When I consider how online tutorials impact student learning, I can come up with a number of benefits. The student is in control of the pace of the tutorial. He/she can rewind the tutorial if they miss an important point or if they want to review important information they can listen to the tutorial all over again. The tutorial can also be more personal, because the student can engage with the video when he/she feels comfortable and is ready to receive the information rather than being forced to listen to a lecture at a designated time, when the student may be groggy or ill prepared to pay attention. Why these may be viewed as benefits, I also wonder if educators may be crippling the students in the process by conditioning them to rely on technology which caters to their every need. Does this prepare the students for the real world? The future may hold something quite different for these students, but what about the present?
I went to TEDed and watched the "Mining Literature for
Deeper Meanings" video. Here it is:
The video
is meant for students to view so that they may have a better understanding of
how to read a text in order to come to a deeper meaning. I think it would be a useful aid for high school
students to view before reading a major literary work in class, but the video
and the graphics are a bit dry and while the video is a mere five minutes long,
the students may lose interest. I
enjoyed how the narrator opens with an essential question : "How do we
reach those ideas that turn into great essays?" She stresses the importance of
"practicing insight" which I find compelling. The idea that reading with insight is a skill
to practice. The narrator definitely
keeps the student in mind and defines the term "insight" for the
student as "the ability to arrive at an intuitive understanding of a big
idea using small clues to get there."
As one can see she may be losing some of the students with this
language. This is where Salman Khan's
idea to flip the classroom and leave the lectures for home viewing is
flawed. Some students may still not have
a good understanding or an interest in developing an understanding of the term
"insight". After the narrator
provides the definition she provides a good example of reading with insight
using Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice. What is effective about the
video is that she shows a poor or basic understanding as an example which lacks
much depth or insight, and contrasts this view with a much more developed
understanding of the complex relationship between the two major
characters. The slow and steady delivery
paired with graphics help to further the students' understanding. This provides a good segue from the
narrator's first point about "insight" to the second concept
"identifying complexity" in a literary work The narrator shows how to use small clues to
get to more abstract ideas and deeper meaning and she makes it look easy. Some students may be intimidated by her
tone. Since she sounds like an adult or
a teacher, I think some students watching this video may feel left behind in
the wake of the narrator's brilliance. As
she begins to discuss the idea of identifying complexity, she warns the
students to avoid broad generalizations and focus on various ways to view
characters, actions, and plot developments.
These are mantras for any secondary English professional so I appreciate
the support. I think the narrator does
an exceptional job of showing examples of this using Beloved by
Toni Morrison. At first I thought the
selections were risky, but she does a good job of analyzing each example and
the selections are rare enough to not be found in most high school curriculums. I would use this video at the beginning of
the year and maybe make reference to it with each new reading selection from
the curriculum.
