Students Speak Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media | Hacker News Reader

Students Speak Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media

nytimes.com

24 pointswallflower8 comments

This concerns me, but not for the reasons addressed in the article. I don't think distraction is the issue at all. I think the issue is whether this leads to students being more or less likely to speak up in, for lack of a better term, real life. I can see it going either way.

It seems the more reliant we become on screen-to-screen text rather than face-to-face conversation, the less proficient we will be at face-to-face conversation. But at the same time, this could be a way to bring people out in the open and encourage them to get involved in all kinds of discussion, whether screen-to-screen or face-to-face.

I would be inclined to measure the results. Use the technology in one class but not in another. On the last day of class, don't use it in either class, and see which class has more face-to-face participation, the one that had to do it from the beginning or the one that got eased into it.

It's much harder though to measure the long-term consequences. If technology like this continues to become more and more pervasive, there may be no "last day of class" in which people are forced to speak up. The analogy to physical exertion is well warranted. It is now possible, because of technology, to live your entire life without engaging in strenuous physical activity. This was simply not the case even 50 years ago. In another 50 years, will it be possible to live your entire life without engaging in face-to-face conversation? If so, do we want that?

IANAT (I am not a teacher): Hmm.. I certainly don't think classroom style would lead to people not engaging in face-to-face conversations - I think many/most people seek that out by themselves socially (and entertainment technology like say WoW has much more impact on that). I think it's a really odd context - volunteering in class to answer (normally fairly closed) questions; it's not a presentation, it's not a conversation of peers. I think the main thing you can learn from that is to get over risking being embarassed by asking stupid questions. But I think in terms of social/communication skills, group projects / debates are much more valuable.

I think the main reason people don't speak up is social - it's not seen as a cool or valuable thing to do by peers (and I've seen that even at university level in a self-selected group interested people, for anything beyond small groups, except with exceptional lecturers).

Chatroom style interactions seems to somehow change the dynamic somehow. One of the better set of lectures I had used an everybody-vote-on-answers-to-problems format, and because you're not singled out, there was much more engagement. It also gives the lecturer/teacher more input (whereas volunteers I think are often on extremes of ability curve).

My soon-to-be alma mater has very small class sizes (student-teacher ratio is less than 10 to 1, most upper level classes are 4-8 people), so class here really is often a "conversation of peers". Discussions are an excellent way to learn, both because they encourage questioning and sharing and because they force you to engage the critically engage material on a regular basis rather than just memorizing it long enough to take a test.

People often seem to think of discussion-style teaching as being a social science/humanities thing, but it also works surprisingly well for math, computing, and science. I think a lot of people have the idea that in more technical courses, you have to do lectures (maybe with labs) because you're basically trying to teach a bunch of information. Most schools focus on teaching technical skills and knowledge, and expect you to just pick up on how to think as you go along.

Turning that around--teaching thinking and letting students pick up technical skills from examples--seems like a better idea because technical knowledge progresses so rapidly and because technical skills are easier to pick up. It also enables discussion-style teaching in math, computing, and science. Instead of listening to a lecturer spew material you could have found in a book, you solve problems together.

(Aside: interactive learning is really the only way to justify the high cost of college from an educational perspective. Ignoring stuff like networking and partying, it seems like going to a school where they teach by lecturing is a waste of time and money, since there are so many free lectures available online.)

The "everyone vote on answers" format is a surprisingly effective way to improve engagement in lectures. They get people to pay attention, they give you in-class feedback about what you have learned, they give the teacher more input (like you said), and they make lectures a bit more fun without being too cheesy.

Another simple technology-based way to improve engagement is to have students post their writing for class (reading responses, essays, etc.) on a forum. I took a class once where, instead of sending the professor a reading response for every class, we posted a reading response to a class Facebook group once a week. We were also required to write at least one substantial reply to others' posts once per week. The interaction was awkward, at first, and some people did the bare minimum the whole time, but after a few weeks a good chunk of the class was posting more than they were required to on a regular basis. Besides simply improving engagement, it seemed like it was making people think and write better, probably because they knew their peers were going to read what they wrote.

I mostly prefer text-based conversation. You have more time to respond, there's usually less filler, text creates an extremely convenient/useful record automatically, it is easier to return to past topics, it is easier to communicate bigger/more complex ideas, and (for me) reading is quicker than listening.

The only real disadvantages are that typing is a little slower (I type around 90 WPM but speak around 150 WPM) and that you don't get body language cues in writing. For the sorts of things I am interested in, though, I actually prefer not having body language. Body language makes us try to react to others by guessing their mental states from some subtle changes in their shape. This is problematic for two reasons; first of all, this sort of guessing is inherently imperfect, but more importantly, we tend to be quite heavily influenced by our perceptions of others' reactions. (This makes sense, evolutionarily; it is a way of making us cooperate and preventing us from diverging too much.)

What this means for conversation is that topics are chosen, opinions are suppressed, and minds are changed purely on the basis of our faulty readings of others' opinions. This is especially problematic when talking about abstract ideas because subconscious emotional reaction is an awful predictor of the merit or validity of ideas. The problem is compounded because we are very bad at simply setting aside our reactions, especially in social contexts.

Body language heuristics are obviously good for some things. They help us negotiate relationships, know when others are upset, and interpret ambiguity. But they also give us false impressions and lead to socio-cognitive biases. Furthermore, a large proportion of the benefits of body language come from dealing with problems of face-to-face interaction between primates, meaning that the benefits are less when dealing with textual communication (and especially communication about abstract ideas).

Even small talk over IM seems to be more stimulating to me on average than face-to-face small talk. I have observed this not only in my own interactions but in watching the interactions of others as well. My sample could be biased, because I am obviously a nerd who mostly hangs out with other nerds, but I think I've seen enough "normal" people to make a general statement. Your mileage may vary if you have different tastes in conversation than I do. But if you prefer to talk about the abstract or the complex, or if you try to avoid cognitive biases, then the only way I can imagine face-to-face conversation being generally preferable is if it has a strong instinctive appeal to you.

A lot of people do seem to have this innate preference. The same people often seem to prefer reading on paper than on screens. Some of them say their preference is based off of eye strain--which might even be a reason to prefer speech over text--but for a lot of people the reason seems to be more aesthetic.

There are some other very important advantage of text that I feel you omitted. First, the ability to simultaneously carry on discussion on multiple topics all at once is a huge factor. In a normal, face to face conversation following an interesting but unrelated line of thought can sidetrack the entire conversation, often beyond the point of recovery. When you move to a textual medium you can easily carry on two or even three topics provided that both sides can keep track of the various conversation contexts all at once. Best of all, you can follow up on these branches in conversation even while the other person is typing.

That brings me to the second huge benefit. When talking, you will very rarely speak at the same time as another person. Not only is it rude in basically all cultures I am familiar with, it also makes it hard to follow what either person is saying. With text there are no such limitations. When you consider that an average person can read up to 300 WPM, while someone that has practiced speed reading can easily break 600, it is not too infeasible that both sides of a conversation may be typing the vast majority of the time. For those well practiced in text-based communication this can greatly increase the average amount of information transfered per unit time, easily negating the difference in typing vs speaking speeds, and possibly even improving upon it.

I do agree on your notes about body language and emotions. I have lost count of the number of times I have seem people interpret sarcastic textual statements to be completely serious. On the other hand I find that people get better at recognizing even that when spending enough time reading chat/comments online.

Kind of sad that we're developing crutches to cope with, instead of addressing, social anxiety. Ofcourse, there's a counter-point that we use mechanical engineering to cope with our physical weakness instead of developing our muscles. A further point, however, is that while it is impossible to develop enough muscle to build a pyramid without pulleys, it is quite possible to develop enough confidence to speak up without fear.

Mechanical engineering has also made us lazy though. People didn't have to work out 200 years ago. They just worked. If you want to be in shape today, you almost have to do it on the side.

I've been saying for a long time that we need to adopt use of technology in the classroom more often. Kids are accustomed to interactive media and yet we teach them with books and lectures only. I think this is an interesting idea because some of these children will grow up and be using social media at their jobs one day. That's not to say that it should replace a class discussion, but it's a cool way to let kids express their thoughts without interrupting the lesson. Many seminars encourage the audience to tweet their questions so they can remember them... how many times as a kid did you have your hand up for so long that you forgot what you were going to say? Tweeting your question while it's fresh in your mind would eliminate that problem.

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