Blog Post #10

An Open Letter to the Educators

Have you ever wondered if the classes you take in college are a relevant teaching style in the 21st century? Morgan Bayda is a Canadian education student who completed her teaching degree in Spring 2010. She has an interesting blog post that explores this very idea. Not only does she give her own opinions, but she also expands them with a video in her post authored by Dan Brown.

Bayda states she can barely stay awake in her courses because her professors encourage no questions or interaction in the classroom. She knows it would also be unthinkable to try to discuss the information with her classmates. I get an instant, crystal clear picture of the classroom she is describing. It sounds a lot like my own, a college lecture.

I once watched a movie that depicted a university lecture, set in England, in an era when women still wore petticoats and men wore wigs. The puzzling thing about the lecture hall and style was that it looked as if the professor was standing at the bottom of the middle of a small square. The four-sided, mini stadium was stacked up around the professor. The setting looked very intimate, the professor was speaking and the standing students were eager to exchange ideas with him and each other. The scene was loud and excitable. This is nothing like the college lectures I identify with, the same ones that Bayda described.

So, what does this have to do with the 21st century? Well, it makes me wonder. Is the scene I just described a bit like what we are screaming for today;a college lecture that is inquisitive and collaborative? Are students today looking for valid reasons to go to class instead of taking an online course? If so, does this mean universities and their professors may need to raise the bar of the virtual classroom experience? We have all heard that history repeats itself, maybe this is the time we should be looking to the past for answers to the present.

Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home!

I am very impressed with John T Spencer's writing style. I am laughing and wincing all at the same time. I love it! Thank you, Dr. Strange, for asking us to subscribe to the feed. I think I would have missed a lot of his writing, if you had not. I really like the Google Reader as well.