Chuck The Geek.com

Thoughts on teaching…

September 6th, 2008 by Chuck Sharp

Well, I’ve finished my second week of instructing two local community college courses related to networking. I thought it would be interesting to try, and for a long, long time I’ve dreamed of being college faculty, so this adjunct (part-time) faculty thing is pretty cool. Amazingly, I really love it. For whatever reason, I’m having a great time. It’s been somewhat intimidating at times (all times, really), and I’m obviously not excellent at teaching yet. However, it’s been much more fun, energizing, and meaningful than I thought it would. I enjoy sharing the material. The students appear to be getting this stuff too, which is very intrinsically rewarding to both of us. So, this experience is making me think about classrooms in a different way than I have in the past.

Why do we still go to classes? Today we can read a good book instead. We can use virtual machines, special software, and interactive media to learn new things. I can find people interested in any special interest to discuss things online. If someone really wants a grade for a transcript, he or she can take online courses, which essentially do those things I just listed under the guidance of an instructor. So why go to class? I think there are still some good reasons.

First, personally, I respond really well, as a student, in an expert/mentor-to-wannabe/mentee situation, which ideally works face to face. Lecture is valuable to me as a way to capture insights directly from someone. In my case, as an instructor, I’m not an expert in the material by any means, but I do have some insight to share.

Second,  being in the same room as 10-30 other students who are studying the same material at the same time is more valuable than I ever realized. There is a sense of connection there, even if it’s overlooked. It is much much easier to look around and find four other people to study with and use for support in a live classroom. I don’t think this happens in any but the most impressive online classroom environments.

Third, the classroom allows for wider bandwidth. Email, chat, and webpages allow for only so much information to flow from person to person, compared with face-to-face interactions. I truly believe that difficult concepts are easier to learn when the instructor can get rich, immediate feedback, and the students can gain from other student questions and instructor side notes, whiteboard doodles, and analogies.

Fourth, the classroom allows for greater freedom in curriculum delivery. Basically, students can do group assignments, in-class exercises, and other communications-based things that really lets students synthesize material in different ways.

I still think there’s a place for classrooms. The bandwidth and interactive opportunities, along with student-to-student interactions, make the classroom important for many kinds of subjects and many student groups. Over time, the online programs will get better and gain a lot more “market share,” but the classroom is still king, I think.

Entry Filed under: Personal, Philosophy