Well, this is my first post ever on a blog. Thank you to
those at the Faculty Lounge for giving me a (temporary) platform. I hope you
don’t regret it. As my first post, I thought I’d share something interesting
that I heard on the running track at Temple – not exactly the faculty lounge, but close enough...
Apparently laptops are making the Socratic classroom more
collaborative. One of my colleagues told me recently that when students are
called on in class and don’t know the answer or haven’t read the case, they say
“Let me check my notes” and this is code for other students to help them by
emailing information via their laptops (apparently the medium of choice is
GChat, a service of Google mail). I don’t teach by the Socratic method,
certainly not by the old-fashioned “one person on the hot seat” method, and I
wonder how those who do teach that way feel about this. Although I can see how this facilitates
people not doing the work of the course, and it certainly is deceitful, on some
level I am happy to see students helping each other as opposed to competing –
collaboration is a useful lawyering skill.
Also, I confess, I had a few professors back in the day who
taught by the strict, old-fashioned Socratic method – “teaching” by humiliation
– and this soured me on the whole technique. I didn’t learn effectively this way and I never saw the point, even --
especially -- after I began teaching. Yes, we professors know more than the
students (no kidding, we’re lawyers! As one of my friends put it: it is like
going all out to prove that you can beat a 2 year old at soccer). So, to the
extent that this laptop loophole is making an end-run around the more draconian
version of the Socratic method, I confess that part of me is saying ‘viva la revolucion.’
Welcome, Kathy. Looking forward to your posts.
Ah, the call for help to headquarters! It has a distinguished in lineage in American history. Pretty creative--and, hey, if it means other people are engaged in class, the probably makes it the discussion all the more productive.
Posted by: Al | May 12, 2008 at 04:35 PM
At least 2/3 of my professors have told the class explicitly on the first day that they know students do this and that they don't really have a problem with it, so long as students still do the reading.
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