Posts tagged teaching

From npr: emergentfutures: In Cisco’s Classroom Of The Future, Your Professor Is Just An Illusion New telepresence software could let you take a class from anywhere and appear as if you’re in the classroom. Full Story: FastCoExist Cool. Yet, is it really cool? —Wright Cool and not cool at the same time. This kind of technology has tremendous possibilities, and not just for education. But sticking to education, it has the potential to have cross-institutional collaborations and make learning much more dynamic. Imagine if I could bring in a guest lecturer without having to fly him/her in. Imagine if two professors from different institutions could collaborative teach a course together, giving their students a shared experience. Imagine if students in China, the US, and Brazil could take a course on globalization simultaneously. That’s really cool. But based on my experience in higher education, I know exactly how administrators will choose to use this technology: As a cost-saving device. Imagine 21st century technology being used to replicate static learning models. That’s basically the model. Let’s take one professor (perhaps someone with a great “brand” behind him/her) and have this person give lectures accessible to hundreds or thousands of students, on the cheap. The model presumes little interaction, little ability to discuss, and demands passive learning. You’ve taken 21st century technology and recreated the 19th century lecture and mashed it together with the early 20th century correspondence course. At some point, what distinguishes a “course” like this from a (carefully) curated series of TED talks? Or an audio (or, rather, video) book? I currently teach a hybrid course that involves about half of my students being in another room at another (satellite) campus. Here’s the problem with that experience, and what is lost in the process: When I taught “intro to comparative” (POL 102) I mixed in lectures with small group discussions with in-class simulations with group projects. The dynamic nature of the class (strengthened simply by my being there) soon meant that we were all engaged in discussions. Because I am not there at the satellite campus, I can’t do any of the above (although I did try one group projects, with some success). If I do the interactive things with the students in front of me, I’m being grossly unfair to the other students. The simple and fair solution is to offer a “standardized” format to all students. This means lectures. And because the technology hasn’t really caught up to the vision, it means I have two choices: 1) Stand still and deliver a lecture or 2) Provide a voice-over for my PowerPoint presentation. I can’t do both. The screen is either on me or the PowerPoint (except for the students in my presence, who do get to see both me and the PowerPoint). This produces two problems: If my presences as an instructor is reduced to a static lecture, with few (if any) questions, then the students would benefit more from my being able to carefully prepare, edit, and polish those lectures. Instead, I’m essentially giving about 27 live, differently scripted performances (that’s about one full television season, which also uses 50 minute blocks, except without any of the writers, editors, postproduction). If I focus on the PowerPoint presentation (which I did this semester), then the problem remains. Wouldn’t a carefully edited and polished video slideshow be better than a live PowerPoint presentation? In either case, a “taped” version of my lecture/slideshow would allow students to rewind, review, etc.  This semester, I even had two satellite campuses, with one single student at the third campus. That meant this student had absolutely zero interaction with any classmates. Other than the fact that this was a live performance, structurally this wasn’t any different from someone coming in on a set schedule to watch a one-hour program on a small screen in front of him. In the age of DVRs, we don’t even do that for quality television.  Don’t get me wrong: On the whole, my students (yes, including the satellite students) are pretty good. I’m not an easy grader (I do give a good number of Fs). But a lot of my students do seem to enjoy the course (or so they tell me) and they do well on most of the materials (and they’ve gotten progressively better each semester, I might add). The support staff that runs these “hybrid” classrooms is superb, and I would certainly flounder without them. But let’s be honest. This is not teaching at its best. Perhaps it does provide better “access” to education (but so does Wikipedia, TED, etc.—and all without charging any tuition). But it puts the instructor in a pretty narrow straightjacket. Despite all the technology around me, I know that in that classroom I do my worst teaching. Don’t get me wrong. I try. I try really, really, really hard.  Perhaps some day the technology will overcome these obstacles. But it will require thinking about how these technologies can make learning truly more collaborative. Not how they can replicate the 19th century lecture and package it like a 20th century correspondence course.

From npr:

emergentfutures:

In Cisco’s Classroom Of The Future, Your Professor Is Just An Illusion

New telepresence software could let you take a class from anywhere and appear as if you’re in the classroom.

Full Story: FastCoExist

Cool. Yet, is it really cool? —Wright

Cool and not cool at the same time.

This kind of technology has tremendous possibilities, and not just for education. But sticking to education, it has the potential to have cross-institutional collaborations and make learning much more dynamic. Imagine if I could bring in a guest lecturer without having to fly him/her in. Imagine if two professors from different institutions could collaborative teach a course together, giving their students a shared experience. Imagine if students in China, the US, and Brazil could take a course on globalization simultaneously. That’s really cool.

But based on my experience in higher education, I know exactly how administrators will choose to use this technology: As a cost-saving device. Imagine 21st century technology being used to replicate static learning models. That’s basically the model. Let’s take one professor (perhaps someone with a great “brand” behind him/her) and have this person give lectures accessible to hundreds or thousands of students, on the cheap. The model presumes little interaction, little ability to discuss, and demands passive learning. You’ve taken 21st century technology and recreated the 19th century lecture and mashed it together with the early 20th century correspondence course. At some point, what distinguishes a “course” like this from a (carefully) curated series of TED talks? Or an audio (or, rather, video) book?

I currently teach a hybrid course that involves about half of my students being in another room at another (satellite) campus. Here’s the problem with that experience, and what is lost in the process: When I taught “intro to comparative” (POL 102) I mixed in lectures with small group discussions with in-class simulations with group projects. The dynamic nature of the class (strengthened simply by my being there) soon meant that we were all engaged in discussions. Because I am not there at the satellite campus, I can’t do any of the above (although I did try one group projects, with some success). If I do the interactive things with the students in front of me, I’m being grossly unfair to the other students. The simple and fair solution is to offer a “standardized” format to all students. This means lectures. And because the technology hasn’t really caught up to the vision, it means I have two choices: 1) Stand still and deliver a lecture or 2) Provide a voice-over for my PowerPoint presentation. I can’t do both. The screen is either on me or the PowerPoint (except for the students in my presence, who do get to see both me and the PowerPoint).

This produces two problems: If my presences as an instructor is reduced to a static lecture, with few (if any) questions, then the students would benefit more from my being able to carefully prepare, edit, and polish those lectures. Instead, I’m essentially giving about 27 live, differently scripted performances (that’s about one full television season, which also uses 50 minute blocks, except without any of the writers, editors, postproduction). If I focus on the PowerPoint presentation (which I did this semester), then the problem remains. Wouldn’t a carefully edited and polished video slideshow be better than a live PowerPoint presentation? In either case, a “taped” version of my lecture/slideshow would allow students to rewind, review, etc. 

This semester, I even had two satellite campuses, with one single student at the third campus. That meant this student had absolutely zero interaction with any classmates. Other than the fact that this was a live performance, structurally this wasn’t any different from someone coming in on a set schedule to watch a one-hour program on a small screen in front of him. In the age of DVRs, we don’t even do that for quality television. 

Don’t get me wrong: On the whole, my students (yes, including the satellite students) are pretty good. I’m not an easy grader (I do give a good number of Fs). But a lot of my students do seem to enjoy the course (or so they tell me) and they do well on most of the materials (and they’ve gotten progressively better each semester, I might add). The support staff that runs these “hybrid” classrooms is superb, and I would certainly flounder without them.

But let’s be honest. This is not teaching at its best. Perhaps it does provide better “access” to education (but so does Wikipedia, TED, etc.—and all without charging any tuition). But it puts the instructor in a pretty narrow straightjacket. Despite all the technology around me, I know that in that classroom I do my worst teaching. Don’t get me wrong. I try. I try really, really, really hard. 

Perhaps some day the technology will overcome these obstacles. But it will require thinking about how these technologies can make learning truly more collaborative. Not how they can replicate the 19th century lecture and package it like a 20th century correspondence course.

emergentfutures

See, while it might surprise most of you out there reading this, very little political science actually talks about politics. This is particularly true in the subfield of “American” politics (the one that people like Coburn care about). That is, if you were to pick up a political science journal — especially but not exclusively the APSA’s American Political Science Review, the alleged leading journal in the field — it would be incomprehensible to you. You would see row after row of calculus equations arrayed in models that purport to analyze some political phenomenon or another. You wouldn’t think of it as analyzing politics at all.

Political science navel gazing | Politicalprof

In which Politicalprof succinctly explains why most outside observers don’t think we are worth funding. Read the whole post. It’s part of the angst many in my profession are currently feeling after the government decided to end public funding (or at least subject it to an “American interests” litmus test) of political science.

The problem is that we (political scientists) have clearly done a terrible job of convincing the public at large—and probably most of our own students—of the public utility and value of a political science education.

In fact, last year a colleague and I did a survey of all the 100-level political science courses (over 1,300 students that semester in intro American, Comparative, and IR courses). We measured student attitudes on a variety of indicators, and also asked them a battery of demographic questions. We found that individual student political efficacy actually dropped, even when controlling for race, gender, social class, age, etc. And even when controlling for median class GPA and teacher evaluation averages (we wanted to control for teacher effects). The findings were fairly robust. It was depressing: Taking a course in political science was likely to reduce a student’s internal and external political efficacy (that is, the belief that he/she can understand and effectively participate in, politics).

Oh, we also asked them about their interest in political science. Their interest dropped between the first and last weeks of the semester. Depressing. Which is why I haven’t yet pulled the paper back out and sent it to any journal. Though perhaps I should.

lanecrothers.net

Where do I begin? I spent the last thirty minutes listening to a group of arrogant and condescending non educators disrespect my colleagues and profession. I listened to a group of disingenuous people whose own self-interests guide their policies rather than the interests of children. I listened to a cabal of people who sit on national education committees that will have a profound impact on classroom teaching practices. And I heard nothing of value.

“I’m thinking about the current health care debate, “I said. “And I am wondering if I will be asked to sit on a national committee charged with the task of creating a core curriculum of medical procedures to be used in hospital emergency rooms.”

The strange little man cocks his head and, suddenly, the fly on the wall has everyone’s attention.

“I realize that most people would think I am unqualified to sit on such a committee because I am not a doctor, I have never worked in an emergency room, and I have never treated a single patient. So what? Today I have listened to people who are not teachers, have never worked in a classroom, and have never taught a single student tell me how to teach.”

2009 National Teacher of the Year Anthony Mullen, describing his experience at a national conference on the future of teaching in his blog post, “Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard.” This should be read. (via politicalprof)

“I think that from very early ages we [in America] see struggle as an indicator that you’re just not very smart,” Stigler says. “It’s a sign of low ability — people who are smart don’t struggle, they just naturally get it, that’s our folk theory. Whereas in Asian cultures they tend to see struggle more as an opportunity.”


In Eastern cultures, Stigler says, it’s just assumed that struggle is a predictable part of the learning process. Everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning, and so struggling becomes a chance to show that you, the student, have what it takes emotionally to resolve the problem by persisting through that struggle.

Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning | NPR

A lot of interesting stuff in this report. Although I don’t think the idea of struggle as a path to learning is just an “Eastern” concept. It’s at the heart of George Lopez’s comedy about growing up Latino. 

NPR

Real education is a radical process. It thumps you on the head until everything you know makes no sense anymore. Then you run around picking up the pieces of your head and picking them back together. The pieces never go back together in the same way.
Debbie Millman, who is wise. (via explore-blog)

explore-blog

Other Countries Pay Their Teachers More. And We Want To Start Paying Ours Less? | The New Republic

We’re going to pivot from Cuban boxing academies to teacher recruitment in OECD countries in POL 102 today. Should be fun. 

In between, we’re going to look at the 1976 Olympics medal count and determine whether Soviet block countries out-performed Western democracies. Again, fun (but with statistics).

newyorker:

Ian Crouch on the power of Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” as a pedagogical political tool: http://nyr.kr/OJvfNc

You could do a lot worse than The West Wing to teach US politics. And you would rather use the fictional America of The West Wing rather than the reality of American politics (polarized, snide, willfully ignorant) to inspire a new democracy.

Here’s a paper on using The West Wing as a pedagogical tool.

Writing matters, y’alls! From theatlantic: The Writing Revolution For years, nothing seemed capable of turning around New Dorp High School’s dismal performance—not firing bad teachers, not flashy education technology, not after-school programs. So, faced with closure, the school’s principal went all-in on a very specific curriculum reform, placing an overwhelming focus on teaching the basics of analytic writing, every day, in virtually every class. What followed was an extraordinary blossoming of student potential, across nearly every subject—one that has made New Dorp a model for educational reform. Read more. [Image: Kyoto Hamada]

Writing matters, y’alls!

From theatlantic:

The Writing Revolution

For years, nothing seemed capable of turning around New Dorp High School’s dismal performance—not firing bad teachers, not flashy education technology, not after-school programs. So, faced with closure, the school’s principal went all-in on a very specific curriculum reform, placing an overwhelming focus on teaching the basics of analytic writing, every day, in virtually every class. What followed was an extraordinary blossoming of student potential, across nearly every subject—one that has made New Dorp a model for educational reform.

Read more. [Image: Kyoto Hamada]

My brother (a director of student life in Indiana and a national anti-hazing & risk-management college speaker) sent me this. Pay attention in class—and beyond—and you might get more out of college than just an education. But it’ll certainly help you get a better education.

Sage advice, from academiccoachtaylor: Academic Coach Taylor thinks you need to buy a dictionary.  [ACT Undergrad Finals Edition] Don’t be that student. 

Sage advice, from academiccoachtaylor:

Academic Coach Taylor thinks you need to buy a dictionary. 

[ACT Undergrad Finals Edition]

Don’t be that student.