To Canvas or Not To Canvas: A Rebellion Against Sameness (Part 3)

I have made a choice.  My choice has been (drum roll, please) not to use Canvas in my classes.

Before you start throwing rocks, or report me to the TELS Police, let me explain.

The Feared TELS Police!!!

I have nothing against Canvas.  It has a lot of nice features.  And some of my choice involved the difficult decision to forgo some of those features, like the Gradebook and the ability to automatically email my classes in one fell swoop of my finger.

I have nothing at all against those who choose to use Canvas.  Some of my best friends use Canvas! J  And some of them are some of the best professors I know.  So, no, I’m not out to get Canvas.  (I bet, after that last sentence, it is breathing a big sigh of relief!)

I’m not a Dinosaur.  I do know how to use Canvas.  I have used Canvas, for online, face-to-face and hybrid courses.  My decision was not arrived at out of technophobia or total incompetence.  (Although I do despise new versions of any computer program—Windows, Word, Canvas… I’m equal opportunity update hater!)

I made my decision based on a few (what I consider) important factors.

First, I listen to my students.  The complaint I hear the second most in regards to their academics is the cost of textbooks.  The major complaint I hear is about Canvas, and the time they spend trying to figure things out.  Trouble they’ve gotten into because they thought they submitted an assignment, but somehow it got “messed up” and they lost points (sometimes a lot of points).  How they struggle to navigate the different classes.  How they “hate” the technology.  (Again, it may not be the technology’s fault, but I still listen to my students.)  My perception is that,more often than not, the technology impedes or distracts many students—especially first generation or not-the-top-of-the-class students—from actually LEARNING the material.  To them, it is more about surviving the technological environment.  (Occasionally I get a student who mildly complains about me not using Canvas, usually at the beginning of the semester.  By the end, no one’s complaining.  And I get a lot of thank you’s.)

Secondly, I have seen the tech environment reduce professor/student interaction.  Instructors are not on campus as much.  Communication over email or other electronic forms lose much (some say up to 80%) of how we communicate in ways other than words—the human part of the interaction.  With our traditional students, reduced interaction limits the opportunity we have to help them mature and think critically.  With our non-traditional student, we miss chances to discuss life issues and support them as they reinvent themselves.  Much of what is learned—and taught—in college is outside our teaching disciplines.

Thirdly, I witness that technology is making some (many?) students “lazy.”  Technology is about “speed” and “efficiency.”  The “get it done, and get it done quickly” mentality pervades.  It may help our students learn if we can slow down the pace of learning a bit.  (I fully realize that this doesn’t translate into dollars for the institution, but may result in future dollars for students who learn better.)

So what have I chosen to do instead?  Stand by for the next blog…

To Canvas or Not to Canvas: A Rebellion Against Sameness (Part 2)

So, last week I tried to convince you that NOVELTY forms the basis of learning—if something is “new” we pay attention to it.  We can’t help it, that’s just the how the brain works!

But on the other hand routine, standardization, automation and sameness work well for us as teachers—it makes our professional lives a lot easier!  But it also may prove a disservice to our students.  It may metaphorically (or literally) put our students’ brains to sleep.

So what are we to do?  

Here’s the bottom line:  We choose.  As harsh as it may sound, we choose our own ease and comfort, or we choose to prioritize student learning.  Ouch.  But this is what excellent teaching is all about.  I can be a mediocre or even a good teacher, or I can choose to strive to be an excellent teacher.  And the result of that choice is the kind of learning experienced by my students.

A short aside:  I hear (and you do, too) people who are non-teachers complain about how “easy” teaching is (and how overpaid teachers are).  It angers me and drives me nuts (er, more nuts that I already am).  But sometimes I’m chagrined because if I choose, it can be fairly easy, especially with the “tools” that are available to me these days!  The difficult part of teaching is the creative aspect—keeping things novel and fresh and alive for students (and myself!)

So I make a choice.  I make a choice to attempt to have students experience something different and unexpected every class.  I try to make entering the classroom “novel” each period.  (The greatest compliment I get is when I overhear students say, “I never know what to expect when I come into this class!”  I am fairly confident that they are probably going to learn something that day.)  I consciously and conscientiously attempt to switch between the whiteboard, Powerpoint presentations, discussions, lectures, YouTube videos and movies.  I change up the seating arrangement, or have students move from “their own” seats to a different location in the classroom.

Students don’t always like this, at least initially.  They have been conditioned for more than a dozen years to sit in rows, stay quiet and let someone else do much of their thinking for them.  But over the course of the semester, I hope they begin to recover a genuine love of learning.  I’m convinced the only way to accomplish this is to “shake things up.”  It may be good pedagogy, but for sure it’s good neuroscience.

NOTE:  I don’t do this perfectly.  Or consistently.  Speaking candidly, I just get tired.  My brain doesn’t function and my “creativity” runs out.  But after I quit feeling sorry myself, and get revived, I strengthen my resolve to teach excellently.  It’s a process that’s been going on for over 30 years, and isn’t finished yet.

Next week I’ll share another way I have tried to introduce novelty in my courses—a rebel with a cause!

To Canvas or Not To Canvas: A Rebellion Against Sameness (Part 1)

Sameness is the enemy of learning.  In fact, “sameness,” in the neuropsychological sense of the word, is the exact opposite of learning!

Before you go postal, please read on and let me explain.  We know that the only time the brain 

registers anything is when there is change—change in movement, change in sound, change in lighting, change in odor, change in sensation, change in thought.  You get the idea.  The brain is the ultimate “change detection” machine.  Our perception is always the perception of something changing.

If that is true (and it is J), then it stands to reason that the more things are “familiar” and “ordinary,” the less we perceive things as “novel,” consequently less real or new learning will take place.  We know this from everyday experience:  We drive somewhere and don’t have any recollection of things we experienced along the way; we think we misplaced something, but find it where we would “expect” it—because of our repetition (what we’ve already learned), our habit.  This is not to say that these are bad things—they aren’t!  Our “prior learning” saves us all kinds of brain and physical energy.  But when it comes to learning something new however, NOVELTY works for us while SAMENESS works against us.

I sense students fall into a routine of “sameness” when all their courses “look alike,” when they know what to expect every class.  Maybe it’s:  “Come in.  Sit down.  Listen.  Take Notes.  Pack up.  Leave.”  Or, “Log on.  Watch Video.  Discussion Board.  Take Quiz.  Log out.”  Class after class after class.  The same goes for how the course actually “looks”—that is, how the presentation of our material “appears.”  For instance, if all our courses are on Canvas, and all our Canvas shells literally “look alike,” then that routine works against generating novelty and change, which is the basis for

perception and learning.  (I’m not speaking of things not unorganized, inaccessible and unclear to students, but a sense students may have of things being “cookie cutter” or “mechanical.”)

Here’s the rub:  “Sameness” works well for us teachers!  It reduces the amount of work we have to do.  Like assembly production.  Once we’ve got a system “down,” then we can go (more or less, and in online classes it’s often more) “automatic.”

The whole goal of education, I think, is not to make teaching “easier,” but to help students “learn better.”  Hence, we find ourselves in a conundrum—be less novel and more efficient (which results in less effective learning for students, but less stress and work for us), or be more novel and creative (which means we have to work harder so that students learn better). 

To be frank, over the last decade—with the exponential spread, adoption and reliance on electronic learning systems, I’ve witnessed a lot more of the former.  This correlates with multiple measures of decline in student learning, both at the secondary and college levels.  So what are we to do?  (Stand by for Part 2 next week!)