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| Photo: Cathy N. Davidson |
Cathy writes, "It's meant as a challenge, not a prescription: "If We (Profs) Can Be Replaced by a Computer Screen, We Should Be!" I am amazed at how often my pronouncement, made most recently at the Harvard Innovations in Learning and Teaching (HILT) Symposium, is interpreted to mean: "All profs should be replaced by computer screens." Not at all."
What I mean is that given how sophisticated online technologies are becoming, given how many people around the world are clamoring for quality and low-cost education, given how seriously people in the online educational business (like Kahn Academy) are studying how people learn and what kind of help and interaction they need to learn, given all that, then, if we profs are adding no other value to our teaching but that which could be replicated online, then, well, turn on the computers and get the over-priced profs out of the classrooms now
What is the case for face-to-face teaching? First, it is precisely the condition of being face to face. Great teachers know how to take the temperature in the room, and see how to take the experience of a diverse group of students learning together and transform it into something magical (at its best) and irreproducible mechanically. There is a quality of the human and aspirational and inspirational that defines teaching and that is something that happens when I am in the same room with you. Great teachers understand how precious face-to-face communication is and find ways to make the most of our very special time together. Great teachers understand the intimacy and responsibility of great learning, of how charged and fraught and precious the role model and mentor are. They treat that human relationship with the utmost respect and care.
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What is the case for face-to-face teaching? First, it is precisely the condition of being face to face. Great teachers know how to take the temperature in the room, and see how to take the experience of a diverse group of students learning together and transform it into something magical (at its best) and irreproducible mechanically. There is a quality of the human and aspirational and inspirational that defines teaching and that is something that happens when I am in the same room with you. Great teachers understand how precious face-to-face communication is and find ways to make the most of our very special time together. Great teachers understand the intimacy and responsibility of great learning, of how charged and fraught and precious the role model and mentor are. They treat that human relationship with the utmost respect and care.
Read more...
Related links
Cathy Davidson (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
HASTAC stands for Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory
Source: Durham Herald Sun (blog)
