Fear the Fear

“Our greatest fear, in bringing computers into the classroom, is that we teachers and instructors and lecturers will lose control of the classroom, lose touch with the students, lose the ability to make a difference. The computer is ultimately disruptive.” Mark Pesce “Fluid Learning”

When I first read this about a week ago, I thought that Mark did a nice job representing the rest of the world, but it no way spoke for my school who was just finishing our first semester of 1:1. We were cruising our way into exams and everyone was feeling fine and then, disaster struck. On our first exam on the computer we had chaos with the exam login, monitoring software and, to hear some tell the tale, keys just started flying off of computers. Tablets were abandoned and we reverted to paper. Despite this return to an old stand bye, chaos continued. Scantrons were handed out; scantrons were aborted; questions were clarified; clarifications were altered. Things never really settled down for this doomed exam and our first semester of smooth sailing crumbled into distant memory. And then it was time to ask if we were willing to do it all again in just 48 hours on the next exam scheduled on tablets. The debate raged and fear took strong hold. Since our students test in their advisories, there were 28 rooms which could not simply be controlled without sending out an e-mail entitled “URGENT” and there was no question that we would be out of touch with our own students. But all of this forced us to look at a few things, primarily, if we walk the walk on exams. We state that our best classes in English are the ones dedicated to exam preparation when we pull everything together and watch the synapses fire in heads we long thought were lost to our passion.

Which brings me to my primary purpose in this post, what really is our roll if we give control and knowledge over to the computer? My answer: feedback. It is clear from Mark Pesce’s piece that education is changing and he makes a good argument for whether or not students should just outsource their collegiate education, picking and choosing the best opportunities and creating their own unique experience. Outside of the joys of dorm life (and dorm food) and the vast array of trouble one can get into on a college campus, I don’t know that you would miss anything going about it this way and you may end up with a superior education. But on the high school level, this answer is easy enough, feedback.

Malcom Gladwell’s article in a recent New Yorker entitled, “Most Likely to Succeed” discusses strategies for identifying individuals who will become exceptional teachers. He explains the amount of material that can be covered by a poor teacher compared to a strong teacher and suggests that students can lose almost one year of learning under the tutelage of a sub-par educator. Identifying, along with our President-elect, that our future in this world economically, geo-politically and environmentally, is directly linked to the improvement of our nation’s education system, Gladwell points out the vital nature of this search for strong teachers.

Discussing an educational talent scouting session, Gladwell examines the commentary by the dean of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, Bob Pianta who points out the positive attributes of successful teachers. According to Gladwell, “Of all the teacher elements analyzed by the Virgina group, feedback—a direct, personal response by a teacher to a specific statement by a student—seems to be most closely linked to academic success.” So no matter the new information that students are able to collect at lightning speed, they still need us to offer them the feedback and direction: To help them know they are going in the right direction, to redirect them when necessary and to simply provide them with the universal human need of acknowledgment. Despite the number of messages in their inboxes or comments on their Facebook walls, nothing replaces another human being affirming their value each day.

So maybe the first exam was a disaster, but our best work was achieved in the days that led up to that exam where we looked at each student and affirmed the connections and insights he came to over the past 14 weeks. And I am grateful that our school decided to try again. As I mentioned to one colleague, if people didn’t try a second time after crashing the first, we would never have the pleasure of airplane food. So far, so good on this exam, by the way. My friends are happily typing away dreaming of two weeks of video games and instant messaging and Facebook and soon as they turn in this last exam.