In his 2012 book Teaching
Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your
College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning, SMU dean Jose Antonio
Bowen advocates the removal of technology from the post-secondary classroom,
and replacing it with sessions that maximize the opportunity for students to
apply online content in a face-to-face interactive way that will enhance their
learning.
Bowen's thesis is that technology has offered instructors a
template for delivering content online, before class. The corollary is that the traditional method
of delivering a first exposure to content, the classroom lecture, may be as
dead as the dodo.
To this, Bowen offers a heartfelt "amen." For him, lectures are poor transmitters of
content, and even worse tools for classroom learning. Instead, class time should be spent creating
value. In education, this means the
development of critical thinking skills.
Bowen argues that class time is the proper forum for
developing such skills. The delivery of
content is better suited to the online world that technology invites us to
utilize.
Bowen's message is delivered with passion, and his
statistics suggest that if institutions of higher learning do not adapt to the
technological environment millenials are wired into, they will find that their
students will vote with their feet, and purchase cheaper, more customized, and
ultimately more fulfilling experiences elsewhere. That message is frightening.
The implications for my own mode of teaching are no less
unsettling. I teach law courses, and
they are highly content-driven. If I
downloaded podcasts of my lectures that students might review before class,
what would I do during class time? I'd
have to develop entirely new assessment tools, and lesson plans incorporating
exercises that would engage my students in the higher level cognitive skills
that underlie an ability to think critically.
That entails a lot of work.
As Bowen points out, it would also require me to focus more on what the
students are learning, rather than what I am teaching. Substituting monitoring and mentoring for the
delivery of content will mean a loss of control, potentially, and that makes me
a bit nervous.
Bowen's argument is that with the exception of the few elite
institutions who can continue to rely on their brand to fill seats in lecture
halls, the traditional residential colleges and universities must adapt to what
students really want, or risk disappearing entirely. Increasingly, students are seeking an
education that has value, which means that they may not continue to absorb the
high cost of the traditional post-secondary education, unless the institutions
offering it are able to demonstrate it results in significant learning that
will be of use after graduation. In
Bowen's view, the delivery of content in class can be accessed more cheaply
elsewhere, and it fails to leverage the opportunity for more significant
learning that face time with an instructor, and other students, can provide.
Class time that consists of lectures, and a reliance on Powerpoint,
is often boring. Having said this, a concern I have about downloading content
onto students for review preclass is that it may exponentially increase the
amount of work they will be doing in each course, which may in turn cause them
to rebel. Sitting in a lecture hall and
listening to an instructor deliver content may not be exciting, but it is
certainly less work. And if instructors
are not lecturing, some students may feel that they have been short-changed.
As an instructor, I recall that the best teaching
experiences involved lively interactions with students. One can get a hint of interactions of that
type in lectures, when a student will ask a question, but it seems to me that
is merely the tip of the iceberg. In
order for students to be truly invested in the material, a departure from
lectures is absolutely necessary.
The courses I teach involve a lot of content. Some of these courses require that the
stipulated content be delivered in order for my institution to receive
accreditation. I have not employed
technology to any significant degree in order to supplement what I say in
class, and so it is content that absorbs much of class time at my
disposal. Several of my students have
indicated that I am a good lecturer. I
feel good about that, but I am left feeling that the experience could be
better.
Bowen's suggestion that the content be jettisoned from class
time is worth pursuing because it offers up an opportunity for the students to
go to the next level in class. I suspect
that many students will not be happy about this, because it will require them
to spend more time prepping, and it will force them to be active participants
when we get together in class. It will
also require me to focus my class time on developing ways for my students to
work with the material, and to allow them to acquire a deeper appreciation of
the nuances that lurk within it.
The re-orientation that teaching naked offers will be a
challenge for all, at least initially.
However, the content will still be delivered, and the opportunity to make
a more profound investment in thinking about it that the time freed up in class
will offer should pay major dividends.
