No, it's not a nightmare where you wake up and realize that you've shown up to class with no clothes on. Dean Jose Bowen of Southern Methodist University believes that teachers can more effectively engage their students if they stop using digital presentation tools such as powerpoint. So he has begun to remove computers from lecture halls.
Here is Dean Bowen's own words (published on Chronicle.com)
You can find Jeffrey Young's article on Dean Bowen's project
here.
->Many thanks to Holly Clark for pointing this article out to me.<-
My thoughts after the jump.
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I think that Dean Bowen has the right idea but I don't think that this is the right approach. After he's removed all of the computers what is gained? Have the learning environments changed? The article notes that he has removed the computers from lecture halls, and yet the lecture halls remain.
It may be difficult but the only way to get faculty to come out from behind their presentations we need to change the technology, not remove it. Bowen makes a good point when he points out that podcasts are great opportunities for additional examples to be introduced to students and that removing a computer from a classroom can actually encourage students to bring their own but the problem of the classroom still remains - we need to rethink that environment so that it can support many computers and the only way to accomplish this is to put the computer in the classroom and make it USEFUL again.
Its a bold step so kudos to Dean Bowen for taking the computers out. But I am waiting to see what he decides to put back in and how his colleagues respond to their new found freedom from the bonds of 'powerpoint'.
I wonder if he dislikes keynote too?
A
workshop held in February, 2005 discussed the implications of neuroscience for the design of K-6 classroom architecture (Kindergarten - 6th grade, that is). The workshop seemed to be an interesting foray into interdisciplinary practices... but the term "
neuroscience" as it seems to be used here kills me! The article describing the workshop's results does seem to engage issues of social, developmental, and organizational psychology, and certainly pedagogy. But neuroscience? I am not so sure...
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"Childrenís Brains Are the Key to Well-Designed Classrooms" says the article written by John P. Eberhard. I do agree that architects should pay more attention to the MINDS of children when designing classrooms for them (and their teachers)... but I wonder if neuroscience is the actual key. The physical activities of the brain are not necessarily what make the mind work after all. I cite John Bruer's
rather convincing argument that neuroscience might not have any direct impact on education. Therefore, need architects really look to it to define the physical environment for education? Should we pay more attention to pedagogical models and teacher feedback and leave the brains to the people who study it?
Mind you all, that I applaud the efforts and the ideals of the group! In fact the article cites many interesting hypotheses and makes an interesting case I just think that using the term "
neuroscience" might be a bit too off-topic to have a direct impact on architecture. I think that the academiy's name may misrepresent their intentions
The group's website, which Eberhard is the founding President of, can be found
here.
Thoughts?
