An interesting experience this week leads me to write today’s blog. My daughter was teaching a section of a class in the development of television as part of her teaching assistant responsibilities, and, having been in the classroom for, well, thirty-eight years, I wanted to see her in action. I took my seat in the back of a small, amphitheater-style lecture hall, where I had a vantage point that allowed me to see all of the students in the class. It was gratifying to see how well she did – her presentation was smooth and polished, but of far greater importance, her talk was light and engaging, with video clips and humor to keep students with her. Both the professor for whom she is a teaching assistant, and her advisor in the department mentioned to me how much they love her and enjoy working with her. As a parent, there is nothing better to hear.
We public school teachers have assumed that teaching at the college level, particularly at a prestigious school as is this one, was pretty much a cakewalk. Students are, to quote Garrison Keillor, “all above average”, they are motivated, they are paying a ton of money or wracking up debt to be there, and thus there would be none of the distractions that might plague a seventh-grade math class. The math teacher would need to deploy any number of tactics to engage and hold their charges’ attention, while the college instructor was free to just disseminate vital information. Not so. Or, to turn a phrase, I’m thinking . . . . . . . not so much.
A tale of two students, if I may steal from Mr. Dickens. The first was a tall, lanky young man with a mop of curly hair. I noticed him because he came in and sat two rows ahead of me, so I had a direct view. He sat down, opened up a notebook, and checked over his handwritten notes from the previous class. I know, right? Old school. No electronics that I could see. This young man wrote copiously during the class, and flipped back frequently to review what he’d done. This is an entry level elective course, and quite popular, as I understand it. He was taking this course as seriously as if he’d been in a graduate course in his major. Presumably some day in a business meeting or a think tank, he’ll have much to contribute because he’s been listening, gathering information, and processing it all.
Student number two came in late, after the class had started. She sat right in front of me, wearing a ski hat with a tuft of fur on top. I asked her if she’d mind taking off the hat because she was totally obscuring my view of the stage. She didn’t mind, and off we went. She pulled out her computer, but at no time did the screen light up. Whoever bought that computer should have saved their money. The phone, however, was a different matter. For only brief intervals during the next hour and a half was it “down”. She checked her texts and her emails. Apparently, she is a bit of a social butterfly, because there were lots and lots of communications from her inner circle. She went on the internet, at one point looking at pictures of puppies – perhaps she’s selecting a pet for her dorm room or apartment. At several other points, she was shopping. I suppressed an urge to lean over and say “that gray coat isn’t your color – go with the beige one and get the red mittens to go with it”, but I thought that might be just a bit creepy and campus security would be called. She was on Facebook at one point, Twitter another. I know – I was that close that, while I couldn’t read what she was writing, I could see the areas that she visited. For a few minutes here and there, the phone would go silent and she’d actually look down at the presenter. But it didn’t last. Up would come the phone again and she’d be off to another world. It would have been interesting for her to know that the chair of the department was sitting behind her, next to me. This student may be brilliant (with a hint of ADD) and reaching new heights in classes that capture her interest. But I doubt it. My impression is that her parents’ money is being wasted. A few years from now and possibly tens of thousands of dollars in debt, she’ll be a successful social influencer, whatever that is.
What was interesting is that most of the students had their laptops open and in use. However, there was no one unifying screen shot. All kinds of views, some related to the topic, others not. Both of the presenters – the professor and the teaching assistant, had outlines of the material available, but I didn’t see anyone accessing them. Rather, there were colorful displays of all manner of material from a variety of sites. Many students, to give them their due, were typing notes copiously.
I remember well my college lecture experience. We’d buy a large notebook for each class (so you could take only the ones you needed for the classes you had each day – the huge, heavy loose-leaf binder was fading fast). Everyone sat quietly listening and writing. The degree of quiet depended pretty much on how interesting and entertaining the professor was. Social interaction did of course go on, but it wasn’t central to the classroom. It is now. Today’s students, from middle school on up, give the outward appearance of being addicted to, and slaves to, their electronics. And it’s not just students. Our daughter will send us a text, and, expecting our phones to be always in hand, when we don’t respond within five minutes, she’s assumed the worst and is set to call 911 for wellness check. (She called us last night to make sure I got home safely. Wonderful, except she called during Final Jeopardy, and it’s the semifinals of Championship week!!)
I too remember so many conversations we teachers had about students “not knowing anything”. Actually, quite the opposite is true – they knew a great deal. Just not what we wanted them to absorb for a test or demonstrate in a performance. Learning is perverse that way. That’s what makes political polls so intriguing (and factual information often so elusive). But, I’ve again digressed. Learning is not a result, but rather a process leading to a result. It draws us to varying conclusions or into varying directions. Vladimir Putin is appalling to most Americans and Western Europeans, and yet he’s very popular and widely supported in Russia, if what we read is to be believed. Russia is not a third world country of ignorance and poverty. Go figure.
So, where does that bring us in the 21st century classroom? Is the lecture a quaint anachronism? Are students needing and expecting more interactive learning? While online learning is more and more rapidly becoming a “thing”, research suggests that it’s far less effective in terms of long-term learning. (And here’s a fun fact: students remember far less when they take notes on a computer than if they actually write it out by hand. For some reason, the act of writing encrypts information in the brain that use of computers doesn’t. So, bravo to that young man with the notebook. Studies also show that reading material on a computer screen stays in memory for significantly shorter periods and in less quantity than reading from the printed page. One might expect, with the proliferation of electronic devices, that we’d be more knowledgeable, more efficient, more able to multitask effectively or complete complex tasks, and generally be better-informed citizens. We often forget that in our early democracy, the Founding Fathers set up a governing system in which we elected people to actually elect the folks to run the country. The Electoral College was devised because educated males assumed that the wider population wasn’t up to the task. Are they today? Has civilization advanced? Is education more or less effective? We know that many more are participating in education, but at what levels and to what degrees? Are students learning only what they want to know? I’m thinking . . . . . . . . . probably.
I'm Thinking...No! 