You Never Know Who’s Looking Over Your Shoulder

Recently I attended a lecture where the audience included a significant number of high school students.  One of our most gifted teachers was lecturing and I was sitting in the audience directly behind a row of high school students, many of whom had brought their laptops to the lecture to take notes. I appreciated how conscientious they were.

Now, before I continue to talk about this experience, I want to go back to last week’s blog where I wrote about the advantages that classroom technology, including smart boards, can bring to the learning process.  I am clearly an advocate and as an educator and an economist, I understand what can now be easily done in the classroom that could not be done before.

At this lecture, the technology was not being used by the speaker though the teacher effectively introduced some drama into the presentation which did help highlight the points being made. Rather, at this lecture, the technology was being used by the students.  The student in front of me was especially facile with technology.  She was taking notes, responding to emails, using instant messaging and shopping on-line almost simultaneously.  At least two screens were always visible on her laptop and the shopping screen appeared on a frequent basis.  I am certain that there are some individuals who can undertake all four of these endeavors simultaneously and perform them flawlessly but I am also certain the number of such individuals is minuscule.  What is inevitably lost for almost anyone attempting this level of simultaneous multi-tasking is detail, context, and nuances.  In shopping and in doing emails, this may or may not be a problem.  But in the learning process, in listening to an important lecture, not paying attention results in sound bites rather than a fully textured educational experience.  Text messaging, social media and even, to an extent, email all promote sound bite questions and answers at the expense of completeness and perhaps to some extent accuracy.

Use of technology on the part of some students can also undermine academic integrity.  Cell phones, computers, the Internet have all made possible more sophisticated forms of cheating and all of us have to be more vigilant in making sure such cheating is prevented and, if it does take place, dealt with firmly (but within an educational as well as punitive context).  Technology also facilitates the invasion of privacy as the tragic death of Rutgers’ student Tyler Clementi makes clear to us.  Here too, we need to be more vigilant to make sure that technology is not used to undermine the respect, tolerance and civility we should have for each other.

We know that students benefit greatly from the use of technology.  Some of the benefits are more mundane, such as word processing; others, such as analytical tools and access to information, allow for vastly high quality student work.  But with the privileges that technology provides comes the responsibility to use the technology wisely and well.  All of us in higher education have a lot of work to do with our students to make that happen.

K-12 Education Leads the Technological Way

My kids are in 4th grade and in 7th grade.  Two week ago we had “meet the teacher night” for the 4th grader and last week we had “meet the teacher night” for the 7th grader.  For the 4th grader, her education is centered around one teacher.  For the 7th grader, the day has nine separate periods—one is for lunch; the remaining 8, for 7 subjects since English has a double period of time.  For my middle school daughter, I followed her exact schedule, except each of the classes was substantially abbreviated.  What all the classes had in common (except for physical education), both in elementary school and in middle school, was that the teachers made extensive use of the smartboards in their room.  And this use was not just made to impress the parents; I know from my kids that the smartboard is utilized throughout their time in school.

My kids are both good athletes.  But when they are not involved in sports and when they have discretionary time, they are very into TV, the computer, the IPOD, the Wii, the DS etc.  They are very stimulated by technology, much more so than I was when I was growing up.  Of course, when I was young there were only seven TV channels, and when additional channels and the VCR arrived, those were considered major technological breakthroughs.

The norm in a college or university is not to have a smartboard in every classroom.  They tend to be available in the larger classrooms and less so in the smaller classrooms.  Is this lack of universal availability a plus or is it a minus?  I would not advocate for a smartboard in seminar rooms.  The interaction you are looking for in a seminar could be undercut by a smartboard which might be a distraction in this setting.  But what about the many regular classes that have between 25 and 50 students?  The visual display, the access to information, the ability to make the class notes available electronically (so that a student could just listen and watch and not have to take notes at the same time) are all tremendously appealing.  I know that an economics course could come more alive via a smartboard and I believe the same is true for other disciplines.

I am not looking for students to be addicted to a smartboard because in many real world setting, the boards will not be there.  On the other hand, more and more students are used to learning this way and it may be a more effective way to transmit knowledge and stimulate thinking. We need to test this hypothesis.  In addition, and this is simply a perception that may not at all be grounded in reality:  given that most colleges and universities have less technology in typical classrooms, does it give a sense to students and their families that in some ways this is not “higher” education. Is there a technology gap between many goods K- 12 schools and many good colleges and universities?

I am not ready to advocate for smartboards in every classroom but just as higher education looked carefully at the issue of requiring students to buy laptops and bring them to class, we should just as carefully study the smartboard issue.  We clearly have smart faculty and smart students: would a smartboard requirement make the picture complete?

Headline News

The Sunday September 26, 2010 edition of Newsday had the following front page headline, “ L[ong] I[sland] Colleges Change Course - Major Push for Jobs - How Schools Have Reshaped their Mission.”  This headline which covered the entire first page also had a background of a graduation cap and tassel.  The focus of the article was how colleges “have been shaking up curricula, adding job-friendly courses and majors- all meant to ensure that graduates don’t end up jobless….”  The subtext of the article, summarized well in a quote from a local college administrator, was the determination “to provide a relevant education to all students,” which certainly suggests what has been happening up to now has not been relevant.

We all want our graduates to end up with the jobs of their choice but have we been the cause of joblessness among college graduates because of a lack of relevancy?  I don’t think so.  I spent most of the 1980’s serving as the Dean of Hofstra’s Business School and I also spent a year serving as Interim Dean of the Hofstra School of Education.  In business and in education, we had a whole array of programs that were relevant and designed to help students successfully prepare for careers ranging from accounting to marketing; from administration to teaching.  We have even more such programs today. In the arts and sciences, the majors were equally relevant then and today, including areas such as computer science, communication, engineering, math, music, and writing/English.  My major was economics which prepared you well not only for graduate school but also for careers in finance and business in general. We can certainly do more but is the relevance of our education the real issue?

Higher education is not and should not be focused only on a first job but on a lifetime. We strive to educate critical thinkers.  Remember, even those majors considered most “relevant” may not be the area where our graduates ultimately end up working.  Critical thinking, therefore, is key in adjusting  to changes, including a changing world. We also strive to educate an informed public.  We strive to continuously strengthen the foundations of our society.  We strive to promote understanding and respect.  Is that not relevant?

If you are constrained by an economy struggling to recover from a major recession and having trouble doing so, job opportunities will be a real issue.  As the economy recovers, and we know this won’t be immediate, job opportunities will increase accordingly. We all have a responsibility to continuously enhance the education we provide and we can certainly do much more.  But what is most relevant for our overall jobs picture is the economy and the need for further economic stimulation.  As we look to be relevant, we shouldn’t underestimate the relevance of our national leaders in resolving a difficult situation.

Civil Engineering Yes; Tea No

Though it is difficult to demonstrate, even in the era of outcomes assessment, we all strive to provide an education that enhances integrity, civility, and compassion.  For years, many of us have emphasized that increased education makes us better parents, citizens, and voters.  And yet, today’s environment in the United States seems to be moving us in the opposite direction.   We appear to be less enlightened and less civil.  A mosque and community center near ground zero is challenged because the sins of a few radicals have been used to try and tarnish an entire faith. Health care access and reform becomes a political football rather than a mandate. Support for the poor gets tied to preserving tax breaks for the wealthy.  Washington is awash in deficits while states and localities collapse under the weight of decades of bad judgment.  And overall, politicians all too often look to blame rather than reform, to criticize rather than to cure.   Where are these benefits of education when we need them most?

Our economy is not doing well. Though the decline seems to have halted, the recovery lacks the momentum necessary to ignite a robust recovery.  How can this be?  Why aren’t we moving rapidly toward full employment and prosperity?  We are so used to fast response times in everything we do.  Snail mail is becoming a reminder of a world that was, rather than a powerful tool for promoting commerce and communication.  In its place, we find email, text messaging, social media and tweeting.  Regardless of what we now utilize, we are looking for a fast turnaround time.  When I started teaching, faculty had office hours two or three days a week at set times.   If students missed the office hours on a certain day, they would come back a day or two later.  And sometimes, given the delay in meeting together, with some study time, questions found answers and there was no longer the need to utilize office hours.  But office hours are no longer the communications method of choice.  Instead email or some variation has taken its place together with an accompanying expectation of a fast response.

Accessing information often also took substantial time. As an economist, I would often visit the government documents room and access the data there and work on it subsequently at home or in my office.  Now though the government documents room is located in the same building and same floor as my office, I never utilize these paper resources.  Instead I access government documents on line.  Not only is the process easier and faster but there is more information readily available in more formats.  No more paper for me.  I welcome the instant access and use it often.

But instant communication and instant access to information should not be confused with problem solving.  Nor should the questions and problems we need to answer for an exam or a term project be confused with real world problem solving.  There is much that we can access and or resolve instantly, but solutions to complex problems don’t lend themselves to quick solutions.  Turning around a weakened economy takes time. Unfortunately, the prevailing response from our leaders and the public often seems to be an escalation of the rhetoric and a hardening of positions.  At my most optimistic, I believe the generation we are educating now or have recently educated, will not follow this pattern.  Instead I like to believe that this is a holdover from the education that previous generations received.  Time and outcomes assessment will certainly tell if our civil engineering works.   In the meantime, however, given the present political connotations no one should be surprised that tea is no longer my drink of choice.