On a whim, I gave my Argument and Debate students a snippet of the piece we read from Rosen's book Rewired ("Why Teens and Tweens Hate School.") I knew it would be a little over their heads, but it happens that most of them are gifted (scheduling gifted classes gets tricky..they end up traveling together a lot) so I thought I'd give it a shot.
I had a sub for a training session (for learning how to conduct an online class, can you imagine?! haha) so I had given them a table to chart their findings as they read. They had to put information on both sides of the spectrum and formulate an opinion after finishing the table; after that, they had a short reflection where they explained their choices.
The result? Awesomeness.
We spent most of the next class period "divided" (sitting on opposite sides of the room facing each other) and debating (practicing our learned debate skills, of course) the positives/negatives of Rosen's theories in the article. About 2/3 of the class chose that technology advancements were good; that they themselves were bored in class and needed to be educated using the newest and latest media. The other third (and I'm surprised there were that many!) disagreed and said that boring was ok for learning and gave some very insightful support for the theory that we shouldn't just cater to the ever-changing technological advancements.
I attached a picture of the notes below...some of the phrases are cryptic, but I think you can get the main idea.
Regardless that I tend to agree more with the "Affirmative" side, I thoroughly appreciate the "Negative" aspects as well. One of my favorites (that went on for awhile in discussion) is the fourth line down: "Traditional= organic learning." Students were emphatic that the older "book" style of learning forced students to learn on their own and formulate their own findings, whereas just going to technology for answers and resources was too easy. One student truly impressed me by saying that hard work is okay and actually very effective in order to be successful. He argued that students are becoming too reliant on instantaneous information and that we (teachers) need to remember that ideas come from somewhere (that's where the 'organic' comes into play) and how would technology and the cool new stuff even exist without an idea coming from someone's brain?
Another interesting "negative" was that it was still boring, but just on a screen. Now, that is frightening! How do we avoid this? I think first and foremost we need to remind ourselves that just because we plugged our computers in and showed a video, that does not make for authentic multimodal learning. And clearly, as this picture shows, kids are picking up on these failed attempts.
So interesting that 9th graders had these wonderful insights. I was impressed and intrigued!
Which will hold true until they choose the topic for their next debate, which could range from "Is Batman better than Superman?" to"Sporks should be served in all restaurants."
Ah, freshmen :)
Excellent idea to use this reading as a point of debate for your class! It sounds like they came up with some excellent points about both sides of this issue-- like you, I'm surprised you had so many taking the "negative" stance! Taking a reading about educational theory and using it to talk to students about modern education probably validates your students and makes them feel a greater ownership over their role in the greater system. I'm sure they all felt very proud to be able to tackle something like this!
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