I am a vigorous opponent of "burp back" education. Yet it is endemic in our school systems, including our universities. Find some information that you think students should "know," force it down them through lectures, readings, or even videos, give them a a true/false or multiple choice quiz of these facts that they "should" know, and ignore the fact that we have excellent evidence that people forget information (and skills) they do not use in just about the same amount of time that it takes them to learn those facts or skills!
Today we have almost reached the place where we have "all information in all places at all times." (Gutenberg II, 1978). Our task as teachers, it seems to me , is not to teach and test for information but rather to teach students how to ask questions, describe things or events, compare and contrast, what they describe, and make arguments for and against a variety of propositions. In learning these intellectual skills they will, of course, have to use facts (which are easily accessible from a multitude of sources. Throw out the easily graded tests and quizzes, the regurgitation of facts and concentrate on projects and activties that teach students to THINK!
A bit about me ...
I am a Professor of Professional Studies at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. I am responsible for the design and development of the technology instruction taken by juniors and seniors in the College of Education. I have been teaching for over 40 years. In 1972 I became Dean of the College of Professional and Community Service at the University of Massachusetts/Boston and served in that capacity until 1979 when I was named Vice President of the Council for the Advancement of Experiential Learning. I came to "South" in 1988 to develop a program in multimedia.
This blog is an example for my students in EDM 310, the technology course all Education majors must take.
... and what this blog is about.
I have a class blog every semester. You can take a look at my Spring 2009 Class Blog if you wish. From there you can connect to the blog sites maintained by all my students and to previous EDM 310 blogs. In this exercise I am asking students to create another blog in which they discuss six or more "teaching tools" or teaching attitudes they intend to apply in their classrooms when they begin their professional career. I have done the same in this blog as an example for my students.
In this blog you will find a discussion, and sometimes examples or links to examples, of these Teaching Tools: Blogs, Google Presentations, Google Documents, Google Forms, Google Spreadsheets, Picasa, and Podcasts.
Links to these examples can be found to your left, immediately under my picture.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
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