Will the Web dismember universities?

An article caught my eye the other day which claimed that, "The Web will dismember universities, just like newspapers." When I tweeted the article, I got several replies, most suggesting that would be the case, with some suggesting the sooner the better. A few suggested that they hoped that it didn't happen too soon, because they were employed at universities.

My prediction is that it will not be an either/or solution. The web will dismember the features least suitable to a modern world, namely the cattle-call lecture. My Chemistry lecture at university deserved to be dismembered. A doddering research scientist with no concern at all for the 200 or so people gathered in front of him droned on about this and that, and the work of organizing laboratory classes and exams was left to his grad student slaves. As interesting and important as chemistry probably is, this should have been a rewarding experience. Instead it was torture four days a week.

At the end of the semester I went to the administration with my opinions since those were the days before course evaluations. The prof had no business in front of a class, and he was an embarrassment to the university. They agreed, and said they knew he was a terrible teacher, but he was a brilliant researcher, so they were going to keep him on staff, and the rules said that faculty members had to teach this class periodically. There it was. The students at that university were periodically robbed, and as years went on protests about this professor increased in volume.

Best case scenario, these kinds of lectures will be offered on line, with lab classes offered at various times and days during the week at the university. This gives the university the opportunity to present stimulating experiences that benefit everyone.

As I consider my own field, language education, the Internet will have a similar effect; it will replace mundane lecture style teaching, and offer a variety of options to suit the needs of more learners, but it will not entirely replace face-to-face college learning entirely for the following reasons.

1. Students don't attend classes because they want to learn.

Learning, a language for example, may be one of learners' motivations for attending a class, online or not, but it certainly isn't the only one. Learner motivations are complex and very difficult to qualify or quantify. Students have shown repeatedly that, though they may want to learn language, they want to do it in a setting that allows them to gather with other people and enjoy the social aspects of language learning.

Sorry, but the middle-aged male prof was not the object of my 19-year-old attention as we were learning Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric." My attention was devoted to the woman in front of me and practicing, "The love of the Body of man or woman balks account." A monitor doesn't do that justice.

2.  The Internet cannot support the level of trust required in relationships that can be made at traditional universities.

Universities are an important part of building relationships of trust, and unfortuntely the Internet, though it allows people to form relationships, does not afford the same level of trust. Student/student, student/faculty relationships that will lead directly or indirectly to employment opportunities for students would be very difficult to cultivate online. These very personal relationships are especially important in the Japanese setting, and to a lesser degree in the US setting.

Relationships on a more collegial level also develop over time between faculty and students. That would be very difficult with the part-time, virtual professors. That is evident now with part time teachers at universities. They are paid to be in class, not to grade exams, not to be available to students outside of class, and certainly not for lengthy talks about their disciplines.

3. Going off to college affords young people with opportunities and an excuse to go away from their families, friends, and surroundings. Their migration also helps parents move their young adult children out of the home.

In some cases that means that people go to another country to study, an opportunity that would be very difficult without being a student. In Japan and the US at least, a visa for a long-term stay is difficult to obtain without a reason. While working on a student visa in the US is not legal, it is in Japan, which gives international students the opportunity to study and work in the country at the same time.

Some kinds of arrangements could be made and the world could change in ways that would remedy these situations, but for the near future, universities have roles to play. Higher education must evolve to better meet the needs of learners. I refer specifically to the mammoth lecture paradigm which best serves the bean counters' needs.

Remote Lectures and classes are a profitable reality in Japanese cram schools, where charismatic teachers train students to succeed in entrance exams. College should be more than that, and online learning has significant limitations which universities better learn to capitalize on.

On President Obama's Speech on Education

I support Pres. Obama and the contents of his speech, but I would prefer that he had not sought to have it broadcast at schools. My reasoning is as follows.

1. He is setting a precedent for other politicos to beam messages at our kids. Senators, governors, sheriffs, and city council members will now think they have the right.

2. This time I agree with the message and showed my kids the speech afterward, but what if it were W drumming up support for his war on terror/drugs/illegal immigrants/freedom of thought or whatever? He was president, too.

3. School is a place to teach kids what they can't get other places. Teach them what they need to be taught and let them go. I reserve the right to educate my children what doesn't need to be taught at school. More time in school doesn't mean better learning. Of OECD nations, American children spend the most number of hours in school, and look at the results.

Twitter Follow Fridays: A blog version

This is @yokkaichi1, and at this posting I have 723 tweets on Twitter. At first it was hard to warm up to, probably because I wasn't interacting with people. Now that I am interacting, and have found people who post ideas that resonate, I find it an indispensable part of my professional life.

Follow Fridays have always been something of a chore, and after reading Did @PhilBaumann Just Save Follow Friday?, I have decided to put my Follow Friday recommendations here.

@FarmerPhil, @Kalinagoenglish, @gilesmitchell, @parkhills, @barbsaka, @SugarJo, @cecilanobre, @claytoniantomb, @palmerve, @TheEngTeacher, @englishraven, @CotterHUE


I read so many more, but if you are looking to get started, here is a list of a few of the tweeters I couldn't do without. 

Getting ready for writing class: considerations

In the second semester every year I have a ESL writing class, and traditionally around ten students sign up for it. There is also traditionally a 20% drop rate. In trying to make the class as rewarding for the students these are my considerations and how I intend to meet them this year.

Writing for fluency
Writing for accuracy
Writing for organization
Writing for real purposes
General English general language development

Writing for fluency is a skill most of the students who enroll know very little about. Schools stress accuracy, with volume as an after thought. Neither of these is fluency. Writing fluency is writing with an high interest in communication and a low focus on accuracy. Most writing in schools is on the word level, writing words in spaces in test mode. Students may write on the sentence level, but rarely longer in any language. If there is any focus at all on longer pieces, the one who writes the most words with the fewest "errors" is the winner. At the beginning of class no one knows how to start just writing their ideas without paying attention to, for example, spelling. Here are two activities that I use for fluency.
1. Oneword (as in oneword.com)oneword.com
The students get a word and the write about or with the word for one minute. I use three different words and use this activity as a warm-up.
2. Blacken the page
The students get a lined half sheet of B5 paper, and they fill it up with their writing based on a topic that I give them or on any topic that I give them.

With both of these activities I have problems at the beginning with students who have "nothing to write about." By the end of the semester they have plenty to write about.

Writing for accuracy is something the students are used to, and is the consideration that I spend the least time on. At the beginning of the course they are much more aware of this than anything they want to actually communicate, and their fear of error blocks most anything interesting they have inside them. In the world of word processors, most of what they have to worry about is remedied by the software, spelling, and strange grammar. I focus the entire course on two points, punctuation and capitalization. Since the learners have almost no experience writing beyond the sentence level, they often don't know how to punctuate. They are also confused as to the rules of capitalization, and their first works come out looking like German, with all the nouns in caps. They rarely use grammar that is complex enough to need attention, but when they ask me directly for how to write something in English I help them with acquiring that pattern.

Writing for organization is an interesting cultural awareness issue connected with writing. Students' awareness of organization comes almost entirely from the reading they have done in their L1, and their understanding of it is passive. When you point out to them how a written passage of Japanese is organized, they have their first "Aha moment." Their second comes when we compare that with a passage written in English. The same message is repeated three times, an idea that learners think has to be wrong. When you point out that messages are repeated three times in Japan, like on NHK news and on announcements on the train, then they have something to latch onto and use.

Writing for real purposes is something the learners are very self-conscious about in the beginning. They are not used to seeing their own words in print, and they have a very hard time commenting on other's work. Writing for real purposes also included writing in a real setting, which includes collaboration. Scholars work with other scholars on drafts of their work. Written reports in companies are reviewed and commented on for rewriting by coworkers. However most school students' work is done by the learners alone, for the teachers, and maybe others will see it during open houses at school or when they take their work home at the end of term. Recently students have been using Japanese writing more since email and texting have become so popular with the advent of the cell phone, but English writing is almost entirely done in testing circumstances, and almost never read or commented on by anyone other than the teacher. In my class students are party to any writing, formal and informal, that is done in class. Informal writing assignments include their English Log 2.0, and fluency exercises. Formal writing assignments include a self introductory piece, an introduction to their home town, their favorite recipe, and a piece on one of their special interests. These are all written and rewritten cooperatively, and finally published with a copy for everyone.

General English language ability improvement is another goal of the writing class. Since all of the communication in class should be done in English, this makes the writing class truly a four-skills class. They will be reading passages similar to the ones they will write. They will read their work and the work of other learners. They will talk about their writing and about other's, and listen to classmates talk about themselves and their writing.

Course Evaluations: Reasons, Methods, Meanings

Course evaluations have been an important part of my professional growth for around fourteen years. The reason that I started using them had less to do with growth than with self preservation, but over the years the process has become an integral part of development as a teacher. I use them for nearly all of my classes, and while they are only one part of my own development scheme, they provide a wealth of information.

About fourteen years ago I was employed by Prefectural University of Kumamoto as an English teacher, and my relationship with the school had become confrontational. They were discriminating against their non-Japanese teachers, and some of us had started the process of seeking redress. One of my students told me one day that an administrator from the school had stopped him one day and asked him about how I use English in my classroom, and whether I use Japanese. Their crooked thinking was obvious, they were going to use that information grounds to criticize my ability to teach. They could use that in several ways. They could say that using Japanese, which I use in class now as I did then, was inappropriate for an English class. They could say that not using Japanese in class was inappropriate. They could criticize my language ability. The only way for me to be sure that I was doing the right thing was to make sure that my practices had a grounding in teaching theory, and ask my students about it, so at the end of that semester I started using course evaluations. I have each and every one that I have asked my students to write since then, which is a considerable stack by now. They are a valuable reference on my teaching, and a shield against unfounded criticisms.

I have found that there are some valuable methods for setting up an evaluation in order to get the best information. I use statements with which students agree, disagree, or choose a response in between.

• Use a 4-point scale if you are asking for a scaled response. (Odd numbered scales allow students to choose the easy neutral answer. With an even number of options, they must make a choice. )
• Use the target language as much as possible. This is a learning experience, too. 
• Include reverse statements for particularly important items. (For example: "The teacher was on time for class," and later, "The teacher was late for class." This has two advantages. First it lets you know if the student understood the statements. Second it lets you know if students are really reading the statements or just answering at random.)
• Keep the number of questions to a bare minimum.
• Make a space at the bottom, not on the back, for comments. Students rarely write comments if they have to turn the paper over.
  

In administering the questionnaire, I have found that these points are useful in getting the best results.

• Explain carefully how the results will be used.
• Anonymity for the students is essential. No names.
  
• Explain how the questionnaire works. 
• Ask a student to hand out the papers and collect them for you.
• Leave the room while they are writing. 
• Ask someone to hold the results for you until after the grades are in, and tell the students that is what will happen.

Once the term is finished, give the questionnaires a look. Here are some points that I use when evaluating the evaluations.

• Throw out questionnaires that have only one number on the scale selected, for example all 3's. Odds are that the student didn't read the statements, especially if you include conflicting items as suggested above.
• Look for trends, for example general satisfaction with your use of the first language.
• Collect commonly occurring comments. For example on my most recent evaluation, some students pointed out that I didn't follow the syllabus. (They are right, and I'll have to do something about that next time.)
• Ignore comments that ask for specific activities unless the requests interest you or form a common trend in student opinion. (For example, with courses for the community college, learners often request a unit on a specific grammar point or the use of certain materials. In my most recent evaluations, one student asked for vocabulary quizzes. I include these ideas if they are of interest to me, but otherwise do not consider these isolated responses.)

 Questionnaire style course evaluations are only one part of a comprehensive teacher development scheme, but they have served me well. When the university did challenge my teaching ability on the grounds that they had hired a "native speaker" to use English in class, I confidently countered with a request for research that showed that their all English classes would be more effective, and data from course evaluations that showed overwhelming student satisfaction with my use of Japanese in class. They have been an integral part of the evolution of my teaching practices over the years.