Reflections on Teaching: Facebook Groups/Blog Posts

06. June 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Teaching · Tags: , ,

This is the third post in a continuing series of my reflections on teaching this past semester, Spring 2011.

One of the biggest surprises of the semester for me was that Facebook could serve a constructive purpose in teaching.

Each semester I try to leave one component of the final grade up to the students to determine how that component will be fulfilled, and I give them one rule: I must be able to responsibly defend whatever is decided to an academic colleague.  This semester, I let the students decide the part of their final grade that would measure their reading comprehension.  After short discussions in groups, the students presented their ideas and then voted on an idea, and whatever idea got a majority would win.  This semester, one class voted to do a Facebook group and the other voted to do blogs. (The class had requested that the Facebook group be made private, so posting the link would not help you.)

I had never used blogs or Facebook in class, and as Baylor has a policy that discourages instructors from being Facebook friends with students, I was initially unsure how Facebook would work in class.  However, I found that Facebook groups were easy to set up and did not require that the members of the group be friends with each other.  I set up a Facebook group and the class members joined the group, with the agreement that they had to do an average of one post on a reading before we discussed it in class each week along with one comment (something with some substance beyond “I really liked what you said.”) each week on another student’s post.  Each post was to give a brief summary of the reading or focus in on one particular argument in the reading.  Then the students were to give reflection or criticism on something in their summary.

I was honestly surprised at how well this worked.  When the students would comment on each other’s posts, the conversation about the material would start before class on the Facebook group or blog.  I would then pick up the conversation in class, clarifying misconceptions and answering questions raised, and try to leave some questions, which would sometimes be picked back up by the students in the comments.  I don’t think they realized it, but I was extending class beyond that 50 minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, allowing for us to take time for things like the Friday Fun Fact in class, which created more familiarity with one another.  This familiarity encouraged students to interact with one another more genuinely through the comments.  While some professors might consider the Friday Fun Fact to be a waste of time, I found that it enhanced the discussions we had during class and in the blogs and Facebook group.

As far as grading was concerned, I ended up giving them full credit for completion.  On the whole, the quality of the posts were not influenced by this, although with some students, the quality of posts diminished throughout the semester.  I don’t think that grading each post would have allowed for the discussion that grading on completion allowed.  Students were more willing to ask questions as opposed to trying to act like they knew more than they did, which promoted better posts and better discussions.

The points were set up that you didn’t have to fulfill the one post and one comment each week.  However, you received fewer points for your additional posts and comments each week, encouraging them to do their work each week, as I didn’t want them not to comment on an entire reading.  Some students were diligent on posting each week, even getting ahead.  Others tried to put it off as long as they could, and found that they couldn’t make up the points.

On the whole, I received very positive feedback on this part of the class.  The class was torn on the use of Facebook, as on one hand, they could check on the class in the midst of their fun on Facebook, but they also could hop on to do a post and end up spending an hour on Facebook that they had not intended.  (This latter circumstance may or may not have been experienced by the professor.)  I found I actually really liked the Facebook interface for this assignment, but given my reluctant enjoyment of Facebook, I’m wondering if there’s a better way to do it.  The students that did the blogs had a more difficult time tracking comments as there were fewer students, but the discussions were not clearly connected to each other as each student had his/her own blog.

I would do this assignment again in a heartbeat.  I think there are positives and negatives of using Facebook or blogs, and until I find something that has the strengths of both with fewer negativevs, I’ll probably give both as an option for future students when determining this portion of their grade.

If you’ve never done a Facebook group or a blog, it is much easier than I thought it’d be.  I did a post on setting up the blog page for one of the classes if you’re interested in more information.

Setting up the courseblogs…

02. February 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Teaching, Technology · Tags: ,

Allow me a moment of brief self-promotion.  Today I set up something interesting on my webpage.  I set up a subdomain.

It may not sound like much, but I was excited as it came together.  The purpose of the subdomain is to host “motherblogs” for my students’ blogs.  A “motherblog” is a syndication that pulls in all of the applicable posts related to the course that the students are writing on their own blogs into a single blog.  This motherblog allows the students to have one place where they see everyone else’s posts, while giving them the links necessary to leave comments on the original blog.  Additionally, professors can post class-related links and other information in that one place to which everyone has access.

When I met with Gardner Campbell this morning to discuss how to set up a motherblog, we had the discussion about where I would want to host this motherblog.  The place where most Baylor-run motherblogs are presently located may not continue after Gardner leaves this semester.  While this would not prove problematic for this semester (as the site will remain till June), once that site is lost, so will the record of the class’ work in one place.  Given my frustrations with Blackboard for similar reasons (and the lack of accessibility to those outside the class to see what the class is doing and participate along with the class), I wanted to shy away from going that route that lacked the guarantee.

We then discussed the possibility of hosting this motherblog on my own website, but I didn’t want my homepage to be taken over by my students’ posts.  (I’m not saying their posts are bad.  In fact, some of them are far more worthwhile than mine.  It just seemed odd to have them be the main stuff on joelaschwartz.net.)  Gardner suggested using a subdomain for the motherblog.  However, instead of simply installing another install of WordPress on the subdomain, Gardner suggested installing WordPress multi-site on the subdomain.  By installing multi-site, I now have the ability to create motherblogs for all the classes I teach under a single subdomain.  While I hope to be a part of a learning institution that values something like a motherblog enough to provide the space on their own servers, if not, I can still have my students’ participation conglomerated into a single place for them to access and continue discussions outside the classroom.  It sounds more complicated than it really is, but I was excited when it finally worked out.

With that being said, let me present my subdomain and my first motherblog.

You can now go to http://courseblogs.joelaschwartz.net/ and see the main page for my courseblogs.  Right now, there’s only one motherblog, but I hope there will be more in the future.  Once you are on that site (or if you want to skip clicking there), you can get to the motherblog of my Introductory Topics in Philosophy class called, “Faith, Truth, and Philosophy: Questions for Inquiring Minds”.  One of the sections is doing this project as a Facebook group, but in the honors section, each student is doing a blog, and you can read their posts here.  Feel free to join the discussions and leave comments on their posts.  It will give you a glimpse of what’s going on in my students’ minds and a rough idea of what the class is stimulating them to think about.

If you ever want to get to the sites without finding this post, you can just click on the “Links” tab above and it will take you to those sites.

We now return you to your regular programming.

Here Comes Everybody Fridays – Faster and Faster

07. January 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Philosophy, Teaching, Technology · Tags: , , ,

Shirky talks about the role the social media plays in our ability to organize and act faster than previously as well as the ability for the movements to bring about change quicker due to this higher level of organization.

A fun example of these events are flash mobs.  These groups are often organized quickly and because of social media, these groups can transmit details to one another in real time for any adjustments that are needed.

He gives examples of organized protests in Leipzig, East Germany in 1989, the Belarus elections of March 2006, and against the airline companies in late 2006/early 2007 after they left people waiting on the tarmac for hours on end.  In each situation, people were able to communicate in a way that allowed the groups to have more force than they would have otherwise, for the typical ways that these groups would have been thwarted in the past are not the typical means of communication.

I think about the use of this availability in the classroom.  Shirky mentions that the need to make concrete plans is reduced because we can simply say “Call me when you get out of work” and make plans at that time.  On one hand, I think that these technologies have a good and appropriate use in the classroom.  For instance, if I am sick or have an emergency that will keep me from making it to class that day, I can simply send an e-mail to my class, letting them know class is canceled, saving them the time of walking to the room.  Additionally, if students need to communicate with the entire class asking for some information or other need, an e-mail (or even a tweet provided the class uses Twitter) can save the student multiple phone calls and time.

However, my concern is that I have seen some professors use the ease and quickness of organization that technology promises for incorrect purposes.  Some professors will procrastinate on writing out guidelines for projects, or even assignments for class, knowing that if they are not ready by class time to distribute to students, that students can get the information through e-mail or other means after class, and then place the burden on the students to scramble to organize themselves whether with each other on group projects or on their own assignments with the time remaining.

I’m not saying that all professors do this, or even a large number do.  However, the fact that some professors abuse the fact that technology can get information out quicker and allow students to organize quicker should at least give us pause before universally embracing the idea that faster is better when it comes to technology and the classroom.

Has technology made students more efficient?

29. July 2010 · 5 comments · Categories: Life, Teaching · Tags: , ,

I really enjoyed the Freakonomics books by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt.  I received the first one (Freakonomics) for Christmas from my wife and bought the sequel, SuperFreakonomics, soon afterwards.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they keep a blog on the New York Times website, and I began following it in the midst of reading the two books.  (The hyperlinks are to reviews I wrote of the two books after reading them.)

A couple months ago the Freakonomics blog linked to an interesting study on the amount of time college students spend in class and studying.  This study showed that the amount of time full-time students spend in class or studying has decreased from about 40 hours a week in 1961 to about 27 hours a week in 2003.  They found that this decrease was consistent across all factors from employment, to major, to race, to gender, and so on.  Also, this decrease happened with a level of consistency, with slightly more of the difference happening in the first half than the second half.

(On a side note, I would be especially interested to see if the numbers have changed at all since 2003, given the expansion of distractions that have emerged since then, including, but not limited to Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter.)

One possible explanation for this decrease in time spent studying is the efficiency of technology.  I’ve heard stories from family members about writing papers on typewriters in the 1970s.  They would first handwrite the paper and polish it as a handwritten version until it was in a final draft.  Then they would type it.  Any mistakes made would take a lot of time to correct.  I can imagine that this would increase the amount of time spent working on homework outside of class.

Another way technology has helped increase efficiency is the electronic replacing of physical card catalogues and having databases from which one can search for relevant articles.  I personally remember using the card catalogue in middle school, but by entering junior high, computers had begun to replace card catalogues, and card catalogues quickly became a thing of the past.  While the amount of time searching for research has decreased, it is not clear that this change would create a decrease in overall time, as the additional resources available to students would theoretically increase the amount of resources used for work.

It seems that there must be other factors going on that have led to the decrease of time spent in class and on homework in the last 40 years.  I don’t know what those factors are, and anything I mention would be pure speculation.  Given the wide range of possibilities, it would be presumptuous for me to do more than speculate.  However, I will still speculate a bit.

I don’t think that the problem can be isolated to any single group or problem.  In fact, I would guess that you can trace some of the problems to each party involved.  I will speak particularly about the ways both students and professors may be responsible, as I have some experience in both roles.

For students, college is about a lot more than the time spent in the classroom.  In fact, my youth pastor (who is also my uncle) often said “Don’t let your classes get in the way of your college education.”  I think there is some wisdom in this statement, as I learned many things outside of the classroom in college from getting my first life experience.  There is a danger though if that mentality becomes pervasive among students.  While I spent lots of time studying in college, I also made a point to attend basketball games, play frisbee golf on campus, and get the daily dose of Mario Kart 64 with the roommates, among other social outings.  In college, you become responsible for your time management, likely for the first time.  Also, college likely offers a whole new set of social activities, and those activities always seem to be expanding yearly.  It may be a matter of priorities, where the homework and studying does not have the priority that other events do.  However, I don’t think it is necessarily fair to place all of the blame on the students.

Having taught many classes at different points in my graduate education has shown me how responsible the professor can be for the work the students put in.  Speaking from my own experiences, I know there have been times, especially earlier in my teaching, when a busy or stressful week for me and my work would mean an easy week for my students.

Given my limited experiences at a limited number of different institutions, I’ve noticed that professors at schools with high publication expectations are more likely to let their teaching go than at institutions with lower publication expectations, even if the former institution allows for less classes taught.  I can’t say I blame the professors.  The quarter I finished writing and defended my master’s thesis at Ohio University was not one of my better teaching quarters.  I had lower expectations for the students because my priorities were elsewhere.  I can’t help but wonder if the gained expectations (and opportunities) for publishing have played some role in this downward shift in time spent studying by students as well.

I also wonder if the expectations that accompany a college education have decreased over the last 40 years, leading to a decrease in the amount of time spent studying.  At that time, a college education was not required for many jobs and many people did not go to college.  However, today most everyone is expected to go to college.  Now the case could be made that the job expectations and requirements have increased, and that may be the case, but the truth probably includes both an increase on the employment end and a decrease on the education end to some degree.

Like I said earlier, the reasons are wide spread, and all I am giving is some speculation on the issue.  However, a bigger question that needs to be considered is if this decline is actually a bad thing?  Should we expect students to spend more time studying than they do?

I think the answer to the question depends on the reasons why there has been the decline in time spent.  If we can explain the decline in terms of increased efficiency, then I think it is far less troubling than if there are other reasons that explain the decline.  The question at that point would be if the expectations for students should increase to utilize that extra time and give them even more of an education.

If the decline in time spent is best explained through other factors such as decreased expectations of the students’ work or increased distractions from the classroom for students and/or professors, this decline seems like it should cause concern for us.

Figuring out what exactly is causing the decline would be incredibly difficult if it is even possible.  We should not expect to be able to conclusively explain what is going on.  However, this fact should not prevent us from speculating.  Instead, we should take the most plausible explanations among our speculations and check them out.  If these speculations concern increased efficiency through technology or some other positive means, then we should applaud these advances and only wonder if we should raise the expectations.  But if these plausible explanations point toward a lowering of the quality of work done in college, then at the very least, we should explore these theories to see if they are a significant contributor and if shown to be, we should address them.  Again, it all comes back to the question of why there has been the decrease in hours spent studying.

What theories do you think are most plausible to explain this decline?  If it is increased efficiency, do you think colleges should raise their expectations?  If it is other reasons that have lowered the quality of education, what steps should be taken to address these?

(Disclaimer: I’m not looking for nice answers that are not rooted in reality.  For instance, I know that colleges need to retain students and professors while raising their appeal and often their prestige to remain competitive in today’s marketplace.  This fact makes things far more complex, but I don’t want to shy away from the complexities here to come up with a solution that would never work in today’s colleges and universities.)

Am I already undermining my project?

09. July 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Life, Philosophy, Teaching · Tags: , ,

I have a list of articles that have spurred some thinking about the use of technology that I’m processing, particularly with regard to teaching, but also with regard to life.  The first of these articles on which I will comment is “Kierkegaard’s ‘Mystery of Unrighteousness’ in the Information Age” by Brian T. Prosser and Andrew Ward.

I’ve spent many hours studying Kierkegaard’s work over the past 5 years between my master’s thesis and classes here at Baylor.  Kierkegaard was a very complex individual on many levels.  However, a recurring theme in his work was to encourage individuals to embrace what it means for each individual to be an I, a subject who embraces his/her own individuality.  I cannot be another person, nor can I be reduced to a member of a group and be defined by that group.  Instead, I am a unique individual and I must not try to eliminate that which makes me that individual, although that work is hard to do.  Kierkegaard believes that face-to-face interactions are the best way to communicate with other individuals in a way that the respective individualities are preserved and enhanced.  Even when Kierkegaard wrote, more than 150 years ago, he had great reservations about technology and the way that it can negatively influence both our self-perception and our perception of others, largely due to the inability to provide a necessary context for an actual relationship to occur.

While the entire article is worth reading, it can be summed up in this quote:

The analysis we offer here does not intend to suggest that we should always expect face-to-face interaction to disappoint the efforts of online social practice. What it does intend is to emphasise is the importance of face-to-face encounter for determining the validity of the online interaction. This makes the Kierkegaardian challenge to our technological motives striking. Kierkegaard insists on an essential caveat to society’s often unbridled enthusiasm for transferring traditional social contexts into a technologically mediated state. This transference often occurs not as preparation for eventual face-to-face interaction, but rather as a surrogate for it.

In today’s world, we are often quick to embrace technology.  In the last month, hundreds, if not thousands, of people waited hours in line, some overnight, for the new iPhone.  When something happens in life, many immediately think, “This will make a great Facebook status” or “How can I tweet this in 140 characters or less?”  There are many other examples of ways that we have embraced technology across our lives.

However, if Kierkegaard is right concerning the necessity of face-to-face communication in order to fully communicate and develop genuine relationships with one another, how do these technologies do that?  Do technologies serve as a supplement to our face-to-face interactions, tiding us over between those interactions, or have they replaced those interactions for the most part?

It is not uncommon for me to send an e-mail or text message to my wife at some point throughout the day to discuss plans or express some sappiness towards her.  However, we have a context created by our daily lives together that is supplemented by these communications.  My family lives over a thousand miles away right now and we’ll see each other two or three times a year.  However, we have phone conversations on a regular basis, not to replace those times when we see each other, but to supplement those times.  Kierkegaard (and Prosser and Ward) would not take issue with these uses of technology, and would probably say that these are the proper uses of technology.

However, the article written by Prosser and Ward was written before the age of Facebook and Twitter.  These two additions to the discussion have changed the way many of us view technology.  I find myself at fault in my use of both technologies.  I have interacted face-to-face with nearly everyone that I am Facebook friends.  However, I have had conversations with people who agree that Facebook has essentially replaced the need for class reunions.  I already keep in closer touch with those I’m close to, and I’m Facebook friends with those that I’m not, so I know what is going on in their lives.  In this case, I have allowed Facebook to provide the false appearance of a relationship with these individuals, some whom I have not had any interaction in over ten years, apart from accepting a friend request on Facebook.

Twitter presents a different technological “abuse” by me, in that I still haven’t gotten the hang of “tweeting,” but I follow many different people, most of whom I have never even met.  I don’t respond to tweets, but sometimes I feel like I know the people tweeting, even though all I know of them is their on-line presence, which is necessarily a limited view of who they are.  Both technologies can be used as a supplement to the genuine interactions, but are often used to supplant those interactions.

In the classroom, technology can serve as a supplement to the classroom interactions or it can serve as a replacement of those interactions for students.  I’m sure that there are students who have insightful things to say in class, but are afraid to speak up in class, but would be willing to post those thoughts on-line.  Hopefully this interaction can serve as a starting point to build upon for that student to where he/she can start to feel a sense of security and speak up in class and create those face-to-face interactions.  In the same way, if the discussion only happens on-line and never in the classroom, I think we have to wonder if the value of the individual students and the value of learning in community are being lost in the classroom.  While more can be said along these lines, I have future posts in mind that will address these thoughts more thoroughly.

All of this discussion leads me to the title of this post.  I am blogging my thoughts about things.  It is possible that many of the people who read this post have never met me, nor will they ever meet me in a face-to-face setting.  You only know about me what I have chosen to make known to you.  Even if you friend me on Facebook, that too is a mediated interaction.  When I’m on-line, you only know about me what I choose to let you know.  You will inevitably see parts of me, but it is unlikely that you will construct those parts as I actually am.  Yet, I want there to be value in this medium of communication.  I don’t want this blog to be a means of communication that can be divorced from who I am as a communicator.

With that being said, I hope you get to know me in this blog on some level, but I must admit that I have a sense of guardedness in my on-line interactions.  However, I hope that discussions that start here can carry over into face-to-face interactions between you and me.  Whether those happen on campus at Baylor, at conferences, or other random places, I hope to be able to meet many who read this blog.  Even more than for myself, I hope this blog can start discussions that do not remain on-line but carry over into our individual lives, spurring face-to-face interactions with those whom we live and engage in community together.  If my blog gets you talking more with those you work, teach, and/or learn, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something worthwhile.