Clio Wired (History 696)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the effect of digital media on the classroom as we know it. After our class discussion, I posed the ideas we bantered about with friends of mine that are presently college and high school teachers. The jury is still out, I think, because it poses a shift in their paradigm that they have to think about for a good while. In high school, accessibility to computing at home can be an issue, but I think it’s a reluctance to change themselves. I’ve been going to High School Open Houses meeting my sons’ teachers for six years now. Gradually over time, I noticed that even the most reluctant, technically challenged teacher has email, posted their syllabus and the student’s grades, and more and more utilize the Blackboard system. It is difficult for the working teacher, secondary or college level, to embrace new technologies. Their lives are busy enough staying current with lesson plans and grading. Having said all of that, I think the emergence of new media in the classroom is inevitable. The wide use of the Internet combined with the digital savvy young generation is something that teachers and administrators cannot ignore. Teachers who find it difficult to change their paradigm will be left behind by their students. I think back to the Takeshita article and my response is “the internet is here to stay, so why don’t we teach our students to use it intelligently instead of ignoring it.” This is pretty heady stuff from someone of my limited abilities. I speak for myself when I say I think I’ve learned more from Clio Wired than my technically savvy classmates. I still can’t DO the stuff you all can do, but my web worldview has been greatly expanded. I learned early on that teaching is my passion (whether I get paid to do it or not), and I funnel all this information into ways to become a better teacher.

Our discussion centered more on the scholarship aspect of teaching and learning, and, at this point in the profession of teaching history, I understand the importance of this concentration. College professors have not been traditionally trained in teaching methods the same way a secondary teacher is required to be. Effective teaching cannot be analyzed or measured without the reciprocal look as effective learning. Mills’ quest to determine the effectiveness of using digital media to teach and learn will go a long way (hopefully) to move the scholarship of teaching with new media along its inevitable path. The student’s are using the internet, and they are not going to change. I agree with David Pace’s article that the type of thinking we historians and teachers are requiring of student’s is not natural or easy for them. It is as important to understand how student’s learn as it is to understand how to teach them to think at higher, more analytical levels. The expanse of the internet will need to shape that teaching process as the articles pointed out how student’s will form their own meta-narrative because they are not being led by the nose along a path to discovery. The challenge to teachers is how to keep them inside the ballpark of the intended assignment as they wander off the path to self-discovery.

The discussion about the art of teaching and learning is ongoing, and the introduction of new media can only expand it. One other aspect I want to mention in this blog, because it has me thinking differently, is the point that the teaching of history should reflect the thinking processes of the professional historian. Chemistry courses make you do the experiment and write up labs similar to a working chemist, and law students definitely imitate the work of a professional attorney. Why not teach introductory history students to analyze and think like the historian? I have personally only taught up through middle school, but I have helped my high school and college age children with their AP History courses. And I just started TAing for HIST 120 this semester. I am immersed in the grading of a college level survey course with 180 tests to grade three times this semester. My professor uses the lecture approach, but his lectures are thoughtful and provide the current thoughts on the history profession to these students. His essay questions are a series of questions designed to make the students thinks analytically about the information they have absorbed. As you would expect, the majority of essays are what Pace calls “lists, series of lists, and causal lists,” but periodically, a refreshingly well written essay passes me by. They are learning, and are some able to articulate what they are learning at that higher level of thinking teachers long to see.

My understanding of the use of new media in the classroom has certainly changed, and I consider this a challenge to learn how to use and incorporate new media in any future teaching I do. I would have agreed with Takeshita a couple years ago, but my experiences with my children coupled with my own experiences at Mason lead me to believe that the digital age is here to stay. I’ve got to get on the bandwagon or be left behind. I look forward to pondering this further with my friends and teaching colleagues.