[Air-L] How best to teach hyperconnected students?

Mon Aug 2 16:48:31 PDT 2010

I found TV lectures to be good in that I could tape the lectures and follow
my notes a second or a third time by replaying the lectures. This aspect of
"Saving" the lecture also helped me study a course in computer ethics with
Carleton's Diane Dubrule, that was a totally online course where a few of
the class would show up each week to chat online with Diane.

Her studies in philosophy and computers go back to the 1950's I believe.

I have found online participation to be too low in most classes I took in
the 2000's where things like course newsgroups were used. I also found that
by using the course newsgroups a lot I left an impression on the professor
that I was a keener. I was, in fact, a keener. I believe the "net" has
helped me study. Also not because I can search out information that in fact
is secondary.

In the 1970's a visit to the professor's office would mean I would then find
myself walking home and thinking of something I should have said. This
reduction in physical barrier has helped me a lot. Who has not looked for a
professor in her office only to find her not there? Whereas e-mail seems to
eventually reach the same professor.

Just my thoughts here Peter B.Math, BA, statistical project manager
Statistics Canada.

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Murray Turoff
Sent: August-02-10 7:33 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] How best to teach hyperconnected students?

Learning to play a violin or piano extremely well will not teach one how to
be a great and creative composer.
This emphasis on hyperconnection and use of web especially things like
gaming and an over emphasis on multitasking will not necessarily teach
people to be creative and imaginative thinkers.  Teaching how to think is
requires interaction and even disagreements with peers and those who know
more than the subject than the student.
Our many years of study of online learning.   Roxanne has a recent book on
the subject and papers on her website and i have a few on the basic
philosophy.
http://is.njit.edu/turoff http://is.njit.edu/hiltz   our early experiments
with online learning area also now on the njit library website
http://library.njit.edu/archives/cccc-materials/index.php  (virtual
classroom reports)

The general finding is that online learning can be better than face to face
when it emhasises collaborative learning among the students both as a total
class and as small teams that really collaborate on difficult topics.   Also
an instructor (that knows the subject matter better than any of the
students) that knows when to step in to correct something going wrong.  Even
in public schools trying to use education majors without a deep
understanding of the subject being taught is a farce.

With out that guidance what happens on the web is going to be versions of
"group think" and "group stupidity"

Also face to face can be improved when this type of collaboration is done in
an online mode.  When a knowledge structure is provided by the instructor
for the students to categorize their viewpoints and a large class is
involved there is a lot more chance of real knowledge emerging and being
understood by the whole group.  There is a much greater human pool from
which to draw out insights and consider them with out the well studied
dominance of fast talkers in small face to face groups.  I have related
examples in this paper.  It includes a summary result and reference to an
experimental thesis showing strong results on creativity for open ended
problems by student groups.  (thesis on the njit library website)

Turoff, Murray,  Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Xiang Yao, Zheng Li, Yuanqiong Wang,
and Hee-Kyung Cho, Online Collaborative Learning Enhancement Through the
Delphi Method, Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE April 2006
ISSN 1302-6488 Volume: 7 Number: 2 Article: 6, Publisher:  Anadolu
University, Eskisehir, Turkey, http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/index.htm

From: Janna Anderson <andersj at elon.edu>
> To: Aoir AoIR-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] How best to teach hyperconnected students?
> Message-ID: 
> <C87C926C.2080B%andersj at elon.edu<C87C926C.2080B%25andersj at elon.edu>
> >
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="US-ASCII"
>
> I will be speaking at a teaching and learning conference later in the 
> month, and I would like to hear your take on teaching effectively in 
> the near future when university students will be even more 
> hyperconnected than they are today. The lack of long-lasting battery 
> power in laptops has been stopping many from being online all the time 
> in most classes, but that's changing with the new wave of Internet 
> appliances like iPad, netbooks, etc.
>
> Our students will enter classrooms armed with their complete gaming 
> systems, collections of graphic novels and music, television and film 
> entertainment, social networks...and - oh, yeah - also access to most 
> of the cumulative knowledge of humankind at their fingertips. They'll 
> be multitasking - working on this stuff or on assignments due for 
> other courses the same day
> -
> while we're trying to command attention for the ideas we're trying to 
> get across. People say you get their attention by having them 
> implement their devices for class, rather than their other tasks, but 
> I have found that they prefer to continue to multitask during class 
> and they even actually prefer that I lecture instead of making them 
> actively involved because that way they CAN multitask instead of 
> having to give their full attention to one thing. Some are even 
> hypercritical on course evaluations because they lost out on 
> multitasking time because I mostly implemented an "engaged learning"
> setting where they were required to be present in one plane instead of 
> multiples.
>
> Are the approaches and goals of teaching that have been emphasized in 
> higher education in the 20th century still relevant in the 21st? How 
> do we optimize on the opportunities we are experiencing today? How do 
> we address the challenges we will find in students in our near future?
>
> Thanks for any comments you would like to share. All will be credited 
> during my talk at the Elon University Teaching and Learning 
> Conference.
>
> Janna
>
> --
> Janna Quitney Anderson
> Director of Imagining the Internet
> www.imaginingtheinternet.org
> Associate Professor
> School of Communications
> Elon University
>
> Distinguished Professor Emeritus
>
Information Systems, NJIT
homepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff
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