Category: Hot Topics – Prior Weeks

At the end of class last week, our discussion revolved around the idea that technology in a classroom was either a good or a bad thing. As we jostled with this issue, the last student to speak (sorry, I can’t remember your name)  proposed the idea that technology wasn’t the problem it was how it was utilized in a classroom setting that created issues.

The NPR article from this week had an professor, Jesse Stomel, who expressed similar sentiment.

“There may also be times, he says, that the phone or computer can be an in-class tool. “We can also ask students to use their devices in ways that help them and the rest of the class, looking up a confusing term, polling their friends on Facebook about a topic we’re discussing or taking collaborative notes in an open document.”

On the other hand, says Stommel, there may be times and places to shut it down, too: “We can ask students to close their laptops at particular moments, recognizing that it is useful to learn different things, at different times, in different ways.””

It is easy to say there can be times when technology is acting as a learning aid and times where is is distracting. What I see as a learning curve, as a first time TA this semester and a potential future professor, is finding the balance .

I’m curious what your experience, as students and educators, is on achieving this balance. Outside of testing environments, are there other situations where you limit technology? Alternatively, what are the ways in which you saw it as an aid in learning?

NPR Article:

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/01/24/578437957/laptops-and-phones-in-the-classroom-yea-nay-or-a-third-way

All electronics are banned from my class. Good luck asking students to look up something in class there professor.

The use of electronics in a classroom can be a mixed bag of results. If the student is engaged with the topic, they will look up more information that adds to a droning lecture. In the realm of political science or international studies, why wouldn’t you want a lap top on every desk? Get the students to engage in real world, real time events that contribute to the subject of the class for that day. If the President is tweeting comments about another head of state, tie that into the class on Foreign Policy and Diplomacy. The use of electronics can be distracting but if you allow yourself the freedom to engage technology and allow the students the freedom to explore the virtual world while in class, you just might find they learn a little more. And, you might not have to work so hard in preparing a long lecture.

Being asked to teach a class on Intelligence and National Security can be a daunting task. How do you get students to be interested in a topic that has so much to cover and so little time to do it? How do you get them to understand the real world implications and applications the class has to offer? Well, you tell them to open their laptops, find an online news source, hopefully not the Onion, and find a news story that has importance towards US National Security concerns. The world is there, the concerns are real, your subject is not totally theoretical, but you have to let go and trust the students. They want to learn, they want to know why it matters.

WOW, they are excited!!!

WOW, their written assignment of stating why their news story is relevant while using the theories taught in class is incredibly thorough!!!

WOW, they are learning!!!

You can lecture for an hour, you can give a test to see if they remember it for a few weeks, but it would be better to know they can use that knowledge after they graduate. That is what technology can offer. That is what the screens can help with in education. Don’t just teach, facilitate learning. I have experienced it as a student and professor. It works if you use it. Don’t be afraid of technology, utilize it for learning. You just might learn something too.

Teach in a galaxy far, far away. You might really enjoy the journey yourself.

This is the dilemma that this student, Alexandra Gold, a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature at Boston University discussed on her article. She brought up many interesting points that I agreed with, such as this statement:  

I know you’ve heard a version of this stolid formulation: “This paper will analyze”; “This article shows.” No expression makes me bristle quite as much. I have to fight an immediate urge to shout: THIS PAPER DIDN’T ANALYZE ANYTHING! YOU DID. Why are we so afraid to say “I”?

I think this is particularly a struggle I phase today. I have gotten so used to the formal academic writing style that blogging actually feels a bit weird sometimes. The freedom that we have in blogging is unique and awesome but takes some time to get use to. At least it did for me. Alexandra describes this as “a strange paradox of the traditional academic essay that as much as we tell students to write in their own words, we ask them to couch these words behind an inactive or tacit authorial subjectivity”.

Blogging is actually one of her suggestions of an assignment in a genre beyond the traditional academic essay. She believes we should do this at least once during the semester. I agree with this because it does truly allow us as students to connect to what we are learning and express freely our feelings and reactions to it. Blogging for other classes and now this one has definitely allowed me to feel more comfortable using “I” again and truly expressing my opinions in writing, getting creative, while connecting it to my personal experiences.

But a new dilemma I am facing now is how it can also put me in vulnerable situations by opening up. I noticed that when I get the most out of my blogs is when I am able to connect them to my personal experiences. It not only allows me to reflect on my own opinions but it also shows my readers how I came about to having those views. As a future student affairs professional,  having a public blog where my opinions are being shared, makes me a little nervous that they can one day be used against me. We have seen in other schools faculty being fired for having certain beliefs such as white supremacy and we have even seen the controversies here at VT with the GTA. Although, those are more extreme examples of beliefs, they what we are facing today. Therefore, in student affairs we are supposed to be inclusive for all students and by taking a stand on one certain side sometimes makes me worry if that it can affect my career in the future. Therefore, when it comes to blogging specially knowing how this one is very public and is tweeted. It makes me a little hesitant to truly express my opinions but at the same time I still plan to do it because I think people need to hear and learn about different perspectives. I am a first generation, from a low-income family, Latina and I am sure that my experiences and interactions with pedagogical practices growing up can be unique based on my salient identities.

While reading the  New Culture of Learning I really enjoyed the story of Teaching in a galaxy far, far away. A year ago, I was enrolled in a course called Motivation and Education offered by the Educational Psychology department. Dr. Brett Jones, the instructor of this course, developed a model called the MUSIC Model of  Motivation. This model is designed to make the current motivation research and theories applicable to teachers and educators. Based on this model, there are five factors that contribute to students’ motivation in a learning environment.  These factors are eMpowerment, Usefulness, Success, Interest, and Caring. According to Dr. Jones, students’ will be motivated to learn if they perceive that:

1. They are eMpowered. In other words, if they perceive that they have autonomy and control over their learning experience.
2. The material is Useful to them.
3. They can Succeed in meeting the objectives.
4. The material is Interesting to them.
5. They perceive a sense of Caring from the all the members of the community (teacher and peers)

Incorporate these factors into your course design or any learning experience and your students will be motivated and eager to get engaged and learn. Looking at the story of Teaching in a galaxy far, far away through the glasses of the MUSIC model, the main two factors that made the students incredibly engaged and made the course a very fun experience for them are the U and I of the model, Usefulness and Interest. The design of the course was in a way to make the material relevant and interesting to the students. Also, allowing the students to decide about the order and the timing of the tasks and activities of each session probably gave them a sense of eMpowerment.

A recent American Psychological Association report alarms about sharp rises in serious mental health problems on campus. Depression and anxiety, as the most common mental disorders, are typically associated with eating disorders, drug abuse, and self-injury in the U.S. universities (Eiser, 2011). In “Seven Sins of Our System of Forced Education” Gray (2018) refers to the fact that students normally have no or little power in creating the rules that they are forced to follow. Also, little differences in shallow accomplishments (e.g., an A versus a B) could lead to a great sense of shame, intense anxiety and fear in a classroom, which more or less works like a real society.

Not only are traditional lectures and classroom settings boring, politically speaking, they are comparable with a monarchy in which the ruler may or may not follow a written constitution. The way a classroom is governed typically represents the broader patterns of the governance of its context. Thus, there is no surprise that in more democratized countries, students gain a little more power. Because we spend so many years in school and university, shaping a small scale monarchy in classroom impairs the quality of student life by creating perpetual, toxic anxiety (Lee, 2015) and making a prison out of school. Transforming this monarchy to a democracy may address the aforementioned issues of mental health, and better prepare students for the future.

Traditional lectures are the legacy of our ancestors who had no medium other than their tongue to deliver the course content, and no means other than standard exams to assess student achievement. The legacy, which persists in the form of today’s crowded classrooms with a single source of information, is somehow responsible for killing students’ creativity, motivation, and critical thinking, especially at younger ages. With a decrease in these positive student characteristics, there is an increase in the lack of interest, sense of forced education, and anxiety. There are national initiatives, such as the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, that address mental health crisis on campus. However, except in pioneering institutions, there seems to be a general lack of interest in planning for and integrating new approaches to education and technology to help address life quality issues and to prepare students for the complexities of the 21^st century. Oltermann (2016) described ESBC, a school in Germany, as a prototype of such efforts with the mission of re-inventing “school” based on free learning and bottom-up decision making. In ESBC student work is not graded until the age of 15. The school fully abandoned lecture-style instructions and timetables. Instead, the teachers let their students decide what to learn and when to take an exam. Due to ESBC’s success, more schools in Germany are now adopting the free-learning methodology.

Despite the fact that a great amount of flexibility and options could be offered to students, discipline is commonly enforced by required contents and schedules in passive education systems. The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act and pioneering institutions, such as ESBC, call for the democratization of the classroom by transferring the power of decision making from teachers to students. There is evidence that moving toward this power transfer by planning for flexibility and the proper use of technology prepares students for the future life, improves their motivation, retention rate, communication abilities, and helps them learn at their own pace (Cox, 2017). The ESBC experience showed that this change in mission and strategies, which is not necessarily expensive, improves students’ health and quality of life.

References:

• Cox, J. (2017). Benefits of Technology in the Classroom. Retrieved January 27, 2018, from http://www.teachhub.com/benefits-technology-classroom
• Eiser, A. (2011). The crisis on campus. Retrieved January 27, 2018, from http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/09/crisis-campus.aspx
• Gray, P. (2018). Seven Sins of Our System of Forced Education. Retrieved January 27, 2018, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200909/seven-sins-our-system-forced-education
• Lee, K. (2015, October 22). Your Mental Health is More Important Than Your Grades. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-lee-costa/your-mental-health-is-mor_b_8357368.html
• Oltermann, P. (2016, July 1). No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down. Retrieved January 27, 2018, from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/01/no-grades-no-timetable-berlin-school-turns-teaching-upside-down

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.

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.

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.