The Importance of Digital Sharing

Today’s system of education is still structured in the ways John Dewey warned could lead to a totalitarian regime in the United States. Chairs in a room, arranged in rows and columns so all the students face the front of the class room. At the front stands the teacher. This teachers holds the power to spoon feed the students any information the teacher deems important. All the student need to do is memorize and then, on test day, regurgitate the facts on paper. Is this learning or a memory game? John Dewey envisioned open class rooms that taught children based on interests of the individual, not the institution. This system is put into actual teaching methods across the country but tends to end at the university level. Many classes, if not most, at the undergraduate level are taught in the rigid rows and columns fashion. The professor drones on for 50 to 115 minutes while students avoid repeated cramps in their hands as they attempt to take notes at a pace resembling a starship traveling at warp speed. Other students attempt some form of telepathic learning that is accomplished through a sleeping state while in the class room. Either way, what the heck makes us endure that form of mental anguish to earn or ‘get’ a grade? Well there are options out there. The readings by Gardner Campbell, Doug Belshaw, and Tim Hitchcock enlighten the educators as to possibilities of new forms of not just teaching but the sharing of information with students, peers, and the general public. The use of digital platforms such as blogs, twitter, vlogs, and the like allow for information to be shared at an instant. Immediate feedback allows for ideas to be planted, nurtured, pruned, and then cultivated as strongly rooted concepts for all to enjoy. Why do academic institutions not encourage these options? Why is it restricted to a class called contemporary pedagogy? Why not call it “alternative pedagogical practices for those not tenured and wanting to actually educate rather than just teach”? (I mean no offense to tenured professors, many I have found to be wonderful educators) The use of digital platforms does not remove the people engaged in the online discussion but rather can draw them together. This is the message of this first week of reading and it is a message that should be shared broadly and very often to remind all that teaching is not a job to be endured between academic publications by an exciting way to impact the future through those sitting in your class room.