Your sons & daughters cutting classes?
- From: "octogenarian" <jimg2k@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 17 Jan 2006 21:17:46 -0800
January 17, 2006 latimes.com : California
COLUMN ONE
The iPod Took My Seat
As college professors post lectures online, they're seeing a rise in
absenteeism. A low-tech response to no-shows: more surprise quizzes.
By Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writer
Americ Azevedo taught an "Introduction to Computers" class at UC
Berkeley last semester that featured some of the hottest options in
educational technology.
By visiting the course's websites, the 200 enrolled students could
download audio recordings or watch digital videos of the lectures, as
well as read the instructor's detailed lecture notes and participate in
online discussions.
But there was one big problem: So many of the undergraduates relied on
the technology that, at times, only 20 or so actually showed up for
class.
"It was demoralizing," Azevedo said. "Getting students out of their
media bubble to be here is getting progressively harder."
Skipping classes, particularly big lectures where an absence is likely
to go undetected, is a time-honored tradition among college
undergraduates who party too late or swap notes with friends. These
days, however, some professors are witnessing a spurt in absenteeism as
an unintended consequence of adopting technologies that were envisioned
as learning aids.
Already, even as many academics embrace the electronic innovations,
others are pushing back. To deter no-shows, they are reverting to
lower-tech tactics such as giving more surprise quizzes or slashing
their online offerings.
"Too much online instruction is a bad thing," said Terre Allen, a
communication studies scholar and director of a center that provides
teaching advice to professors at Cal State Long Beach.
This last term, Allen experimented with posting extensive lecture notes
online for her undergraduate course, "Language and Behavior." One goal
was to relieve students of the burden of furiously scribbling notes,
freeing them to focus on the lectures' substance.
Yet the result, Allen said, was that only about one-third of her 154
students showed up for most of the lectures. In the past, when Allen
put less material online, 60% to 70% of students typically would
attend....
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