Inconvenience’s Weblog: "Now that the comfort and security of authority, grades, and what must be done and how has set in, I can just feel the students ticking away at how independent they are. Of how happy they are to finally have a class that teaches them that education is, and always will be, be personal."Is it possible that trying a learning format that emphasizes peer-to-peer instruction and self-generated projects merely repeats in another register the whole culture of personalized, commodified, service and attention crucial to contemporary consumerism? In other words, is the sense of freedom like the illusions we have when shopping?
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2 comments:
Unlike some people in this class I am not happy that we are "finally set free." I like classes that give you exactly what you need to learn and what you have to do to get an A. I can learn things I want to learn on my own time. Law school and the admissions board doesn't care if I learned anything as long as I can produce a good GPA and a good LSAT score. So personally I prefer the by the book approach. This will definately be different and we will see how it goes.
I know what you mean about preferring a by the book approach. When I teach political theory, I am so authoritarian that I don't want the students reading any outside sources whatsoever: just read what I tell you to read and write down what I say. And even though I know that this sounds authoritarian, I am completely convinced that it's the best way to teach intro and modern political theory. And there are lots of other courses that should be taught that way. But I wonder if it's possible that a course that considers the politics of digital media should be different, if it should be more hands on and peer to peer precisely because that is the governing dynamic, ideology, and conceit of the internet (primarily prior to Web 2.0 but also now although in a different form). It's like teaching kids to sail by making them sail.
If one wanted a by the book approach, one could read each of the assigned books, look for examples of the issues raised by the books on the resource list, write about these books on one's blog, post comments on others blogs when relevant, and turn in a long paper discussing all the books and resources at the end of the term.
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