John's Reading Notes #1

Lang in his discussion of teaching with technology expresses a certain level of doubt concerning the assertions made by Prensky, which basically claim that students attending college courses in the modern age are much more adept at multi-tasking and have a generally ability to work in the midst of a lot of distracters in their immediate environment (44). I think that Lang has a reason to be skeptical of these assertions. While students may still be able to write a paper in the midst of a lot of distraction, there is a strong possibility that the quality of the work is significantly impacted by the presence of distracters. Recently, I took the Attention and Thinking class offered by the Psychology department. In that class we heard recent research indicating that the quality of students’ work declines as the number of distracters increases. Furthermore, college students did significantly differ from middle aged adults.

I also liked Lang’s argument concerning the benefits of weblogs for helping students participate in class. He claims that online learning communities help include a wider array of students and they help students who might be reticent to speak in a face-to-face settings express their opinions to their classmates (52). This actually is the topic which is at the center of my own research. Budding research on computer-mediated communication shows that people often disclose more, feel as if they more accurately represent themselves, and are less anxious when communicating online than when communicating face-to-face (McKenna, & Bargh, 1999; McKenna, & Green, 2002; McKenna, Green, & Gleason, 2002). I think online communication utilities expand help include more students’ voices. I also think that they allow students to sit and reflect on what they want to say rather than feel the need to produce a hastily constructed response of lower quality.

On page 65 of the Lang book, he emphasizes the importance of varying one’s teaching style. He discusses how different individuals have different learning preferences and varying the manner in which material is presented will help the instructor to connect with more students. I do think that too much focus on varying one’s style can at times hurt one’s ability to present the information clearly. Just as students have preferred methods of learning, instructors have preferred methods of instructing. To a certain extent I think that instructors should play to their strengths. If a professor isn’t good at singing then they shouldn’t try to turn their lesson into a rap song. Furthermore, if a student learns best from group discussion and not as well from other types of instruction, the inclusion of too many other types of instruction would mean fewer opportunities for group discussions. I am not trying to advocate for instructors going with one style, but I think that trying to accommodate too many learning styles can dilute the general effectiveness of the instruction. I feel like instructors should use a few different methods that they feel comfortable with. Lang seems to warn against moving too far outside one’s comfort zone when discussing lecturing style, but I do think that varying activities too much can be counter productive. Additionally, I feel that some topics and contents lend themselves to a broader range of activities.

I think the topic Davis does the best job of emphasizing across the readings is the concept of monitoring. It is important to remember that incremental and informal feedback can really benefit how students learn across the semester (Davis, 166). There is a reason why students hate having one large assignment or exam at the end of a course as their only assessment. If students receive feedback at short regular intervals then they are better able to correct mistakes in their thinking prior to major evaluations.

In this same vein, I think it’s important that instructors seek out feedback from their students. I don’t think that they need to cater to every suggestion or whim, but they should give student input serious consideration. I think this helps the instructor both monitor their strengths and weaknesses and helps them to connect to the overall learning style of the class. Getting incremental feedback from students can help make sure that the course and its content is connecting with students. However if the instructor is going to ask for feedback I think it is important that they show that they are going to act on it. I recently was in a class where the instructor asked for feedback and read the feedback aloud in class then said he was not going to use the suggestion. This to me communicated that the students’ opinion was not valid or did not fit into the concept of the type of change the instructor was willing to make.