We had about 15 minutes of class discussion after watching the first segment, and while I wanted to contribute I couldn't formulate a talking point; so I sat back and enjoyed listening to the youngsters talk about the medium of their passion, the Internet. Let me reveal the truth, I am not your typical undergraduate; I am 54 years old. No, I'm not a graduate student. My first day of class, as a college freshman, was in September of 1975. That's right, almost 36 years ago. (I figured it is about time I get the job done.) At the end of our discussion I got inspired to blog about the difference between the class room as I see it today and the one I remember from 36 years ago.
My first impression is one of total shock! In a typical class period I will see the students around me use their laptop computers to read e-mails, do Google searches, watch YouTube videos, grow plants on their virtual farms in a popular Facebook game, get sports scores, and a whole host of things I don't even understand. I turn my cell phone off when I come to class (I forgot once and got embarrassed), but my class mates merely mute their phones and then I see them texting and reading messages and Heaven knows what else.
Texting wasn't even a word when I started college, it was a misspelling and even the spell checker in this blog can't decide if it is or isn't a misspelling. But I googled it and Wikipedia refers to "text messaging" as texting. So I guess it's official then. By the way "to google" or "googled" weren't words either. It was something your heard a baby say or do. Oh yea, and thank God for spell checkers.
What is even more shocking is the number of times I see students get up in the middle of a class period and leave for the day. Some even did it while a recent guest speaker was giving a presentation. How totally rude! ("totally rude"; my high school English teacher, Miss Galloway, probably would have washed my mouth out with soap if she heard me say something like that.) And in just about every class I attend now I can practically forget the last two to three minutes of what my professors say for all the commotion of students packing away their belongings so they can blast out the door and get to their next class or their grande cappuccinos. I have to admit that lately I have felt the "urge" as well. (I understand that sometimes students experience conflicts with other classes and they seek permission from the professor first, but it is good to see that we are not invisible to other members of our class.)
Things were just not done this way when "I" started school. No sir! Col. Joshua L Chamberlain, of the 20th Main Regiment, during the American Civil War, is purported to have said, "Nothing quite so much like God on earth as a general on a battlefield." My classmates of 36 years ago and I would have said something similar regarding our professors: "Nothing quite so much like God on earth as a professor in the classroom." They ruled the classroom with with an iron fist.
Of course, I am exaggerating for effect. The point being that classrooms of the 70's were a lot more controlled, not so much by the professor specifically, but by an implied standard of behavior. I don't recall a lot of coming and going during class lectures. It seemed that everyone knew that they we expected to be on time for class and they were. And as for leaving in the middle of a lecture; it's not that it was never done but I just don't recall it being done so often. Packing away your books and things didn't start until the class was over in those days either. I can't recall for certainty, but I think we had class bells in those days that actually signaled the end of class. (54 = Memory challenged) I did some research on Google and I found an early 1990's sitcom about college life entitled "Saved by the Bell, The College Years." So maybe we did have bells back then.
To a person who spent most of their college years under the old system (I left college at the start of my senior year.) this new class atmosphere has been a culture shock. But does that mean I long for the old ways. Absolutely not. I think this new era of technology in the classroom is a very good thing.
For one thing it has a level of class participation and discussion I don't recall having under the old system. In the 70's the professor would stand at the front of the classroom writing endlessly on the chalk board, spending in, my estimate, 90 - 95% of their time facing away from the class. Some professors were better than others and would turn back toward the class and ask questions more often. But with all that writing they didn't have a lot of time for class discussion. If you were a slow note taker, like myself, you really had a tough time keeping up with the professor. You had to develop a system of some sort if you wanted to stay on top.
Bringing computers, digital projectors and Power Point (PPT) into the classroom has changed the situation completely. In today's classroom the teacher spends 90 - 95% of their time facing the students and interacting with them. The professors can bring into the classroom video clips, images, charts and graphics that help make the lecture more meaningful and engaging for the students. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words really is true. And because professors are not writing copious amounts of notes on chalk boards they have more time for class discussion, sometimes lasting ten or fifteen minutes. I see this level of classroom discussion in all but one of my classes this semester.
The introduction of PPT (or similar applications) has made it easier for a slow note taker like myself to keep up. Because most of my professors post their notes on the class web site I am able to retrieve them and get whatever I missed in class.
That's two of the pros of PPT in the classroom. One of the cons is that students retain more if they write notes than if they just depend on reading a slide to prepare for an exam, so they may will not fair as well.1 Another con is that it can lead to classroom disruption. It is possible, but I haven't found research on it yet, that some of the students leaving class early are thinking that they can just get the lecture from the PPT slides. Some students may even be coming to class to sign the attendance form and then leave first chance they get. Here is one instructors suggestion for reducing this problem: "I would say, watch a few of the TED lectures, and then develop a method of using PowerPoint similar to the ones used there. They don't contain much text, are used for illustration or contrast or humor, rather than to lay out the class notes that you will be about to cover."2 It may also be that those who are doing Google searches, texting, or watching YouTube videos are counting on the same PPT slides to prepare for exams.
There are some other suggestions that may have relevance for this classroom disruption, and no doubt some of those will be presented in the remainder of the Frontline documentary, which we will finish watch later this week. But whatever the reason I would not want to go back to the old way of classroom instruction. I find the discussions and the interactive presentations more engaging and satisfying. I would much rather my professor was looking at me and having a personal interaction with the class than spending 95% of their time facing a blackboard. I think that educators can find a way to keep use the new technology and help students gain a top rate university education, one we can all be proud of.
- Summarizing and Note Taking, Focus on Effectiveness: Research Based Strategies, Robert J. Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock, http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/summ.php
- How can we PPT that satisfies us and the students as well?, Anonymous contributor, Ask MetaFilter, April 27, 2009, http://ask.metafilter.com/120601/How-can-we-PPT-that-satisfies-us-and-the-students-as-well
No comments:
Post a Comment