

Students Speak Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/education/13social.html?_r=1&hp

======
DanielStraight
This concerns me, but not for the reasons addressed in the article. I don't
think distraction is the issue at all. I think the issue is whether this leads
to students being more or less likely to speak up in, for lack of a better
term, real life. I can see it going either way.

It seems the more reliant we become on screen-to-screen text rather than face-
to-face conversation, the less proficient we will be at face-to-face
conversation. But at the same time, this could be a way to bring people out in
the open and encourage them to get involved in all kinds of discussion,
whether screen-to-screen or face-to-face.

I would be inclined to measure the results. Use the technology in one class
but not in another. On the last day of class, don't use it in either class,
and see which class has more face-to-face participation, the one that had to
do it from the beginning or the one that got eased into it.

It's much harder though to measure the long-term consequences. If technology
like this continues to become more and more pervasive, there may be no "last
day of class" in which people are forced to speak up. The analogy to physical
exertion is well warranted. It is now possible, because of technology, to live
your entire life without engaging in strenuous physical activity. This was
simply not the case even 50 years ago. In another 50 years, will it be
possible to live your entire life without engaging in face-to-face
conversation? If so, do we want that?

~~~
dodo53
IANAT (I am not a teacher): Hmm.. I certainly don't think classroom style
would lead to people not engaging in face-to-face conversations - I think
many/most people seek that out by themselves socially (and entertainment
technology like say WoW has much more impact on that). I think it's a really
odd context - volunteering in class to answer (normally fairly closed)
questions; it's not a presentation, it's not a conversation of peers. I think
the main thing you can learn from that is to get over risking being embarassed
by asking stupid questions. But I think in terms of social/communication
skills, group projects / debates are much more valuable.

I think the main reason people don't speak up is social - it's not seen as a
cool or valuable thing to do by peers (and I've seen that even at university
level in a self-selected group interested people, for anything beyond small
groups, except with exceptional lecturers).

Chatroom style interactions seems to somehow change the dynamic somehow. One
of the better set of lectures I had used an everybody-vote-on-answers-to-
problems format, and because you're not singled out, there was much more
engagement. It also gives the lecturer/teacher more input (whereas volunteers
I think are often on extremes of ability curve).

~~~
Jebdm
My soon-to-be alma mater has very small class sizes (student-teacher ratio is
less than 10 to 1, most upper level classes are 4-8 people), so class here
really is often a "conversation of peers". Discussions are an excellent way to
learn, both because they encourage questioning and sharing and because they
force you to engage the critically engage material on a regular basis rather
than just memorizing it long enough to take a test.

People often seem to think of discussion-style teaching as being a social
science/humanities thing, but it also works surprisingly well for math,
computing, and science. I think a lot of people have the idea that in more
technical courses, you have to do lectures (maybe with labs) because you're
basically trying to teach a bunch of information. Most schools focus on
teaching technical skills and knowledge, and expect you to just pick up on how
to think as you go along.

Turning that around--teaching thinking and letting students pick up technical
skills from examples--seems like a better idea because technical knowledge
progresses so rapidly and because technical skills are easier to pick up. It
also enables discussion-style teaching in math, computing, and science.
Instead of listening to a lecturer spew material you could have found in a
book, you solve problems together.

(Aside: interactive learning is really the only way to justify the high cost
of college from an educational perspective. Ignoring stuff like networking and
partying, it seems like going to a school where they teach by lecturing is a
waste of time and money, since there are so many free lectures available
online.)

The "everyone vote on answers" format is a surprisingly effective way to
improve engagement in lectures. They get people to pay attention, they give
you in-class feedback about what you have learned, they give the teacher more
input (like you said), and they make lectures a bit more fun without being too
cheesy.

Another simple technology-based way to improve engagement is to have students
post their writing for class (reading responses, essays, etc.) on a forum. I
took a class once where, instead of sending the professor a reading response
for every class, we posted a reading response to a class Facebook group once a
week. We were also required to write at least one substantial reply to others'
posts once per week. The interaction was awkward, at first, and some people
did the bare minimum the whole time, but after a few weeks a good chunk of the
class was posting more than they were required to on a regular basis. Besides
simply improving engagement, it seemed like it was making people think and
write better, probably because they knew their peers were going to read what
they wrote.

------
Produce
Kind of sad that we're developing crutches to cope with, instead of
addressing, social anxiety. Ofcourse, there's a counter-point that we use
mechanical engineering to cope with our physical weakness instead of
developing our muscles. A further point, however, is that while it is
impossible to develop enough muscle to build a pyramid without pulleys, it is
quite possible to develop enough confidence to speak up without fear.

~~~
DanielStraight
Mechanical engineering has also made us lazy though. People didn't have to
work out 200 years ago. They just worked. If you want to be in shape today,
you almost have to do it on the side.

------
jenniart
I've been saying for a long time that we need to adopt use of technology in
the classroom more often. Kids are accustomed to interactive media and yet we
teach them with books and lectures only. I think this is an interesting idea
because some of these children will grow up and be using social media at their
jobs one day. That's not to say that it should replace a class discussion, but
it's a cool way to let kids express their thoughts without interrupting the
lesson. Many seminars encourage the audience to tweet their questions so they
can remember them... how many times as a kid did you have your hand up for so
long that you forgot what you were going to say? Tweeting your question while
it's fresh in your mind would eliminate that problem.

