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by Hoffmannnn
4285 days ago
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It really is an interesting question, and made me think over the implications: On one hand, I exchanged $X,000 for the knowledge I would potentially gain from the class. It seems like I'm within my rights to intentionally NOT learn, and thus waste my money. On the other hand, other people also paid $X,000, possibly with the expectation that they would get engaging discussions with the whole class, rather than just the professor. So which is it? When you pay good money for a class, do you expect, in return, that the whole class participates? It seems like everyone would get better results that way, but then again, the whole class isn't getting compensated by you, so why should you expect anything from then in return?
It is indeed a tragedy of the commons. |
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Here's an informal article: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/lectures-dont-wor...
And formal research: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic38998.files/Bligh...
I'd guess Shirky's classes are more about promoting debate and asking questions than plain 'learn this' science/math/engineering lectures. So the lecture format - even with discussion - probably isn't very efficient for teaching anyway.
Whether people are distracted by devices seems secondary.
Perhaps it would be more useful to students to (say) work out a way to dramatise the effects of device addiction or some other Internet experience, so they can discover it for themselves and make their own decisions about distractions and cognitive loading.
Banning devices might have some of that effect by accident. But I'd guess teaching a class on internet sociology while taking notes on paper is going to be kind of weird.
(Full disclosure: I always used to hate writing paper notes. It's not unusual to lag behind the content, and it certainly never helped me understand what I was supposed to be learning.)