Hi Janna I think you need to rise to the meta level before you can address these issues: Why are the students taking the class seems to be the first question. If the students' needs are mixed, how should these be addressed.For example, if this is a distribution class for some where it's cram/pass/forget then the students have an objective which may not be congruent with your beliefs and desires and you have choicesFor example, if the material requires mastery in order to get to the next level, then there are different routes for them to demonstrate mastery and your relationship is differentFor example... In other words, how do you meet student needs and how best to deliver to meet those needs. Many K-12 schools have/are addressing these issues and it is those students who move on who are the ones with which universities have to deal, regardless whether these students come with a pen and a notebook or a backpack full of ipads, mp3's, net books and brain implants. As the "for-profits" have found out, they are flexible because they don't own real estate and can open up in the building across the street or deliver virtually from a professor's kitchen table. Most faculty, because they are on a campus are tied to bricks and mortar and no amount of wiring of those bricks can deal with the changing needs of an education. the ontological underpinnings have changed and education is still using an old epistemology. Think process philosophy or for practice outside of the Ivory Tower- think Clayton Christensen, David Snowden, Max Boisot and others. Socrates preferred the Agora over time in the Acropolis. tom dr. tom p abeles, editorOn the Horizonhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/oth.htmtabeles@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2010 15:19:08 -0400 From: andersj@elon.edu To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] How best to teach hyperconnected students?
I will be speaking at a teaching and learning conference later in the month, and I would like to hear your take on teaching effectively in the near future when university students will be even more hyperconnected than they are today. The lack of long-lasting battery power in laptops has been stopping many from being online all the time in most classes, but that's changing with the new wave of Internet appliances like iPad, netbooks, etc.
Our students will enter classrooms armed with their complete gaming systems, collections of graphic novels and music, television and film entertainment, social networks...and - oh, yeah - also access to most of the cumulative knowledge of humankind at their fingertips. They'll be multitasking - working on this stuff or on assignments due for other courses the same day - while we're trying to command attention for the ideas we're trying to get across. People say you get their attention by having them implement their devices for class, rather than their other tasks, but I have found that they prefer to continue to multitask during class and they even actually prefer that I lecture instead of making them actively involved because that way they CAN multitask instead of having to give their full attention to one thing. Some are even hypercritical on course evaluations because they lost out on multitasking time because I mostly implemented an "engaged learning" setting where they were required to be present in one plane instead of multiples.
Are the approaches and goals of teaching that have been emphasized in higher education in the 20th century still relevant in the 21st? How do we optimize on the opportunities we are experiencing today? How do we address the challenges we will find in students in our near future?
Thanks for any comments you would like to share. All will be credited during my talk at the Elon University Teaching and Learning Conference.
Janna
-- Janna Quitney Anderson Director of Imagining the Internet www.imaginingtheinternet.org Associate Professor School of Communications Elon University
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