Thursday, May 31, 2012

Digital Youth

Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century poses important and provocative questions about what constitutes learning and how that process is best achieved in current times through examples of how some people in some places are getting it right, i.e. fully engaging the learner. My primary concern about using technology for learning is accessibility. Does every child have a computer or a smart phone? Are we heading toward a society of further disparities because only certain people have access to technological tools? Chicago's Digital Youth Network (DYN) provides a case study in how community access to those tools can transform youths' opportunities, vision, learning, and how they perceive themselves in society. It's an example of what the education process is supposed to do: enable students to discover and pursue their individual passions. It also demonstrates that technology, be it for photography, music, filming, requires the full breadth of traditional and contemporary literacies. Through digital media, students are literally discovering and connecting with their passions, the community, and the world. DYN founders saw young people pushing personal projects a step further, a step higher, a step in a different direction. Youths would start in a workshop and finish as instructors. Now that is empowering!       

Everyone has an opinion

"Giving Reluctant Students a Voice" is a reminder that everyone has an opinion, and the challenge for teachers is creating effective, as well as various, avenues that allow students to express their views constructively and safely. In other courses, we've addressed the difficulty some students have speaking in front of large groups. On the flip side, we've noted that some students remain reluctant, if not deliberately disengaged, in small group discussions. Blogs force commentary, which I would argue always has the potential to be both dynamic and deep, if prompts are posed well. Moreover, you can't fake a response without knowledge of the material, i.e. no off-topic babbling. Within the English class, blogs are a logical extension of journals but far more compelling because they're interactive. Students are not writing for themselves nor for their teachers, but rather their peer group. It literally gives voice to everyone, without fear of being cutoff or misunderstood. That process and venue are what cultivate critical thinking, not to mention good writing!   

Flipped Learning: Embracing the Peer-guided Learning

I explored "Flipped Learning: Turning Learning on its Head," because when Steve used the term "flipped learning," I didn't understand exactly what it meant. From the blog posts, one finds a variety of takes on this philosophy: creation of online content to eliminate the need for students to physically be in the classroom; inversion of the classroom, meaning what traditionally takes place in the classroom is done outside it; just-in-time teaching, which means addressing student questions from the start; use of technology outside the class to free up time in class to pursue discussion, group work, and problem solving. Based on that, it struck me that "flipped learning" is a buzzword for what we often call "front loading": Give students the materials in advance, so they arrive in class prepared to tackle the subject matter. Humanities teachers would simply say that flipped learning means students are doing their homework. Math and Science teachers, on the other hand, would have their classes structured in peer groups, with students explaining problems, theories, etc. The math and science instructors wouldn't walk students through problems, but rather have them walk each other through materials, arguing their points.

Eric Mazur, a physics professor at Harvard, was mentioned several times so I read the link "Twilight of the Lecture," which was published in Harvard Magazine earlier this year. He notes that his approach is how kindergarten teachers work with students: group them and let them tackle things. He observes that this approach fades as students move up the educational ladder. (Yes, recall our first class with Steve on how education hammers creativity out of kids.) The crux of his philosophy is "helping students learn," which is best done through "students interacting with one another." As graduate students, we're thinking, "Well, duh." However, all of us at the secondary level have observed hours of lecture-based learning in classrooms over the last 18 months, which begs the question of why people are resistant to teaching and learning differently from what they experienced. It's not necessarily that some of us get it, while others don't; but, rather those who have the ability to let go of control over classroom dynamics to discover what works best to enable students to learn and remember materials. In that sense, this technology course is my experiment in discovering tools that make words, concepts, and books come alive in an interactive learning environment. I won't lecture my students, but I don't intend to use technology as a substitute for "teaching." What types of technology are available to bring an interactive classroom to a higher level of learning?