- Teaching Civil War History 2.0 (New York Times)
- Is the Google Making Us Stupid (Atlantic Monthly)
- Physicists Seek to Lose the Lecture as a Teaching Tool (NPR)
From the three readings listed above, what are the implications of Levin's, Carr's, and NPR's arguments vis.a vis. education in the 21st Century. Respond in writing and be prepared to discuss these articles during our next class.
Levin writes about the challenges of sorting out truth and lies on the Web. Carr writes about the way consuming too much information on the Web restructures the way we think and limits our ability to read books and long-form journalism. It seems to me that these articles are linked in that they are both about literacy.
ReplyDeleteLevin's article about the rise of amateur "historians" peddling lies (or, at best, half-truths) reminds me that educators have an obligation to teach web literacy. In particular, we need to teach both children and adults how to evaluate a website by looking at who the authors are, what sources are cited, and whether or not the ideas presented jibe with common sense. In addition, students need to learn how to compare multiple sources and when it's time to give up the Googling and consult a book to find the truth.
Nicholas Carr says he is really worried about his mind. He twice discusses his identification with an A.I. that is slowly being switched off. ("Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it.") Luckily for him he has identified the source of the problem: too much time reading blogs and tweets and posts, and listicles and other things that aren't books. The thing that confuses me is how he never discusses the solution that's sitting right in front of his nose; he should spend less time online and more time reading books. (In my own experience, I have certainly had times when I started reading obsessively online. When I recognized the problem, I made some rules for myself about time online and got a library card.) As teachers, we should do what we can to make sure our students learn (or maintain) the ability to read books. (On a side note, e-books are also fine for building this kind of literacy.). This traditional literacy is just as important as web literacy and I don't see why these two can't exist side by side.
Finally, let's take a look at he NPR story. I found the story amusing because it made it sound like it was news that lectures don't teach anything. Anybody who has had lecture classes already knows this. The learning happens when you talk about the lecture with the prof or you ask a question that trips up the teacher or when you study the notes from the lecture with friends. Students have always learned in spite of the lectures, not because of them.
I wholeheartedly agree that educators have an obligation to teach their students web literacy. I feel that many students are not equipped with the necessary knowledge to find the proper educational resources via the internet. Along with the understanding that one must compare and contrast multiple sources when researching, I also agree with your notion that students should "give up the Googling and consult a book to find the truth". The collaboration of internet articles in conjunction with text, would be beneficial in the learning process for many students.
DeleteThe story from NPR about lectures being a less effective way to teach reminded me of the TED talk we saw last week by Sugata Mitra who found that students retained more when they had to work in groups and discuss. It is interesting to think about there being something in that process of collaboration and group work that helps to solidify the learning. As this article points out, the information transfer is the easy part, but it is the making sense of this information that is difficult. I do think homework also plays that role of making sure you complete the task of reflecting and synthesizing the information you have read or heard.
ReplyDeleteI do think that students have less patience to sit through lectures now. I am not sure I fully agree with Carr that the Internet is fundamentally changing the way we think, but I do think it is making us very impatient to digest information quickly. It’s kind of like the switch from dial up modems to cable Internet—we have no patience now to surf the Internet at dial up speeds, but we used to accept dial up when that’s all we knew. I see this impatience in companies too—if you can’t pitch your idea in 30 seconds you are in trouble. Executives have extremely short attention spans. Everything needs to be served up in bite-size nuggets and catch phrases and no one has patience for long conversations anymore.
However, what is the alternative? I see the need to keep pace with the high speed Internet world to stay competitive. Being able skillfully surf the web, curate content, and all the various social media channels is an essential skill for just about all jobs now. Maybe we just need to be sure we are reading longer texts in equal amounts to our online surfing?
BTW, I just changed my screen name (Shutterbug) to use my actual name instead so you know who is commenting!
DeleteLevin's article pointed out the need for everyone to know how to discern truth from fiction on the Internet. If teacher's are able to do that, they can also teach it to their students. He wrote, "...the key is for teachers to take responsibility to incorporate online research techniques into their syllabuses." In Linda Shore's class, we used a rubric to evaluate online sources and found ways to incorporate them into lesson plans for students.
ReplyDeleteCarr's article struck me as hypocritical. He claims he can't read long article's but he can still write them. And why would someone stop reading books? I think that sounds like a personal problem. I just finished reading a book yesterday and I am always reading a book. I also surf the Internet daily and flip through sites in fractions of a second but that doesn't mean I'm some new machine that can no longer focus. I think that's foolishness. He seems to have trouble discerning between CAN'T read a long book and WON'T read a long book.
I was, however, struck by this statement, "in deciding when to eat, to work, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock." I feel a slave to the clock often but we also changed from a personal farming culture to a market culture. We can only disobey the clock so often and keep our livelihood.
After reading the title of the NPR article I said to myself,"Good. Finally." I teach science and know the value of shutting my mouth and handing students something to discover. I'm immediately reminded of this poem by Walt Whitman called When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer:
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the
lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
Removing the wonder, awe and excitement from science is just tragedy. If you teach astronomy, look at the stars. If you teach physics, build a catapult, a rocket, bounce the balls, measure the velocity.
TL;DR we're not stupid, we're efficient.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this poem :) I enjoyed it! Also re TL;DR, I was recently asked to present a social media marketing campaign for a university program for high school students. In short the program aims to offer high school students undergraduate courses in a blended learning setting. I did tons of research on the topic and they all suggest that the most efficient way to have students read, interact, or be attracted to the message is to make it as short as possible and present compelling photos, videos and outside the box slogans. I thought to myself REALLY@@!!## what is that? If students are too lazy to read a few sentences about the program (BTW the program recruits "exceptional high school students") how can they be engaged in an intensive, rigorous, and challenging program??
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNicolas Carr brings to light an important phenomenon that has become increasingly prevalent with the proliferation of new technologies and digital and social media tools. He examines the lack of concentration or focus that people are experiencing when reading long texts. He links this behavior to the Internet and the new technologies that have affected the way we access, find, process, and use information.
ReplyDeleteAs an educator, I support the hypothesis that the Internet has affected our cognitive skills and while we wait for scientific proof and explanation, we cannot ignore the clear signs that our students have difficulty focusing in traditional classroom settings.
After reading Carr’s article, I reflected on his title “ Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and I realized that on the contrary, Google or the Internet, if anything, is pushing us to utilize higher order thinking and analytical skills. The Internet, as all the readings in this assignment are trying to demonstrate, necessitates a different set of thinking skills that is mostly not explored and students are not exposed to it in traditional learning environments.
Referring to Bloom’s taxonomy, Google or the Internet requires us to employ higher order thinking skills and propels users from utilizing knowledge, comprehension, and application to employing analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creation.
Kevin Levin in “ Teaching Civil War History 2.0” highlights the importance of these higher order thinking skills to discern accurate, authentic, and reliable information from other inaccurate information on the Internet. As educators, Levin asserts, we should take the responsibility to “incorporate online research techniques into our syllabi”. He maintains, “a search is only as good as the search strategy”.
The NPR podcast presents studies, which demonstrate that the traditional lecture method of teaching only got students to the level of memorizing and applying formulas in quantitative ways. When it came to qualitative assessment that required higher order thinking and analytical skills, students showed that they did not have a full grasp of the notions. The professors conducting these studies came to the realization that the lecture method where the professor’s role is to impart information is not enough especially in our digital age where students can easily access any type of information on any subject instantaneously using a wide range of devices, search engines, and medias.
On the one hand, this may sound threatening to many professors especially when they realize how technology can make their role as “ the sage on the stage” obsolete. Redish and Mazur on the other hand, advocate for a new role that the professors need to embrace and that is much more needed in this digital age and that is the role of the “guide on the side” or the coach as Mazur puts it. Professor’s role in this sense will be to make sure that students are equipped with the proper tools, skills, and knowledge and are guided through the process of learning in order to understand all the knowledge and information that they have at their fingertips.
To conclude, Peter Stokes, in his article “What Online Learning Can Teach Us about Higher Education” states that one of the benefits resulting from the online learning phenomenon has been “the extent to which it has forced us to reconsider what we know about the traditional classroom and the traditional institution.” In this sense, Technology and the Internet can only be good as they force us to raise questions about the efficacy and values of long held traditions.
In Carr's article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", he mentions speaking with a blogger, Bruce Friedman. He states, "I can't read War and Peace anymore." He feels like he has lost the ability to do that. I don't think he has lost the ability to read, but rather not putting forth the effort and showing patience. If our minds are changing because of the way we are reading on the internet, then we should practice both ways of reading. He even states in his article, "The brain has the ability to reprogram itself not the fly, altering the way it functions." Personally I read 2-3 books a month and in second grade we read a couple books a day. We are still teaching children the enjoyment of reading.
ReplyDeleteI do relate to his skimming articles on the internet. I even subscribe to an online email called The Skimm. Every morning it sends me a few sentences on what is happening in the world. It's up to me if I want to learn more about the topic.
I enjoyed reading Emily Hanford's article. I believe teachers do need to become the "guide on the side." I realize that this is harder for older teachers who are set in their ways and do not want to change. They believe it's worked this way for the last 20 years, these are also the teachers who don't want to use technology in their classrooms. I graduated from Elementary Education in 2006, which wasn't too long ago, but was not taught or practiced to teach as the "guide on the side." I hope educational programs are moving towards teaching future educators how to do so.
I have noticed through my own classroom experiences that many "seasoned" educators have become complacent with their teaching styles, disciplinary practices, classroom management techniques, etc. Rather than embracing change, older educators are hesitant and sometimes even in opposition. In order to adequately prepare the next generation of students, educators must be progressive in their approach to use media and other forms of technology in their classrooms.
DeleteEmily Handford's article on lecturing reminds of what us in the Teacher Education program are reminded of how lecturing does not meet the needs of visual and kinesthetic learners. Applying Vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), learning should also involve peer to peer engagement and scaffolding. Moving between teaching styles, lecturing to student-centered, may not be the most intuitive thing after doing it one way for so long. I am a firm believer in the power of building on the intellectual wealth my students already bring to the table.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to read "Is Google Making Us Stupid" because all the while I found myself trying to skim through the parts and quickly look for connections between the subheads and title of the piece. Totally "power browsing" as the article called it. One quote I found relatable was Nietzsche's response to the thinking process. He says, “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” He alludes the writing equipment to technologies that help us form our thoughts. If I could relate how my mind works, I would probably compare it to how I use tabs on Google Chrome or when I use Spaces to sort out my tasks. I like to work pragmatically and because of my technology use, I find ways to have a go-to or a super convenient shortcut. When it comes to memorizing, these same tools are influential in the reasons why I don't remember – or feel the need to remember (i.e. phone numbers).
This idea of not needing to remember things relates to how, in "Teaching Civil War 2.0," Levin describes, "the Internet is a goldmine of information as well as a minefield of misinformation and distortion." A huge part of having 21st century skills is having the ability to navigate through authentic resources on the Internet and knowing the technical background to identify what these are. When I was in high school ('04-'08) we had a course called Exploring Technologies and although some of the projects we created did not apply to my college life entirely, we learned how to identify what an authentic site was and how to properly cite them.
I agree with you that identifying valid sources is pretty basic to the internet. However, it's also basic to History. I know these skills to poorly taught - my otherwise well-educated father still falls for specious claims. He did that before the internet, though. The internet might increase the magnitude of the issue, but it is not a new one. Try taking a gander at "Chariots of the Gods" of the tv show "In Search of" sometime. We have been living in a world of misinformation for a very long time indeed.
DeleteI am also a firm believer in the power of building on the intellectual wealth that students naturally bring to the classroom. Thank you for mentioning that! An effective educator can identify the various learning styles of their students (spatial, auditory, linguistic, kinesthetic, etc.) and cater any lesson/curriculum to meet those specific needs. As more research is conducted, it will be interesting to see new data; either for or against lecturing.
DeleteHanford makes a compelling case. As an autodidact, I often find lectures to be a form of review or, perhaps, a way of refining the narrative I already had in my head. When I walk into a classroom with no or very little idea of what I'm learning, lectures seem to go in one ear and out the other. I wouldn't go so far as to say that lectures don't work. I think you need to provide students with understanding first and then build on that in order for the lecture to make sense in its proper context. That understanding, or schema, is the intellectual superstructure necessary for deep understanding and insight. Hanford's ideas about peer sharing and activities provide the flexible intellectual environment which allow students to play with concepts, so they can use them subsequently. The key is the playing part.
ReplyDeleteLevin raises an important point about the reliability of information on the internet. The example of Blacks serving the Confederate Army is a compelling cautionary note. The simple reality is that the story about Blacks serving in the Confederate Army is part of a larger movement on the part of revisionists to recast the Civil War as "The War of Northern Aggression." Defenders of the Confederate memory are using the same techniques one might find in a UFO conspiracy docuganda in order to cloud popular understanding of issues pertaining to racial inequality, segregation, and social justice. They do this in order to defend a racial caste system which is coming under increasing attack, but which is also at the heart of a national reactionary movement. In other words, the internet is a dangerous place, full of misinformation. Students need to be taught how to tell the difference between chicken salad and chicken excrement. That said, a student capable of discerning the difference between valid information and propaganda would also be capable, theoretically, of resisting the temptation to fall for the righteous indignation game being promulgated by the right-wing infotainment media.
I couldn't concentrate long enough to read Carr. It was something about reading. :-D Seriously, though, it's a really long article which I will save for later. What he's talking about, for all intents and purposes, is how distracting the internet is. For those of us old enough to remember life before the internet, days spent combing the library for obscure information are still a vivid memory. However, I have never been one who easily throws himself into a book. I get bored a bounce from place to place even when it's just from book to book or activity to activity. I don't think I'm alone either. Carr makes it sound like something profound is being lost because the internet is creating a generation of generalists, rather than specialists. I would counter that the internet is creating a generation of generalists who have skimmed more stuff and of specialists who are more broadly informed. You know, there are two types of Historians - those who are experts on specific things and those who have a broad conceptual understanding of everything. The world needs both, even if academia more readily rewards the specialists.
I hasten to add that I read a couple books per month - often very heavy duty History - but I still don't merely sit and read. I read a couple pages and them move on to something else... then come back.
DeleteThe concerns raised in all three articles highlight several potential pitfalls of current classroom conditions. From the teaching methods and practices, sub-quality tools and materials, and unprepared and unfocused learners the implications for 21st century education are less than idealistic.
ReplyDeleteIs the boring lecture outdated? In the NPR piece on physics teaching, I was swayed by the data, and was saying “of course, hands-on experiences are the way to learn! Hip- Hip Horray!” But then I started to read the comments left by some students, and not all seemed to agree. In fact some students were pretty forceful in their disagreement. They argued that the “premise was invalid, and that ineffective lecturing is ineffective.” This student even went on to hypothesize that it was the lost skills of note-taking and listening that were to blame. As an educator, I see evidence on both sides. Yes, it appears students do not know how to take very good notes, but I also presume that even an effective lecturer will lose many students because the learning is not so one dimensional.
Another disturbing trend focused on the adopted tools, such as the textbook, that had information that was incorrect without being edited. The idea that even the books are unfiltered, just begs the question how important teaching critical thinking skills are on the web. Since beginning this program, I had never before realized how important digital literacy skills are for all of us, especially students.
Finally, is Google making us stupid? Didn’t this argument start with the calculator? Or maybe the pencil? I think it is changing the way we think, or maybe the way we think using certain mediums. My example comes from books, to audio books, to movies. I love reading, but I love listening to stories too. My mind thinks and acts differently with each modality, and movies make another interesting jump with the suspension of disbelief and immersion into someone else’s depiction of the story.
Web reading is sometimes like taking a stroll, and not like reading at all. I loved the writers descriptions such as “just tripping from link to link to link,” “hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’ve already visited.”:
I agree with the author, reading online is highly distracting, from the pop up ads, video feeds that burst on to the scene or arise from the corner of the screen, to the zillions of hyperlinks that lure the reader to branch away from the current article to research, learn more, or browse that seemingly key concept that may or may not be related to the article of intent.
I also enjoyed the example of Nietzsche transitioning from pen to typewriter, and I think of the lost skills of note-taking and listening from the student commenter. I come from a time of reading, highlighting, and rewriting my notes to keep the information, my hand writing is critical to my success in learning the information. The way I write, and the images I add, my choice of circles, arrows, stars, are all part of my personal note taking style that allows me to recall moments in a lecture, book, or video that I find important and why. I am not sure it is a skill or an art, but I know it is the reason that I am still compelled to print almost everything I think that is important for me to know, learn and share.
I can partially empathize with Nicholas Carr’s opinions in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” – I too often find myself skimming long articles online and taking away only the major highlights and anecdotal information. However, I don’t know if this can be attributed to atrophied concentration, but maybe more so due to a lack of time. With so many other activities taking up daily life, it’s hard to invest the time in reading longer articles or blog posts if they don’t necessarily correlate to things I’m concentrating on for work or for school. Carr’s opinions have many implications when applying his beliefs to educational progress.
ReplyDeleteWhen comparing Carr’s article to Kevin Levin’s NYT opinion piece, there are some similarities. Levin argues that the Internet is both a “blessing and a curse” in terms of students using online resources to learn about history. Yes, students have access to vast amount of information right at their fingertips, but what are we teaching them about the sources they can trust? As any modern day Internet user can attest to, false or inaccurate information can be published by anyone claiming legitimacy in a particular field. What we as teachers need to do is teach students the skills needed to determine trustworthy sources. This, contrary to what Carr believes, can be helpful in training students to critically analyze where their information is coming from and teach them to delve deeper into a topic rather than accept what’s given to them at face value.
Emily Hanford’s NPR segment challenges Carr’s arguments by showing the benefits of diverting traditional university physics lectures to a more hands-on, peer based approach. Traditionally, the teacher (lecturer) is considered the master of a subject and disseminates that knowledge of a subject to his or her students. In a complex subject like physics, this has proven to be ineffective. Showing how these principles work in real life while encouraging students to work with one another in understanding difficult concepts has been much more effective. With technology available today, it would be easy to just record a single lecture and have it available online for all students – why would classes even be necessary? As Eric Mazur’s course at Harvard proves, they are essential in getting students to really grasp the concepts rather than memorize formulas. Carr argues that the Internet can cause depletion in our concentration and contemplation by changing the way we think and process information. However, some traditional methods of teaching, such as lectures, are shown to be less effective than previously thought and becoming antiquated as we move forward. Furthermore, technology can prove to be quite useful in classrooms such as Mazur's by helping to foster an online community for students to interact with their peers.
There is no doubt that the internet has become the universal medium for communication and the transfer of knowledge, but are search engines such as Google making us stupid? Carr’s article shed light on how internet use may be affecting cognition and the thought process. He gave a telling account of how his capacity for concentration and contemplation have dissipated due to the expectation of the mind to take in information rapidly in the same way as the internet distributes it. Carr stated, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski”. He explained how deep reading once occurred organically, but now has been replaced with emerging forms such as the “power browse”. I can attest (as so many others) to power browsing daily through news forums, blogs, etc. I believe that reading in any capacity is advantageous. Deep reading and the means of losing oneself entirely in a publication remains an important realm of our intellectual being as well as our cognitive processes. In the primary grades, specifically in Kindergarten and Second Grade reading text for an extended amount of time is a required daily activity. I have noticed that students learning to read immensely benefit from choral reading and reading independently (both silently and aloud). As old forms of media are continually being replaced by the new, how we search for information will continue to progress and change. The underlying question remains, how much of this information are we truly processing? Are we then able to find this information useful, meaningful, and applicable to our own experiences?
ReplyDeleteNPR’s article, “Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool” proved to be insightful yet in my opinion lacked a plausible solution to the issue of memorization verses conceptualization. Many colleges and universities worldwide use lecturing as a teaching technique especially to the masses of students. I am in agreement that conceptual testing shows an understanding of the fundamental concepts of Physics as well as in other areas of study. Perhaps in combining a multitude of testing strategies (conceptual testing, standardized testing, etc.), educators can then properly assess the degree of knowledge attained in the course. Despite the varying teaching techniques amongst educators, “students have to be active in developing their knowledge. They can’t passively assimilate it”. That again is true in all areas of study. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the podcast first before reading the article in entirety.
The course of history has long been determined by real events that have transpired in the past. History provides a basis for understanding the present and a way to hypothesize the future. The abundance of historical information on the internet can serve both as an advantage and disadvantage. The copious amounts of information and countless websites can indeed be overwhelming. It is best to keep in mind, “whether you’re a parent or a teacher, the core of your message should be to remember that a search is only as good as the search strategy”. Well, what would be considered the “ideal” search strategy? Levin suggests that there are many factors in determining whether or not internet information is historically accurate. It first begins with the choice of browser and keywords. Then, a keen eye for that sites association with a reputable institution or scholar. Finally, an examination of all of the material on the site to discern a valid citation. Students and educators alike can improve their study of history by following Levin’s suggestions. Beginning in the primary grades, internet savviness should be taught to students. Historical analysis can be achieved by all, when equipped with the necessary instruction on how to conduct an effective search and spot trustworthy material.