providing the highest quality learning experiences possible in multiple mediums that will produce global citizens and leaders as change agents for shaping the future of our planet.”
“All that, in a single course? Well, I do all I can, and I refuse to shy away from this formidable challenge.”
“We all need greater understanding of the world around us, and we as educators must embrace our mission and calling to teach as many as we can about our now fully interconnected world. If not us, who? If not now, when?”
If you need further proof of his awesome and inspiring teaching methods, check out one of his many lectures online. I mean, how could you not be excited about this course with his enthusiasm?
Disclaimer: I am more focused, motivated, and resistant to distractions than I was when I was an undergraduate, hence my hesitance to completely trash lecture-based learning environments (had I been asked to write this blog at age 20, my opinions towards lectures may have been a bit harsher).
Being inspired versus being taught. Is there a distinction? Though I feel the pull to say that the two are in no way connected, something deep in my gut is telling me I’m wrong. The truth is, I’ve think I may have learned the most about topics by people who have explained these topics in a way that inspired me. I’m going to have to break with Robert Talbert on this one.
For instance, have most students not enrolled in a course with weariness, unsure if the topic will interest them, only to be pleasantly surprised by an emotional/engaged professor who helps them to connect dots that otherwise may never have been connected? Am I making sense? I am not an engineer, nor am I an ethics expert, but I learned a great deal from Dr. Riley last week about both engineering education and ethical dilemmas in the field, two areas in which I have very little invested knowledge. Granted, this was a smaller classroom size and teacher-student interactions are a bit easier to conduct, but during the more “lecture-y” moments, I still felt like I was learning a great deal because I was inspired by her devotion to ethical approaches to engineering education. To strictly say that lectures are only good for four reasons, in my opinion, is an oversimplification.
I understand that this viewpoint will likely result in some push back, and maybe my brain is wired in a way that makes my learning more conducive to lecture-type environments, although I don’t feel that I have a strong preference for lectures, I just don’t believe that they are ineffective. I do believe that the ability to learn material does, to a degree, depend on the learners willingness to be deliberate in their retention of information. I know, I know-I can hear the gasps. Perhaps I’m unconventional in this belief. We have to shoulder some of the responsibility for dozing off in class or skimming social media sites or even skipping class altogether. Learning is a two-way street, and as much as we love to blame the professors for presenting information in a way that is lackluster or uninteresting, we cannot deny that we are just as human as they are. We are different. Adaptation is so freaking critical. In education, in the workplace, in LIFE—we have to be willing to adapt to different environments because what works for someone else may not work for us and vice versa.
I loved my small interactive classes during my undergraduate education. Admittedly, I loved my large lecture classes too.
