July 8, 2014 - 11:14
Unfortunately, I couldn't be present for the conference, but having done a notable amount of research on the topic to assist in grant proposals/EduTech Guide Pages, I've developed some ideas about this topic.
The other day, in my research, I watched a video of a very enthusiastic man who was set on ridding the classroom of projectors and all technology. He argued for instruction through podcasts of lectures, theoretically saving class time for discussion rather than lecturing. This way, students could access these lectures at any time, synthesize them in their own way, and come to class prepared to ask questions, right? In theory.
He also argued that the only people complaining about this process so far were the students who conceived of college as a nice funnel into both ears, and consumption that can be done slumped in a seat. He said these students didn't want to "work" this much to discuss in class rather than just ingesting. This fear of discussion in the classroom is obviously not true of Bryn Mawr students.
I took this topic to my friend on the drive home from work after digesting this man's worldview, hoping that a discussion with her could help me come to terms with how I felt about this argument. My friend reasoned that students need time in the classroom for explanation BEYOND lectures, and that her experience at Bryn Mawr has mainly been that there is sometimes too MUCH discussion and students often wish the professor would "take control," moderate unnecessary comments, and guide discussion more intentionally. This man’s model, she implied, didn't leave room for that, and I remarked that it's important it is to consider these factors.
In my experience at Bryn Mawr, I've had limited exposure to Blended Learning. In Calculus I, we used Mathematica, which seemed entirely irrelevant to the class material. For my into to economics class, I read the textbook online and was given three tries to complete problem sets, which gave me a fair amount of anxiety and didn't truly explain when I made an error, only providing a limited explanation, the answer, and no real human feedback. Furthermore, it became obvious very quickly that the professor hadn’t read the online textbook, and lectured independently of it, unable to answer questions about the material we were studying outside of class. In French, my workbook was online, and I enjoyed recording my speaking, but didn't feel like those exercises were superior to the learning experience I had in the classroom. In my statistics class for sociology, I learned SPSS, especially how much of a useful tool it is when you’ve received direct assistance from the professor (our professor taught us in the classroom and then we would do problem sets on our own).
The only specifically blended learning technique I can think of was through a recent class I took in the Economics department. The professor, in addition to readings and problem sets, assigned additional 1-1.5 hour podcasts to listen to once every week. I believe the intent was to expose us to current news in the field as well of the opinions of other economists, but when the professor prompted the class to reflect upon and answer questions about these clips in class, everyone had little to say. To many, it seemed that this "extra" assignment on top of homework for that class and others was simply too overwhelming.
This class experience, for me, demonstrates a need for striking a balance in incorporating blended learning, as Anne commented on in this post. Students, especially at Bryn Mawr, do not need MORE work, particularly homework, but could benefit from a restructuring of learning formats. It doesn’t seem effective to replace reading with watching lectures, especially because there is already discussion in the classroom. I really love the idea of incorporating discussion outside of the classroom, through media like Serendip. Beyond this, I don’t think we need too much of a change in how classroom time is used, because I don’t think the majority of Bryn Mawr classrooms have too much lecture and too little participation.