A Vision of Students Today (& What Teachers Must Do)

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“Introduction to Cultural Anthropology”

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educators around the world expressed the sad sense of profound identification with the scene

sparking a wide-ranging debate about the roles and responsibilities of teachers, students, and technology in the classroom.

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Despite my role in the production of the video, and the thousands of comments supporting it, I recently came to view the video with a sense of uneasiness and even incredulity. Surely it can’t be as bad as the video seems to suggest, I thought. I started wrestling with these doubts over the summer as I fondly recalled the powerful learning experiences I had shared with my students the previous year. By the end of the summer I had become convinced that the video was over the top, that things were really not so bad, that the system is not as broken as I thought, and we should all just stop worrying and get on with our teaching.

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rs sitting mindlessly fixated on the front of the room. A 600 square foot screen stared back at them. Hundreds of students would soon fill the chairs, but the carefully de

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The problem is not just “written on the walls.” It’s built into them.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

The room is nothing less than a state of the art information dump, a physical manifestation of the all too pervasive yet narrow and naïve assumption that to learn is simply to acquire information, built for teachers to effectively carry out the relatively simple task of conveying information.

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on 2008-10-29 by cristinacost

teh new technology for (old) story telling -Can the iPod be used as a new platform for listening to / learning from others?

The problem is not just “written on the walls.” It’s built into them

Highlighted by cristinacost

The room is nothing less than a state of the art information dump, a physical manifestation of the all too pervasive yet narrow and naïve assumption that to learn is simply to acquire information, built for teachers to effectively carry out the relatively simple task of conveying information.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

Hundreds of students would soon fill the chairs

Highlighted by cristinacost

At times I feel desperate for their attention. I rush to amuse them with jokes and stories as I swing, twist, and swirl that gyromouse, directing the 786,432 pixels dancing points of light behind me, hoping to dazzle them with a multi-media extravaganza.

Highlighted by margreta1

on 2009-02-06 by margreta1

A brilliant description!

only be one person in this room to be heard

Highlighted by cristinacost

on 2008-10-29 by cristinacost

the inequivocal voice of the ONe who is payed to know and show (off) he/she knows.

The room is nothing less than a state of the art information dump, a physical manifestation of the all too pervasive yet narrow and naïve assumption that to learn is simply to acquire information, built for teachers to effectively carry out the relatively simple task of conveying information. Its sheer size, layout, and technology are testaments to the efficiency and expediency with which we can now provide students with their required credit hours.

Highlighted by lindseybp

naïve assumption that to learn is simply to acquire information

Highlighted by cristinacost

narrow

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carry out the relatively simple task of conveying information

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teachers

Highlighted by cristinacost

Such an achievement could not be won by an eager teacher armed with technology alone. It has taken years of acclimatizing our youth to stale artificial environments, piles of propaganda convincing them that what goes on inside these environments is of immense importance, and a steady hand of discipline should they ever start to question it.

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

Our students are so alienated by education that they are trying to sneak right past it.

Highlighted by margreta1

What kind of environment is this in which “overthinking” is a problem?

Highlighted by margreta1

It wasn’t the list that impressed me. It was the unquestioned assumption that “getting by” is the name of the game.

Highlighted by brelarow

Last spring I asked my students how many of them did not like school. Over half of them rose their hands. When I asked how many of them did not like learning, no hands were raised. I have tried this with faculty and get similar results. Last year’s U.S. Professor of the Year, Chris Sorensen, began his acceptance speech by announcing, “I hate school.” The crowd, made up largely of other outstanding faculty, overwhelmingly agreed. And yet he went on to speak with passionate conviction about his love of learning and the desire to spread that love. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning.

Highlighted by rochellew

My teaching assistants consoled me by noting that students have learned that they can “get by” without paying attention in their classes. Perhaps feeling a bit encouraged by my look of incredulity, my TA’s continued with a long list of other activities students have learned that they can “get by” without doing. Studying, taking notes, reading the textbook, and coming to class topped the list. It wasn’t the list that impressed me. It was the unquestioned assumption that “getting by” is the name of the game. Our students are so alienated by education that they are trying to sneak right past it.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

My teaching assistants consoled me by noting that students have learned that they can “get by” without paying attention in their classes. Perhaps feeling a bit encouraged by my look of incredulity, my TA’s continued with a long list of other activities students have learned that they can “get by” without doing. Studying, taking notes, reading the textbook, and coming to class topped the list

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

Last year’s U.S. Professor of the Year, Chris Sorensen, began his acceptance speech by announcing, “I hate school.” The crowd, made up largely of other outstanding faculty, overwhelmingly agreed. And yet he went on to speak with passionate conviction about his love of learning and the desire to spread that love. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning.

Highlighted by brelarow

They are the same as those identified by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner nearly 40 years ago when they described the plight of “totally alienated students” involved in a cheating scandal (a true art form in the “getting by” game) and asked, “What kind of vicious game is being played here, and who are the sinners and who the sinned against?” (1969:51).

Highlighted by margreta1

Some simply suggested that new technologies are too distracting and superficial and that they should be banned from the classroom. Others suggested that students are now “wired” differently. Created in the image of these technologies, luddites imagine students to be distracted and superficial while techno-optimists see a new generation of hyper-thinkers bored with old school ways.

Highlighted by brelarow

Last spring I asked my students how many of them did not like school. Over half of them rose their hands. When I asked how many of them did not like learning, no hands were raised. I have tried this with faculty and get similar results. Last year’s U.S. Professor of the Year, Chris Sorensen, began his acceptance speech by announcing, “I hate school.” The crowd, made up largely of other outstanding faculty, overwhelmingly agreed. And yet he went on to speak with passionate conviction about his love of learning and the desire to spread that love. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning.

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation. In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.

Highlighted by margreta1

no match for those blaring iPods

Highlighted by cristinacost

students cruising Facebook, instant messaging, and texting their friends. The students were undoubtedly engaged, just not with me.

Highlighted by cristinacost

Texting, web-surfing, and iPods are just new versions of passing notes in class, reading novels under the desk, and surreptitiously listening to Walkmans. They are not the problem. They are just the new forms in which we see it.

Highlighted by brelarow

My teaching assistants consoled me by noting that students have learned that they can “get by” without paying attention in their classes. Perhaps feeling a bit encouraged by my look of incredulity, my TA’s continued with a long list of other activities students have learned that they can “get by” without doing. Studying, taking notes, reading the textbook, and coming to class topped the list. It wasn’t the list that impressed me. It was the unquestioned assumption that “getting by” is the name of the game. Our students are so alienated by education that they are trying to sneak right past it.

Highlighted by lindseybp

Some simply suggested that new technologies are too distracting and superficial and that they should be banned from the classroom. Others suggested that students are now “wired” differently. Created in the image of these technologies, luddites imagine students to be distracted and superficial while techno-optimists see a new generation of hyper-thinkers bored with old school ways.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

While most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find, nearly the entire body of human knowledge now flows through and around these rooms in one form or another, ready to be accessed by laptops, cellphones, and iPods.

Highlighted by brelarow

new technologies are too distracting and superficial and that they should be banned from the classroom. Others suggested that students are now “wired” differently. Created in the image of these technologies, luddites imagine students to be distracted and superficial while techno-optimists see a new generation of hyper-thinkers bored with old school ways.

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.

Highlighted by brelarow

getting by” is the name of the game

Highlighted by cristinacost

on 2008-10-29 by cristinacost

Yeap - school is a game and if you learn teh rules you can get by - the more strategies u develop, the easier it get to get by the rules. The challenge of school is not to learn, it is to test and push those rules...(guess exam questions, memorize exam answers - do the minum to get the credit - get that damn roll of paper - certificate=prize - at the end of the game.

But the problems are not new. They are the same as those identified by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner nearly 40 years ago when they described the plight of “totally alienated students” involved in a cheating scandal (a true art form in the “getting by” game) and asked, “What kind of vicious game is being played here, and who are the sinners and who the sinned against?” (1969:51).

Highlighted by rochellew

reading novels under the desk, and surreptitiously listening to Walkmans. They are not the problem. They are just the new forms in which we see it. Fortunately, they allow us to see the problem in a new way, and more clearly than ever, if we are willing to pay attention to what they are really saying.

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

versions of passing notes in class

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

Texting, web-surfing, and iPods are just new

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

Texting, web-surfing, and iPods are just new versions of passing notes in class, reading novels under the desk, and surreptitiously listening to Walkmans. They are not the problem. They are just the new forms in which we see it.

Highlighted by rochellew

What kind of environment is this in which “overthinking” is a problem?

Highlighted by cristinacost

Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation. In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.

Highlighted by melmcbride

Fortunately, they allow us to see the problem in a new way, and more clearly than ever, if we are willing to pay attention to what they are really saying.

Highlighted by rochellew

Last year’s U.S. Professor of the Year, Chris Sorensen, began his acceptance speech by announcing, “I hate school.” The crowd, made up largely of other outstanding faculty, overwhelmingly agreed. And yet he went on to speak with passionate conviction about his love of learning and the desire to spread that love. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning.

Highlighted by lindseybp

authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

We love learning. We hate school

Highlighted by cristinacost

What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning

Highlighted by cristinacost

check out the World Simulation, a project in which students explore the dynamics of how the world works in order to create a simulation recreating the past 500 years of history and exploring 100 years into the future. I discuss the project and my use of technology in detail in A Portal to Media Literacy, available on YouTube, and in the essay, “Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance.”

Highlighted by brelarow

“the real world” which

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

And that’s what has been wrong all along. Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our “subjects,” “disciplines,” and “courses.” McLuhan’s statement about the bewildered child confronting “the education establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules” still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called “the real world” which is foreign and set apart from our schools. When somebody asks a question that seems irrelevant to this real world, we say that it is “merely academic.”

Not surprisingly, our students struggle to find meaning and significance inside these walls. They tune out of class, and log on to Facebook.

Highlighted by rochellew

While most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find, nearly the entire body of human knowledge now flows through and around these rooms in one form or another, ready to be accessed by laptops, cellphones, and iPods.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

empower and engage students in real world problems and activities, leveraging the enormous potentials of the digital media environment that now surrounds us. In the process, we allow students to develop much-needed skills in navigating and harnessing this new media environment, including the wisdom to know when to turn it off. When students are engaged in projects that are meaningful and important to them, and that make them feel meaningful and important, they will enthusiastically turn off their cellphones and laptops to grapple with the most difficult texts and take on the most rigorous tasks.

Highlighted by sguilana

But the problems are not new. They are the same as those identified by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner nearly 40 years ago when they described the plight of “totally alienated students” involved in a cheating scandal

Highlighted by lindseybp

Fortunately, the solution is simple

Highlighted by jtravers

When we do that we can stop denying the fact that we are enveloped in a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where the nature and dynamics of knowledge have shifted. We can acknowledge that most of our students have powerful devices on them that give them instant and constant access to this cloud (including almost any answer to almost any multiple choice question you can imagine). We can welcome laptops, cell phones, and iPods into our classrooms, not as distractions, but as powerful learning technologies. We can

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

use them in ways that empower and engage students in real world problems

Highlighted by jamiepantsaras

Texting, web-surfing, and iPods are just new versions of passing notes in class, reading novels under the desk, and surreptitiously listening to Walkmans.

Highlighted by lindseybp

Fortunately, they allow us to see the problem in a new way, and more clearly than ever, if we are willing to pay attention to what they are really saying.

Highlighted by lindseybp

so that today there is something called “the real world” which is foreign and set apart from our schools.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

Texting, web-surfing, and iPods are just new versions of passing notes in class, reading novels under the desk, and surreptitiously listening to Walkmans

Highlighted by cristinacost

Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our “subjects,” “disciplines,” and “courses.” McLuhan’s statement about the bewildered child confronting “the education establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules” still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called “the real world” which is foreign and set apart from our schools. When somebody asks a question that seems irrelevant to this real world, we say that it is “merely academic.”

Highlighted by eric_c

We just have to stop pretending that the walls separate us from the world, and begin working with students in the pursuit of answers to real and relevant questions.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation. In short, they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms.

Highlighted by lindseybp

our classrooms have been fundamentally changed

Highlighted by cristinacost

Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our “subjects,” “disciplines,” and “courses.” McLuhan’s statement about the bewildered child confronting “the education establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules” still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called “the real world” which is foreign and set apart from our schools. When somebody asks a question that seems irrelevant to this real world, we say that it is “merely academic.”

Not surprisingly, our students struggle to find meaning and significance inside these walls. They tune out of class, and log on to Facebook.

Highlighted by lindseybp

We can welcome laptops, cell phones, and iPods into our classrooms, not as distractions, but as powerful learning technologies.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

We can use them in ways that empower and engage students in real world problems and activities, leveraging the enormous potentials of the digital media environment that now surrounds us. In the process, we allow students to develop much-needed skills in navigating and harnessing this new media environment, including the wisdom to know when to turn it off.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found

Highlighted by cristinacost

When students are engaged in projects that are meaningful and important to them, and that make them feel meaningful and important, they will enthusiastically turn off their cellphones and laptops to grapple with the most difficult texts and take on the most rigorous tasks.

Highlighted by derekbrandow

they tell us that our walls no longer mark the boundaries of our classrooms

Highlighted by cristinacost

We don’t have to tear the walls down. We just have to stop pretending that the walls separate us from the world,

Highlighted by davein2it

we started taking our walls too seriously

Highlighted by cristinacost

We can acknowledge that most of our students have powerful devices on them that give them instant and constant access to this cloud (including almost any answer to almost any multiple choice question you can imagine). We can welcome laptops, cell phones, and iPods into our classrooms, not as distractions, but as powerful learning technologies. We can use them in ways that empower and engage students in real world problems and activities, leveraging the enormous potentials of the digital media environment that now surrounds us.

Highlighted by eric_c

including the wisdom to know when to turn it off. When students are engaged in projects that are meaningful and important to them, and that make them feel meaningful and important, they will enthusiastically turn off their cellphones and laptops to grapple with the most difficult texts and take on the most rigorous tasks.

Highlighted by bswanson5

our students struggle to find meaning and significance inside these walls

Highlighted by cristinacost

We can acknowledge that most of our students have powerful devices on them that give them instant and constant access to this cloud (including almost any answer to almost any multiple choice question you can imagine). We can welcome laptops, cell phones, and iPods into our classrooms, not as distractions, but as powerful learning technologies.

Highlighted by lindseybp

We just have to stop pretending that the walls separate us from the world

Highlighted by cristinacost

begin working with students in the pursuit of answers to real and relevant questions

Highlighted by cristinacost

on 2008-10-29 by cristinacost

reality learning

we can stop denying the fact that we are enveloped in a cloud of ubiquitous digital information

Highlighted by cristinacost

When students are engaged in projects that are meaningful and important to them, and that make them feel meaningful and important, they will enthusiastically turn off their cellphones and laptops to grapple with the most difficult texts and take on the most rigorous tasks.

Highlighted by lindseybp

nature and dynamics of knowledge have shifted

Highlighted by cristinacost

most of our students have powerful devices on them that give them instant and constant access to this cloud

Highlighted by cristinacost

We can welcome laptops, cell phones, and iPods into our classrooms

Highlighted by cristinacost

but as powerful learning technologies

Highlighted by cristinacost

engage students in real world problems and activities

Highlighted by cristinacost

the kids better turn those things off now and pay attention!

Highlighted by bswanson5

One of the difficulties I find in teaching this way is that each semester I start from scratch. Students need to learn how to learn this way, just as they learned the passivity of the lecture hall over years. By the same token, we need to learn how to teach this way. It does mean changing the role of the teacher. It does mean a shift in the relationship between knowledge, student, and professor. There are difficult institutional-ideological issues coming from all sides there. As such, we are not just talking about changing teaching or learning practices but about changing institutional cultures.

Highlighted by lindseybp

And won’t you concede that there’s some things that simply need to be communicated and digested, period? Is there really a better collaborative, social-network paradigm for learning noun endings in Russian or the multiplication tables, or for how best to craft a sentence, which takes the human touch of a creative, talented teacher? Some things just have to be, uh, “learned,” memorized, practiced with pencil and paper, pen and pad.

Highlighted by lindseybp

For that very reason of “envelopment,” we need to preserve a few spaces on campus in which the cloud is dispelled and students must engage in the “old dynamics of knowledge”–if only as an exercise in mental flexibility. Shouldn’t we be concerned about what is lost as things have “shifted”?

Highlighted by lindseybp

“I agree with some of what he says, but I don’t think I would offer the implicit absolution to students that he does. How are they failing their educations? … Wesch seems to believe that if students are disengaged from the learning process, it’s the fault of the professoriat.”

Highlighted by lindseybp

If we assume that students can access information either before class (via textbooks, for instance) or during class as needed (via laptops and other devices), then we need not spend class time transmitting information to our students. We can, instead, spend precious class time helping students make sense of that information, taking advantage of the fact that class time is the only time when we’re all together (face-to-face, at least) to interact with each other around that information.

One method of doing so that scales up very well to a class with hundreds of students (to address David Carson’s concern) is what Mazur calls “peer instruction” facilitated by a classroom response system (”clickers”). The teacher poses a challenging and interesting multiple-choice question. (There are such questions as Michael points out with his anecdote about a student “overthinking” a multiple-choice exam question.) The students think about the question and submit their answers using their clickers. If the results generated by the classroom response system show that there’s disagreement about the question (which is likely to happen if the question is sufficiently challenging), then the teacher instructs the students to discuss the question with their neighbors. After some time for this “peer instruction,” the students vote again with their clickers. Often, this second vote will show some convergence to the correct answer (provided the question has a single correct answer, which isn’t necessary). Either way, the stage is set for a productive classwide discussion of the question or a mini-lecture by the teacher.

Highlighted by lindseybp

Integrating technology into the classroom is window dressing on a more fundamental shift in “education”. Technology enables a more self-directed learning that is in conflict with the relationship between the teacher and the student. The real solution would be to upend the industry of the University and move to a more self-directed approach to learning that discards with the tyranny of psychometrics.

Highlighted by bfarren

Have you ever considered that students “just want to get by” because they don’t really want to take your class.

Highlighted by jasoncromero

I must admit that I enjoy teaching a large class of 400, many of whom enter the class for a requirement, because it gives me an opportunity to reach out to them with insights and transformative experiences that they are highly unlikely to stumble across in self-directed study. It also gives me a much more diverse group of people to work with and engage with in collaborative study, which can be much more powerful than simple self-directed study.

Highlighted by lindseybp

But I must admit that I enjoy teaching a large class of 400, many of whom enter the class for a requirement, because it gives me an opportunity to reach out to them with insights and transformative experiences that they are highly unlikely to stumble across in self-directed study.

Highlighted by jasoncromero

Are you right that “knowledge is made” in a “cloud of ubiquitous digital information”? Or, is this precisely one of anthropology’s significant contributions to the life of the mind, to a mindful life? Common sense cannot be trusted. Information, even in the highly evocative cloud-form, is *not* knowledge. Whatever knowledge is (i.e. as the philosopher’s ‘true justified belief ‘ or some even more exotic formulation), surely it is an actionable individual possession. The cloud is not knowledgeable, it is informational. And, I wonder how you might respond to a claim that our walls, the particular architectonics of the disciplines we work within, provide students with the conversational, narrative, cognitive, epistemological, methodological, ontological, the –ogical means for converting mere information into knowledge.

Highlighted by lindseybp

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