I believe that learning happens when students can recognize the implication of the content in the real world. “Real world connection” is one of those buzz phrases we hear all of the time in education. If students know the answer to the “What does this have to do with my life?” or “Why do we have to know this?” then they will be more curious, more motivated, and more likely to engage in meaningful learning rather than memorizing and regurgitating. As a science teacher it is easy to make connections between the content and the real world because science IS how the real world operates.
In the elective class that I teach, Pharmacology, I have students find current event articles and answer questions on my pre-made worksheet that requires them to summarize the main ideas and define scientific terms. The last question on the worksheet is, “How does this relate to what we’ve learned about in class?” Up until this point, I’ve considered that one question my check in the “real world connection” box and moved on to delivering more content. Occasionally I would have students volunteer to share what they found, but the discussion that would follow was usually minimal or non-existent. To be honest, there are times when I get so inundated with summary sheets that I don’t even have time to read them!
This past week in Digital Media Literacy has got me thinking about my why. Why do I teach Pharmacology? What do I want my students to leave my class knowing? Every semester since I’ve started it I’ve had a full class of juniors and seniors eager to learn about different types of drugs and how they work in the body. Believe me, it is not hard to engage teenagers when talking about drugs! But do I really care whether my students can identify which neurotransmitters are turned on or off when taking a certain drug? Well, yes, I do believe that the content is important, but it can also be Googled in about 3 seconds. I’m realizing more and more that I want my students to leave my class with a broader understanding of the role of drugs in our world and how it impacts their own lives.
I’ve been going about “real world connections” in a very passive way. With all of the innovative, life-changing research and development going on in the world of drugs, we are barely scratching the surface in my class. Furthermore, I’ve been letting my students loose on the world wide web, assuming that they’ve already learned the skills to find credible sources and to detect bias. Can my digital native students really think critically about the media they are exposed to? Do they understand who is writing these articles, whether the authors have a political agenda, or what they might be hiding from us? Danah Boyd says that this assumption that young people know everything there is to know about technology is dangerous and that we must teach students to not just take the first thing they find on the internet for granted.
The students who walk into my classroom in September will be voting in the 2020 election. As a 19 year old voting in my first presidential election in 2008, I went for the sticker and just checked off Obama’s name because that was what all my friends were doing. The thought of my students taking this same approach next year in the political climate we’re in today terrifies me! I believe it is my job as a teacher to help my students develop the skills necessary to be able to view the media through a critical lens and be able to have productive discussions with people about the issues. Like Christensen does in her own classroom, I want my students to work together to analyze media and view these issues through a critical lens. Christensen and Boyd urge us to use technology as a tool in our classrooms for spreading knowledge and collaborating. I wanted to create a project that will change the way I address current events with my students and help them develop a critical lens through which to view the world. I’ve decided to rework the assignment while also implementing a new piece of technology. I consider myself mostly a techno-traditionalist in Scott Noon’s four tiers of teacher training in technology. I have converted all of my day to day tasks like grading and lesson planning to a digital version, but I believe this project will help me reach into the techno-constructivist category. I am changing my approach to teaching and learning by using a class website to enhance my students’ abilities to find, analyze, and discuss current events.
At the beginning of the semester, students will join a group of three or four and decide on a topic that they would like to follow throughout the entire semester. I will give them choices such as the opioid crisis, legalization of marijuana, or new and developing drugs in clinical trials, but they will also have the option to choose their own topic that interests them. Ken Robinson argues that students thrive in an environment where the learning is tailored to their interests. This project will give students a chance to dig deeper into a topic of their choosing. Once a month, each group member will find and read a current event article relating to their topic, summarize it in a blogpost on our new class website, and generate at least three discussion questions. On the day that the blog post is due, students will share their summaries and lead their groups in a discussion using their generated questions as a guide. They can add comments to the website to record their thoughts as they analyze each article with their group. I will also use the website to house tools and information about how to determine credibility of sources and provide links to sites where students could find information vetted by the scientific community.
Mike Wesch argues that learning should be an on-going process and that each student needs to contribute to the learning environment in their own unique way. This new way of bringing current events into the classroom allows students to build on their learning throughout many months and to rely on each other to help shape their understanding of a topic. As a cumulative activity at the end of the semester, they will work with their group to record a podcast episode on their topic, where they can give an overview of the issue they followed all semester, share their thoughts and feelings towards it, explain how it impacts their own lives and why we should be aware, and call upon “expert” witnesses to explain relevant terms and concepts. We will listen to each groups’ podcasts as a class. The podcast offers not only a deeper level of technology implementation but also a chance for students to get creative, collaborate with their group, and share their knowledge with their peers.
I want my students to not only be knowledgeable about the types of drugs out there, but the underlying issues that surround whether we see some drugs as “good” or “bad”, how the pharmaceutical industry plays a role in which drugs are accessible and their costs, or how addiction can seep into a person’s life and affect not only their brain chemistry but the lives of their friends and families. I want to do more than just check off the “real world connection” box. I want my students to analyze and discuss how the current events they are finding are significant and how they fit in with the bigger picture of how the world works. Sugata Mitra describes a type of education that is self-organized and the role of a teacher is more of a facilitator. Rather than making the learning happen, I am introducing a project that will let the learning happen naturally when students are collaborating.
Throughout the creation of this new website, “#trending in Pharmacology”, I’ve had fun discovering all of the possibilities within Google Sites for teaching and learning. I am eager to try out this new website and explore options for podcasting, but I am even more excited to witness how it transforms the way my students view the world and talk to each other about current events. As we’ve heard all week, it is not about the tool, it is about the learning. It is my hope that this project will help my students become more informed citizens regarding the subject of drugs and in the words of Mike Wesch, will start to “recognize their own importance in helping to shape the future of this increasingly global, interconnected society.”
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