Why Removing Technology from your Classroom Will Improve Student Learning (Extended article)
Jos� Antonio Bowen, Southern Methodist University
Flashy powerpoints with video and synchronous e-conferences are impressive, but the best reason to adopt technology in your courses is to increase and improve your naked, untechnological face-to-face interaction with students. Technology is often accused of pushing people further apart (the interaction is really with a computer screen and not another human being, they say) but a few minutes of questions at the end of an hour covering material from behind a podium is hardly an interactive experience either. However, simple, new technologies can greatly increase your students' engagement outside of the classroom and thus prepare them for real discussions (even in the very largest classes) by providing content and assessment before class time. The goal, in other words, is to use technology to free yourself from the need to "cover" the content in the classroom, and instead use class time to demonstrate the continued value of direct student to faculty interaction and discussion.
Most of the ideas listed here are aimed at medium or large courses (20 students and above) where lecturing remains the easy choice and powerpoint has become the most abused new technology. If we believe that the value of a residential college experience consists largely of the human interaction between professors and students, then we should maximize that experience. Better online courses are coming and consumers and legislators will continue to put money where the best learning is. Residential colleges will always be more expensive, so there should also be a
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124 days ago