October 17, 2007
Kansas State U. Students Read Half of Class Material
Michael L. Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, has posted another YouTube video about how students learn. This latest one was produced with 200 of his students and is more provocative than his first video, uploaded to YouTube eight months ago, since it seems to indicate that higher education—-or perhaps just Kansas State University—-is failing to engage students.
The four-minute video features the results of a survey of students in Mr. Wesch’s Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class last spring. The students developed the survey and wrote the script. In the video students hold up placards showing their responses, on average, to several questions. The students said they complete only half of the readings assigned to them and that only a quarter of the readings are relevant to their lives. They said their average class size is 115, and that only 18 percent of the professors they have had know their names.
The video has been viewed about 65,000 times since Mr. Wesch uploaded to YouTube five days ago. —-Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Wednesday October 17, 2007 | Permalink |Comments
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Could it be that they don’t do the reading because it’s boring? Could it be they don’t do the reading because they know the test material will come entirely (or very nearly so) from the course lectures? Couild it be they don’t do the reading because their attention spans have been shortened through constant attention-grabbing devices so they can no longer sit and pay attention to a book or article long enough to understand it?
— Carlo Oct 17, 05:00 PM #
As a professor of U.S. history, I find the students’ ‘concerns’ and comments here reflect more on their willingness to actually get a college education than problems within the system itself. Many (but certainly not all) of students want things to be easy, obvious, and quick. They seek immediate gratification and instant rewards. Professors can only do so much to counteract a world in which students plug into media 24/7 and can find little time to devote to learning ‘irrelevant’ material. If anything, this is a commentary on the power of technology to destroy attention spans, suck energy and ambition from life, and consume our waking hours while Rome burns.
— Susan Oct 17, 05:17 PM #
all of this is a huge problem. We need to involve the student not rely on just reading a power point to them.
— mARGARET mASON Oct 17, 07:29 PM #
to Susan: seems like your use of the word ‘counteract’ sheds some light on the issue: traditional pedagogical practices emphasize an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach to learning: delivery of static information. perhaps we should figure out how to leverage the diversity of learning styles and access to media.
— Eric Grant Oct 17, 09:00 PM #
I am disappointed with this article. Of all the headlines the author might have chosen, she chose to use one that degrades my students and our university. The headline might have read, “Kansas State Students Produce #1 video in the blogosphere” (see latest Technorati rankings) but instead it reads very differently. The video is meant to call attention to the growing gap between how our students learn and how we choose to teach them. While students may have reported that they only read 1/2 of what is assigned to them, they are also reading thousands of websites and writing hundreds of pages of e-mails. Beyond the statistics, the video is meant to say that how we teach is as important as what we teach. Lining students up in neat rows inside big box rooms and asking them to sit quietly while we feed them information is not going to prepare them for the information environment in which they now live. It is really disappointing that the Chronicle would bypass this bigger point to instead report statistics in a way that suggests that KSU students are slacking. I think the production of the video itself should prove otherwise – that we have an innovative community of students and professors here thinking about these important issues.
— Michael Wesch Oct 17, 10:06 PM #
Agreed, Michael. However, the headline got my attention as it came across the email at dawn. I wouldn’t have clicked on your headline as quickly…though I read the article about video #1 when it first came out with great enthusiasm and forwarded it widely.
— A. G. Rud Oct 18, 06:09 AM #
The trouble starts early — when students are TOLD what they need to know. If the education system was based more on helping kids learn what interests them instead of forcing them to learn what some bureaucrat values then they would be interested in everything they learned. (It’s called Montessori.)
— David Zetland Oct 18, 06:40 AM #
I learned about Dr. Wesch’s video when several emails came to me because of my Interpersonal Divide research, pointing me to his work. I found the video fascinating, so much so, in fact, that I distributed it to the administration here as well as my faculty in the Journalism School. Today, a number of classes will be using this video for discussion. I also emailed Dr. Wesch inviting him to Iowa State and the Journalism School, which I direct.
I am not responding to comments here but the several that were posted on education and technology blogs. What has been missed about this video is the relative inability to get beyond the technology and see this for what it is: an intensely interpersonal exercise (large group) with a journalistic use of technology that substitutes human templates for PowerPoint ones.
Yes, Dr. Wesch is using digital cameras and weaves audio deftly into the new media mix; but this is old media format—the cuts, the fades, the faces, the angles, the frames speeded up at points for emphasis, etc.—-all the stuff I learned at South Dakota State’s journalism school in the 1970s.
The reason this is so effective is the balance of viewpoints captured in the segment—showing both sides of the tech debate--plus one other hidden one, which I will challenge his students to explicate: the emphasis on money, whether it is old school textbooks or new school technology.
Some of us at Iowa State are in the process of teaching students how to explicate the interface or application to identify the motive—to surveil, to sell, to capture data, to compile affinity groups and so on—so that students can make independent decisions on when, how, why and where to use consumer technology.
What Dr. Wesch has accomplished is a video on a marketing-based, entertainment platform whose content and execution nullify the motive and engage others in dialogue that filters to classrooms and may result in personal appearances at residential campuses. In sum, Dr. Wesch as an anthropologist used technology to capture interpersonal engagement viewed on an interactive platform that results in more interpersonal engagement. That’s the benchmark. That’s what our teaching excellence centers have to realize and promote nationwide: that digital interactivity should spark human interaction in real time and place.
A pedagogy based on one without the other cannot serve a true educational purpose.
But there are other issues in academe that are killing such interpersonal engagement as Dr. Wesch provides, and that is the long transformation of curricula from content aligned with student interest and futures into a glut of increasingly non-essential pedagogies.
We may indeed write the obituary of the lecture within the decade, if nothing is done about content of courses from pet pre-emeriti ones to new hire dissertations (on top of unit turf-building)—and the ability of professors to deliver that content in a manner that startles students.
Technology may or may not help that effort. I know dozens of teachers at my university who mesmerize students with traditional lectures. Content is based not only on textbooks but on professional experience or personal research and, in most cases, on a combination of the two.
I have witnessed those students in such lectures who never think about Facebooking or texting. They stop multitasking and listen intensely to what is being said and how content is being presented. Typically, they ask no questions—not because it is Iowa or Kansas—but because they are thinking and beholding something that is strange to them: effective, powerful information that connects with their lives and their future, that inspires them, that makes them believe they are a part of something greater than themselves.
We need fewer, not more, courses in the catalogue that serve students rather than ourselves. Otherwise students will continue to turn to consumer technology that makes them feel greater than the collective—which Dr. Wesch turns on its head by using the same devices to capture and reinforce the collective.
One of the comments on another site that disappointed me asked “What is Dr. Wesch trying to sell?” He’s not selling; he is educating, and the dialogue on the Web or in the classroom is the assessment of his success.
— Michael Bugeja Oct 18, 10:49 AM #
What’s a university? Should professors be teaching or should students be learning by reading assigned materials under the guidance of professors? By reading assigned materials professors would spend their time challenging students to think critically about what they’ve read. Not everyone is university material. Perhaps we all need to rethink the structure of our educational system. But first we must answer the question: “what’s the purpose of a university?” A lot of things taught at universities should be taught in high school. Universities should be a place of specialized studies—then students can become very proficient in their chosen disciplines. Do away with the general education classes which really belong in high school.
— Solomon Oct 18, 10:53 AM #
Like Michael, I also was disappointed that the article chose to focus on the idea that Kansas State is “failing to engage students”. I am a fan of his work and I think the tone of the article as well as a couple of the responses speak to the gap which Dr. Wesch is attempting to highlight. We should be utilizing these tools to enhance students’ learning, rather than blaming technology for the lack of engagement we see from students. We need to look at ourselves and change our methods, rather than expecting the learning styles of our students to conform to something that is obviously not effective nor intuitive.
— Chad Wilson Oct 18, 10:57 AM #
Dr. Wesch has created a spot on representation of the students I see everyday and has shown how powerful the use of technology can be (and how much it is a part of students’ lives). I hope that professors who choose to use the “traditional” teaching approach will see they are not reaching the majority of their students- “I learned this way and they should too” can no longer be an excuse. I hope the new and future professors will see teaching styles and tools are as different and numerous as learning styles and try out a few. I also hope that students will see classrooms for what they are- a place to learn, a place to communicate, a place to engage. They are not a place to sit passively and surf the web, they are not a place to only listen and take notes. It frustrates me when I ask for class participation, I create time for group work in the class, I beg for discussion (all in a Chemistry class) and I get blank stares. We all need to break the mold.
— turnert Oct 18, 11:02 AM #
Concentration is a CHOICE, and what we decide to concentrate on makes a big difference. Ultimately learning is a students choice as they will have to choose to pay attention to the information. The easier we can make it for them to pay attention, the better. As much as some want to fight it, we must make our classes interactive and be entertainers to keep the attention of our students. The key is to teach students how to take responsibility for their own learning and to stop making excuses for why they do not learn well. It isn’t enough, to tell someone to concentrate anymore, now we need to teach students how to concentrate. What technology does is it makes information more easily encoded and more interesting. It taps into our episodic memory and allows students to remember things with less effort. However, in understand this process of attention and concentration we can teach students concentration strategies and techniques that they can use in all of their classes and for the rest of their lives that will allow them to CHOOSE to concentrate whenever they want.
— Dr. Woolsey Oct 18, 11:58 AM #
Michael, there is more than one way to read the headline. I didn’t take it as indicating Kansas students are slackers. I figured they were pretty typical. Anyone who is paying attention to students knows they are constantly making choices, sometimes difficult ones, between school, work, extracurricular engagements (that our institutions encourage), social activities, family needs, health issues, etc.
On the assumption that more than half of Kansas State students graduate and are reasonably successful in their careers, I have to conclude that completing all of the reading is not essential to their education. Put another way, we assign some things that may not matter all that much. Are we “covering” our discipline, or insuring that students learn what they need to know.
I remember clearly the semester in my own undergraduate program in which I had two literature courses that assigned a novel a week. Given a decent reading speed of 60 pages per hour, that 800-pager assigned the first week would have been 13 hours by itself. Do we really believe students can spend 15 hours in class, study for 10 hours per course, work 15 hours a week (let’s see, that would be 80 hours per week).
— Jim Meek Oct 18, 01:44 PM #
I have to say that after reading some of these posts, I am borderline embarrassed to find myself placed into the same category of “professor” as some of the folks posting here. When did we forget that higher education is a choice and requires work? Granted, some faculty could stand to work on their pedagogy (and I would even include myself in that category from time to time). And, while I would agree that a novel a week is pushing the limits in any class, if we created the system many students today would like, there would be little to no rigor in our educational system. Too many students want bright lights and an easy path, because, after all, they paid for it, right? That is the problem, not a lack of technology in our classrooms.
Unfortunately, some among us are choosing the path of least resistance and catering to these desires. And this is dangerous. Just look at what’s happened to our public education system since we decided it was more important to make sure every student “felt good” about themselves (e.g., academic mainstreaming to prevent less apt students from feeling “bad” at the expense of the accelerated students) instead of requiring that they learn the material. We can’t “fail” a student that doesn’t meet minimal requirements because it will make them feel bad about themselves and scar them for life (and, let’s not forget, deprive the school of federal funds for not meeting AYP standards). So, rather than educating, we pass them onto the next grade level even though they aren’t ready, but it’s ok because they have great self-esteem and our schools get more funding! I have multiple family members that are public school teachers and they say this is the norm that they have to fight against all the time. Personally, I find it disgusting. As for my role as an educator, I’ve been in higher education long enough to see that the quality of college freshmen today is less than that of years past. They have little grasp of the concepts of hard work and dedication because the system that is supposed to instill these values and prepare them is failing and failing big.
So, will someone please explain to me how lecturing with PowerPoint or using a DVD camera and an iPOD in my class is going to change that? This isn’t an issue of technology, it’s an issue of work ethic and personal responsibility. The students are “tuning out” because they chose to do so – they valuing communicating with their friends & watching videos more than they value getting an education. Going to college has simply become the next thing you do after high school rather than being a privilege. Yet, we keep hearing that if students can’t focus for 50 minutes in a classroom, it must be the professor’s fault – he should make his subject more “entertaining.” If college students want to be entertained, then I suggest they buy tickets to the circus. Oh, wait! What am I thinking? They probably won’t find that entertaining today since it doesn’t require using an iPOD or a cell phone. All of this insistence on technology, technology, technology in the classroom is rubbish. First of all, someone show me the scientific studies that demonstrate that the use of technology improves learning. I’ve used technology in my classes –PowerPoint instead of the white board, adding WebCT components to courses, etc. – and the students don’t do any better. In fact, they take fewer notes and become less engaged. The students and anyone else that wants to jump on this “Technology is the Answer” bandwagon are kidding themselves into thinking it’s the magic answer. The answer is that we must hold students accountable for their learning.
Are we becoming afraid to do this? When did we begin allowing students to view higher education as the equivalent to visiting a fine restaurant? The fact is, getting a college degree is not like dining out – the students don’t get to order what they want, when they want it, and how they want it prepared. Faculty lead courses for good reason: we are the experts in our fields. Since when do 18 year-olds have a corner on what is necessary or valuable as a learning experience? I know I didn’t care for English courses when I was 18, but I surely do appreciate having had them today because I now understand that life and the world around us is about more than biology (my chosen specialty). I will not being taking my cue on what is intellectually valuable from a bunch of intellectually lazy teenagers who would rather IM all day than meet their responsibilities. Part of our jobs as higher educators is to train these students to become more intellectually curious – but technology is not the means to that end. It may be one of many tools, but let’s not fool ourselves into believing it is The Answer. The lecture/discussion format (sans an LCD projector or computer) is a teaching tool that has been around for centuries. That, to me, indicates its power and usefulness as a teaching tool. It does, however, require a willingness on the part of the student to participate in the process. And the power to make that happen lies with the student, not an electronic device.
— Sue Oct 18, 03:15 PM #
Listen my faculty friends: the video says it all. There is a revolution upon us in the education world that we have not seen the likes since invention of the printing press 600 years ago. You’‘ll recall the intellectual elite then debated the dangers of distributing print to masses and teaching them to read as it was feared people would lose their memories and ability to tell stories. The age of Web2.0 is upon us. Better log in.
— nick Oct 18, 03:19 PM #
My reaction to the movie was-suck it up. Maybe it is just most of the “problems” presented don’t bother me. I really don’t care if my teacher doesn’t know my name; I only care if she can present the material for student consumption. Some students held signs complaining about only reading 8 books a year, being in class for only 3 hours a day, while spending a lot of time doing non-school related activities. But that is the beauty of college. In high school I had so much to do for school I couldn’t study want I wanted to study. Now because college has shorter classes and more freedom I am able to study Korean, Chinese, musical form and structure, memorize Shakespeare, read, make money, and spend a time with my friends and still earn good grades. These students are complaining about something they should be using to their advantage. Then two other students complained that they use their computers to do anything they want during classes. Don’t even get me started. Do they want personal nannies to stand over them? This is college; time to grow up. A student, near the beginning, held up a sign that said 29% of the articles have no relevance to her life. First any article that has something to do with her grade IS directly relevant to her life. Second, she never knows when she will need that knowledge no matter how useless it seems now. I read an article about New Town in one my classes which I thought was a waste of time, until the next week I spoke to Mr. Suen (wei-li’s dad) who is a professor of urban studies. I was able to relate to him on a higher level because of my knowledge of New Town. Now there were two statements that are legitimate problems. One was debt after college and the other was purchased textbooks not being used. These are financial problems which have merit, but lack of time management and responsibility should not be blamed on the system. I still wonder if I misinterpreted the point of the whole clip. I sure hope so.
— 간,우주 Oct 18, 06:17 PM #
I don’t think those were complaints. They were statements of fact and information gleaned from surveys not necessarily the exact students holding each sign. I felt the presentation was relevant. As a student myself, I do understand the struggle to balance everything and understand why I am reading the material assigned. I have been fortunate to have few reading assignments whose relevance could not be seen easily. I’ve been in classes that relate directly to what I want to learn about. Even so, I find myself studying ahead or multi-tasking during class when a topic is covered that I already know or caught the first time around and he is on the third repetition for the sake of other students who learn more slowly.
I would like to also point out that most students do learn better on topics they have interacted on. Most of the lessons I remember clearly were not from readings or a lecture, but from time with classmates or friends discussing the material. Times I have had internet in class and IM’d friends about the neat stuff we were learning that day, I’ve remembered the class better because of their feedback than classes I just took static notes. It’s something to think about.
— Tabitha Oct 18, 06:42 PM #
Several decades ago I wrote “The Church as Electronic Ostrich” for the CHRISTIAN CENTURY. Simple revision today would apply to academia: 1) we kick new media around & complain about it, 2) we stick our heads in our scholarly books and ignore new media, or 3) we swallow new media whole. Use the new and old media appropriately to equip students with the ability to think knowledgeably and work skillfully in relationship to the larger community.
Simply, lets mix the media as it is useful for students’ learning what theý need according to the subject at hand.
Several years ago colleagues mentioned some students did not even crack the $50 (now $80!) required texts they purchased. I began to require outlines of each chapter (ethics, philosophy, world religion courses). Some drop the course, some get help from our learning center, most grumble, but evaluations show that students recognize they learned, and above all they learned “to think for myself.” I encourage students to add notes to their outlines from class/lectures and discussion, and then to use them for review for their mid-terms and finals. Some students need help from our learning center to outline effectively.
Often my classes will begin with a short film/video (asking the simple question “what did you see?” For every class session I require “observations” of the course subject in the media. Occasionally I serialize a feature film asking students to report on theories or practices they see at work. After asking students to take a self-survey of Gardner (believe it or not there is a helpful one on drspock.com ) I encourage them to consider doing their “term paper” using their strongest learning skills undergirding their work (it may be video, a cartoon series…have not had any musical work yet) with written explication and references. Powerpoint has not appealed to me, but I do sometimes project mindmaps (our college put a program on our intranet) and encourage students to use them for note-taking (and as an alternative as class progresses to the outlines) and to create their term paper/project.Occasionally classes will open with discussion of each student’s observation due that day and I will help them relate to the theories or material covered in the course.
n all three of my courses I have a subtext of learning “mediacy.” Students need to know how the various mediums themselves affect them as they use them. They need to be aware of the various mediated fallacies (not only the classic verbal fallacies) that are employed to manipulate them by advertising and propaganda, as well as the structural fallacies built into our commercial and public communications. (I contend it is integral to understanding religion, philosophy and ethics today.)
In all this I do not employ the media as sticky-glue nor because it is the fashion, but (I hope) thoughtfully to fit the topic and the situation. Hopping on the bandwagon can be more destructive than employing the “old media” effectively.Perhaps because I teach at a community college where a large number of students do not have cell phones and some do not have computers of their own I have not employed websites (as I did when I taught at a seminary) and blogging. But because I teach at a community college where students are not screened beyond their having a high school diploma or equivalent I know that mixing the media appropriately is effective even in a context more challenging than the usual collge or university.
So let’s use media, old and new, to fit the purpose. Let’s end our complaining, overcome our head-in-the- sand fear, but not swallow them whole believing that any medium is magical.
— BE! Oct 22, 11:57 AM #
The first step towards solving any problem is to be fully aware of it. The next step is to test strategies to resolve it and prevent it from happening again. . . The gap between teaching and learning is growing, but there’s nothing wrong with building bridges. The key is: understanding the learning process and formulating methods to target every single one of those learning styles in the classroom. Sometimes it goes beyond that. If the students cannot make it to class, find out why and give them options. If they are getting entertained during class by using a computer, then ban computer usage during lecture or cut the wireless internet access in class. If they spend 100/wk in facebook, then join the network and give them another reason to log in (their school assignments). If the classrooms are too large, propose smaller ones/more TAs/study groups (I know, it’s not that easy). Regardless of technology, what really matters is strategic lesson planning and the ability to persuade students in such way that they will look forward to go to class even if they have to be there at 6am. That’s very challenging, especially for those who choose not to not to adapt to today’s technological advances. But if you love what you do and focus on the end results, it will be a piece of cake. :-)
— Katherine Montero Oct 22, 02:02 PM #
ooops. . . typo “not to” 2X Sorry
:-)
— Katherine Montero Oct 22, 02:11 PM #