Colleges have spent millions on “smart classrooms” packed with the latest gadgets to assist teaching — computerized projection systems, Internet ports at every seat, even video cameras with motion detectors that can track the movements of a lecturer. But colleges have spent far less time and money giving professors the skills to use even the simplest technology effectively.
The result: Students say technology actually makes some of their professors less effective than they would be if they stuck to a lecture at the chalkboard. —Jeffrey R. Young —When Good Technology Means Bad Teaching (Chronicle)
An excellent observation from a student: “Sometimes overheads are better because you can draw on them, and that’s kind of an interactive feature that’s gone away with PowerPoint.”
I very rarely use PowerPoint. I am much more likely to blog on a topic related to an upcoming lecture, and then during class use the links embedded in the blogs as an outline. I ask my students to do the same, though I do find that students seem to have written a conventional paper on a word processor, then pasted it into their blog… it can be rather dry listening to someone read word-for-word what your eyes can scan much more quickly.
I do occasionally load up the word processor, and type examples and thoughts as they occur to me… I sometimes do this on the blackboard when a good discussion is going, but I can take the word processor file with me.
This strategy is an implementation of the “just-in-time teaching” method, which I’ve found very useful, since my curricular material just keeps getting longer and longer, with more links and more examples, with every year that I teach… and all that information can be overwhelming to a student who sees it all laid out on the first day of classes.
Another student complaint from the article, referring specifically to discussion forums: “Students don’t read other students’ responses, only those posted by the faculty member. They write responses in order to fulfill the participation requirements of the class.”
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Too bad the article didn't cite you, Daisy... maybe your comments will plant the seed for a later Chronicle article? One can hope.
I was interviewed for this article, specifically about assigning blogs, so was kind of bored when he didn't even go there.
I do love my "smart" classroom though as I can walk my students through Blackboard and aspects of their blogging software that I would be too frustrated to write down. And my freshman tell me that no one else in the University ever teaches them anything about Blackboard--it's just assigned. How awful! For this reason, many of my upperlevel students hate technology because no one has ever told them exactly what to do with it.
I do think that a philosophy professor, or an instructor on any subject, can benefit from the ability to project web pages , but it's often just a matter of convenience.
For example, if a conversation topic comes up in class, and you happen to know that there's a good website with examples or definitions that will be useful, It's convenient to be able to call up that page in class if and when the need arises. Convenient -- but not vital.
While touch-screen smartboards are, indeed, cool, I haven't really seen them get enough use to justify their cost.
As for professors spending too much time on the technology of presentations -- that's also a problem in student presentations, which is why I don't encourage PowerPoint presentations.
Wouldn't having to go through the training take more time away from the actual lesson preperation? Although I believe schools should "keep up with the times," how would a projector, a smartboard, etc. be advantageous to a philosophy teacher, for example.
WFTI requires such equipment, but schools should not go overboard, lest professors focus on learning the technology and constructing a presentation. Everything in moderation.