Kyra Gaunt and her Anthro 1001 class created a video that reminded me why I love our students (even when they don’t remember the difference between a change agent and an opinion leader on an exam)…

The subject of the soon-to-be-viral video is “What can $199US buy?” The goal is to get other faculty and students on-board to raise money for children who need it. The 4-minute video is beautifully assembled and features a typical class of Baruch students – hailing from Cote d’Ivoire to the Philippines.

You’ll learn where $199 can buy building materials for four houses (hint: it’s not Florida, though I hear you can buy four houses…) and what you and your students can do to experience the “priceless” joy of “giving a child access to the world.”

Once you’ve watched the video, you can…

1. Engage this semester’s students in the project – send the video link around as you distribute grades (OK – maybe only with the good grades), forward it to your favorite student club leaders, etc.

2. Get involved as an individual – donate yourself, forward the video to colleagues, give to your favorite charity to celebrate whatever holiday you celebrate (or to celebrate not having to celebrate holidays at all!)

3. Plan for next semester – Kyra and her students want the spirit of giving continue. What better way to get our students thinking about the value of their own educations than to encourage them to “give back” to less privileged individuals!

4. Talk to your colleagues – Many of us have favorite educational charities (not surprisingly, mine are in Rwanda!). Follow Kyra’s lead and engage your colleagues in the same sorts of discussions about what $199 buys… What a great way to start the New Year!

Christoforatou and Freedman have achieved an inter-disciplinary collaboration that eludes most of us – even those of us charged to collaborate by the mission of the Learning Communities program. Most of us try, but cross-disciplinary course coordination is tough. It’s difficult to pick up a new discipline over the summer. But Christoforatou and Freedman have discovered another way to coordinate their courses, and neither had to train in the other’s specialty. In fact, their approach embraced the differences among their disciplines even as it reinforced particular ways of thinking and doing. So, how did they do it?

Rather than searching for terminological, conceptual, or other content overlaps between Art 1000 and English 2100 (good luck finding them!), the innovative instructors decided to weld their courses at an epistemological point. When they realized during their first meeting that they both embraced the concept of knowing the world via abstraction (abstract art, abstract linguistic concepts), they ran with the idea. Since then, they have crafted a cross-disciplinary collaboration complete with field trips and complementary assignments. Christoforatou has embarked on a quest to learn about abstract, modern art (alongside her students), while Freedman (and the rest of the LC) has been introduced to creative approaches to the text employed by Medievalists (hint: they are often surprising, ironic, and highly abstract). Rather than trying to incorporate graphic design into English 2100 or composition assignments into Art 1000, the two have achieved crossover in a more meaningful way. They teach to their strengths while reinforcing each other’s attempts to inculcate habits of critical thinking in their first-year students. The result? A partnership that has proved professionally fulfilling… and never-ending lines of students outside their offices.

VIRAL VIDEOS ARE A NEW FORM OF FALLOUT

Though colleges have had to manage external criticism in the past, the viral video phenomenon is a different beast. Consider the issues our campus faced a couple of years ago with the fresh(wo)man text War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning…(New York Sun article: “Baruch Requires Students Read Book Some Are Labeling Anti-Semitic“).

Though the issue received prominent attention in the print press, the back-and-forth was short-lived, the college had time to craft a response (i.e., freedom of speech), and the exchange was largely print-based. The story reached thousands – not millions. The story lacked compelling oral and visual content (e.g., yelling, crying – mooning). It paled in comparison to the storm surrounding the viral debate video (e.g., print and television stories, a rumored Chronicle investigation, a 100% funding cut for one program and potentially related cuts at other colleges). Comparatively, the War controversy was tame. Importantly, it did not result in financial fallout…

OUTSIDER OPINION AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINE (AND POOR STUDENTS)

College costs are rising, tax levy and financial aid moneys are in flux, and increasingly we need donor/investor money to bridge the gaps. Their money enables poor, working, and middle class students to enjoy the privilege of post-secondary education (aside: thank you for subsidizing my B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. Ohio/national taxpayers!) If they respond to controversy by curtailing their support, students can be deprived of programs, perspectives, professors… To the extent that most students cannot afford the “true” costs of their schooling (i.e., a 100% tuition-funded institution…), we have to consider/manage how their underwriters perceive our campus. Viral video makes us more vulnerable… financially and intellectually…

VIRAL VIDEO DESTROYS/ENHANCES FREEDOM OF SPEECH

The viral video phenomenon presents unique freedom of speech/academic integrity issues. In the debate coach case, viral video was used to normalize and silence. The video’s post-er provided no description of background/context (e.g., these coaches haven’t slept in days, community norms do not prohibit obscenities) and encouraged viewers to censure participants (e.g., contact the coaches’ department chairs – related videos contained names and addresses!) The message was clear: “monitor yourself more vigilantly, take few risks, you are being watched.” The video complemented a growing disciplinary regime that rewards professors for conforming to ever-stricter prescriptions (e.g., professors at a number of institutions have been told: “you will teach X, you will seek Y outcomes, your Z must not offend donors…”). To me, these prescriptions are often anti-intellectual (e.g., they over-emphasize civility, stifle dissent, give outsiders veto power over academic content…). Yet, viral videos also seem incredibly empowering (I’m a post-modernist – multi-facets are my thing)…

Students can now reveal what goes on behind classroom doors. To the extent that teachers create undemocratic environments and stifle students’ growth, they can be “outed” to the outside world. Students are no longer the captives of their professors! This is exciting! And dangerous! And it deserves our attention…

So… please contribute your thoughts on this issue… both here and beyond the confines of cyberspace…

I’m no luddite, really. I willingly volunteered to blog about teaching. I check my e-mail frequently. I occasionally carry the cell phone my friends bought me… and as a rhetorician, I appreciate the deliciously rich communicative context of this and other e-exchanges. But there is something curiously wonderful about pretending that a tiny piece of molded plastic is “grass” or “brick” or learning where the thread goes to make a needle sew (i.e., the first question I get every time my PUB 1250 students make sock puppets for our productions of the Allegory of the Cave).

As we embark on this exchange about teaching, my inner-laggard could not resist the opportunity to invite ironic participants to engage in a discussion of low or no-tech teaching methods under the “Using Technology” heading. So, fellow “dancing animals” (a shout-out to Vonnegut), what sorts of low technology thrills you and engages your students? And if you expertly code-switch between the worlds of wired and unplugged, how do you decide when to engage electricity and when not to flip the switch?

For how and why I incorporate low-tech teaching into my courses, read more…

Nearly three years ago, I attended my first Teaching Professor conference and was wowed by an hour-long presentation on using low-tech activities in the college classroom. The presenters made their case brilliantly – they gave us lego to play with. Listening to fellow Ph.D.s laugh out loud as they constructed brilliant, surprising, physical answers to problems and tasks, I realized that my courses could benefit from highly-tactile, low-technology activities.

BREAKING DOWN BOUNDARIES AMONG GRADUATE STUDENTS

I use lego as an ice breaker with public affairs graduate students enrolled in my “Communication in Public Settings” class. I assemble them in teams and ask them to make ideal governments or nonprofits or inventions, depending upon the focus of that semester’s class. For example, if I’m teaching Ev Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovations” and the semester focuses on communicating social change, I’ll have my students invent things that would positively improve the lives of some group of constituents and then talk about how they’d get people to start using their inventions. The students build impressive – possibly patentable – things out of lego. More importantly, they talk to each other as they’re creating. They “get out of their heads” for a minute and succumb to whimsy or frustration (e.g., why don’t they make more round lego?!) or both and let down their guard with their teammates. They laugh, they roll their eyes, they do all the things I need for them to do if they’re going to be comfortable taking risks with each other later in the semester.

FLIPPING THE SCRIPT ON UNDERGRADS

With my Learning Communities students, I interject old-fashioned needle-and-thread sewing a month into their first semester at Baruch College. By that time, we’ve plowed through nearly 200 pages of The Republic. No student likes The Republic – ever. A particular idea might be interesting, and – because they engage in a month-long role-playing game set in 403 B.C. Athens – potentially useful in the course, but The Republic is not fun. The students who excel in the discussions and quizzes related to The Republic are those that have mastered the art of traditional Western-style academic reading and regurgitation. However, they are frequently terrible seamstresses, as we all discover during puppet-making day.

I devote an entire class to making puppets for several reasons. First, by that point in the semester, my students are really burnt out – by The Republic and the hundreds of pages they’ve ingested in other classes. The puppet-making day is a surprising break that reinvigorates most of them. Second, by that point in the semester, the struggling students are beginning to lose faith in themselves. A month in to their college careers, they self-diagnose as “too stupid” to continue. Watching their fellow classmates struggle reminds them that we all face challenges and have the potential to persevere. It might sound silly, but puppet-making day is a great equalizer and some of the students really need that. Third, I figure everyone should know how to thread a needle and pull off a simple stitch. It’s a basic life skill and I’m willing to devote an hour to seeing that my students don’t leave Baruch without it. (OK. Finally, I really enjoy puppet shows).

In both my graduate and undergraduate courses, I use technology a great deal – from Blackboard to PowerPoint to assignments that require blogging. I thrill at the visuals I can harness to bolster my claims via the Internet. I am grateful that I can transport my students to other places and times via DVDs. I wouldn’t trade technology-centered pedagogy for a mountain of lego… But I have seen low-technology activities break down barriers and build up confidence in profound ways. For that reason, I will continue to cart tubs of lego, pipe cleaners, embroidery floss, and more, through the halls of Baruch College.

Some days, we just need to dance in the sunlight.