If you haven’t seen “A Vision of Students Today”, it’s a thought-provoking slap in the face that needs to be watched by many of my colleagues in higher ed. I’ve seen a lot of “teaching” (i.e. full-frontal “read my notes” assault) that is more mind-numbing than provocative and know the complaint. I wish universities cared more about the classroom environment than grants and publications. Here’s the vid if you haven’t seen it:
Yesterday, Seth Godin wrote about 2 cases where students were not allowed to use Wilkipedia for homework:
Please don’t tell me that Wikipedia isn’t a real encyclopedia or one that can’t be trusted. Perhaps it can’t be trusted if you’re prepping for a Presidential debate, but it is sure good enough to help me learn what I need to learn–which is how to quickly take a bunch of facts and turn them into a new and useful idea.Here’s what just about every exam ought to be: “Use Firefox to find the information you need to answer this question:” And as the internet gets smarter, the questions are going to have to get harder. Which is a good thing.Until teachers get unstuck, our kids are going to be stuck and so will we.
Seth has a good point: allow students to use the best tools we can give them. Now I’d like to make a point. I love technology and generally love the impact the Internet has on my classroom environment, but there’s a difference between the student who uses the internet to gather facts and synthesize them into something personal and new and the student who cuts and pastes text into a Word document to create her term paper. At first glance, the processes appear identical, especially the collection stage. The student who connects with the material, thinks critically about the material, synthesizes what she’s learned and creates new hypotheses is the winner. She gets the good grade.
Quality of work = quality of grade. Quality of teaching + Quality of work = quality of education. So what’s my rubric for the evaluation of teaching?
I’m not sure Godin’s issue with Wilkipedia bans gets to this issue, but I often see the problem of students getting lost in the didactic phase, of thinking that if they collect info and turn it in, this equals a good grade. It’s not just about the facts; –it’s the development of a higher understanding and valuing. Wilkipedia is just the facts (we hope!); not the goal of the assignment.
A “Quality” EducationThere’s a great reflection on what “Quality” means in terms of applicability and personal freedom on the Metaphysics of Quality site. This site is dedicated to the discussion of Quality as outlined initially in Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. In summary, Steve Hannon’s reflection defines applicability as
“how easily an object on a certain level can be used or implemented.”
His reflection points out that as quality increases, individual freedom and applicability decreases. I hope you’ll take the time to go and read the reflection; it rocks on so many levels. If this generation is attention-deficient and self-centered, then perhaps the appreciation of quality teaching is on the way out. I’m thinking someone probably was saying that about my generation. Looking at the music charts, I sometimes wonder….
Peace,
J
No Comments
Comments feed for this article