I heard this story once about a woman who always cut a slice off of her roast beef before serving it to her family. When an interviewer asked her why she did this, she replied, “Because that’s what my mom always did.” So the interviewer found the woman’s mother and asked the mother the same question. The mother’s answer? Her mother had always done the same as well. It took some doing, but the interviewer was finally able to track the grandmother down and asked her why she always cut a slice from her roast beef prior to serving it to her guests. “Well,” she answered, ”that was the only way it would fit in my pan.”
Teaching has been a lot like this three generation example – we waste that slice of the roast beef every year simply because that’s what had been modeled for us when we were students. Sure dry erase markers have replaced chalk in many schools, and teachers now contend with iPod and cell phone interruptions instead of just talkative students – but the fundamental methods of delivering instruction haven’t changed, well, fundamentally since Socrates’ time.
That is until the internet.
Our newest teachers, both in K-12 and especially in higher education, are no longer slicing the roast beef of education just because their fore-teachers did. These ‘boldly-going’ educators of the ‘eLearning’ frontier are embracing the idea of distance learning in exponential proportions. Universities are scrambling to create whole new degree programs in teaching and learning online, which are taught, ironically, both face to face and online.
One can only guess where this trend will end – in one hundred years will students even go to real brick and mortar schools? It is not for me to say – education is evolving for the first time in a very radical way. In the meantime, we need to make sure we provide students with access to quality teaching and quality materials as they seek out these new avenues to information.
So this is my blog. My ideas, experiences, and information about trends that will help you to bring your course onto the internet in some fashion – whether you just want to experiment a little, move into the hybrid stage, or go fully online.
Put your carving knife down – it’s time to serve things up a little differently.
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