Looking back through the archives of ProfHacker articles focused on teaching, I realize how many of the ideas and approaches that I now use in my classes came from my fellow ProfHacker writers. I also realize how many great ideas I have yet to try. As I was working on my syllabi for the upcoming semsester, I found myself trying to add every interesting idea to all of my classes: I imagined my students and I blogging, editing collaboratively with Google Docs, building course Wikis, doing textual analysis with Wordle, challenging the presentation paradigm with Pecha Kucha talks, meeting during digital office hours, letting Moodle handle reading quizzes, learning to code, researching using NINES Collex, exploring audio composition, ditching our textbooks, building exhibits in Omeka, engaging through social media, and continuing course discussions on Twitter. Phew!
Of course, I would be crazy to add all of these elements to any one class in any one semester. Some of these ideas will fit one class and not another, or one institution and not another, or one professor and not another. The goal of ProfHacker is to offer a wide range of good ideas so that our readers can find those that best meet their needs, and the needs in their classes.
There are times when an extreme syllabus makeover is called for, but this semester I will take my cue from the advice our pediatrician gave us when our twins started eating solid foods. As many of you will know from your own experiences with kids, we were told to introduce different foods slowly, one type at a time, leaving several days in between each type of new food. Because our boys tried each new food separately, if they had experienced any negative consequences—such as an allergic reaction—we and their doctors would have had a good idea of just what food caused the bad reaction.
Likewise, I plan to introduce new tech into my courses deliberately, making sure each element works how I expect it to—and that it fulfills the pedagogical purpose I hope it will—before I attempt to innovate further. This way, if a particular tool or method doesn’t work, I can easily identify the problem, and either rethink the way I’m using it or find another solution. Tech tools are great—if I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t be writing here—but I recognize that my own fascination with all things digital shouldn’t overshadow the content of my courses.
How about you? How do you balance your desire to innovate with your desire to maintain what already works well in your classes?
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7 Responses to Kids, Solid Foods, and Allergies: An Analogy for New Tech in the Classroom?
peril - August 18, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I innovate.Too often I think the natural inclination is to say “ok students I want to try X, but it doesn’t work, use Y.” But all this really accomplishes is confusion. Instead of the stability of Y, or the innovation of X, you’ve introduced the confusion of X vs. Y, except with X > Y, unless !X so Y… you get the idea.My only loyalty is to the tool that does the job in the best way. Sure what worked yesterday will (likely) work today, but if collecting papers via dropbox and grading with Jing means that what was once a 4 day paper grading marathon can be done in under 3 hours (all while giving better feed back) why wait?Whenever a tool comes along that looks like it might help I try to give it a fair shot. And if it looks good at first glance or with a brief test I force myself to take the two hours out of my busy schedule that it takes to learn and really test a tool- then more often than not I sit back and enjoy the dozens of hours I save down the line. Two hours now, dozens later- yeah, I can eat a quick lunch or do another task later ;)(Then I’m also in a field that lends itself well to the bleeding edge, results may very)
11201780 - August 18, 2010 at 4:45 pm
I have been at this business of education for 44 years. Technology is great when it works. When it doesn’t, it’s a nightmare.So my advice is make sure the technology works first.
phdeviate - August 19, 2010 at 7:36 am
This semester I’m doing a lot of innovation in methods, technology, and approach. I’m balancing that by teaching almost exclusively readings I’ve taught before. I’m using books I’m familiar with, supplementary readings I know well. I think that if I had to prep new readings (even if I’ve read them before, I find that having *taught* something before makes a huge difference) while also figuring out my first class using a WordPressMU install would drive me up a wall.
edwebb - August 19, 2010 at 8:40 am
When I taught my first tech-heavy class, I noticed that on the whole students embraced the tools introduced early in the semester more readily, while only a few had the time and/or enthusiasm to really get into new tools introduced later. Some kind of new-tool burnout, I suspect. So since then I have tended to front-load the course with introduction to all the tools, which I think works better. Of course, one doesn’t jam every single possible tool into every course – given what’s out there, it would be impossible anyway.
uconnche - August 19, 2010 at 9:03 am
Yes! Not only is it a good idea to move ahead slowly and methodically, but please try your own assignment first. I see students all the time who are trying to complete assignments that their professors have not tried themselves!
bphil - August 19, 2010 at 10:28 am
Uconnche gives great advice: we should all complete assignments that we’ve assigned, particularly if they’re new to us. But I write with a suggestion: the “too many gizmos” conundrum comes up in my own teaching when I imagine that there is a silver-bullet gizmo that will help me take a pre-existing intention or teaching strategy and update it for a generation I’ve been told has to have it delivered in a gizmode or they just won’t listen. There’s an air of desperation in all that.Instead, let’s take seriously the idea that these gizmos not only facilitate an old approach but are inextricably entwined with a new approach and a new epistemological stance with respect to learning-centeredness. A “blog” used as a stand in for a “reflection essay” will fall flat no less quickly than “reflection essays” do. As one teaching&learning guru put it (can’t remember who), “is that all you want students to do? Reflect?.” What does a blog do that an essay doesn’t do? How is that added bit of engagement essential to the assignment and to the mode of learning itself? How is the artful comment no less a part of the overall assignment than the blog entry itself? And how can engagement in a completely new form of writing actually enhance learning?Exploring the real depths of even a single tool (wiki, blog, voicethread, lecture capture, etc) can give a class an entirely new look and feel. Use one tool every day until the tool is mastered no less than the material, understanding that mastery of one depends on mastery of the other. Technology is the food and the spoon.
louisekraz - August 20, 2010 at 11:06 am
My students (from all fields, none of them especially artistic or computer savvy) will be learning how to use comic book production software and 3D human figure animation software this semester (the course is in anthropology and cinema studies!). This may sound intimidating but so much commercial software today is very easy to use. The real technology problem, I have found, is that students have no concept of how to keep a technology project organized. Files, folders, assets, naming and saving protocols: all these concepts need to be taught, too. I agree with several of the comments that the instructor needs to know how to use the technology in order to incorporate it well: if you don’t know how a program works or saves its files, don’t expect the students to be able to do that automatically