Hands-On Assignment Awakens Student Creativity

If you read the syllabus of an Introduction to Sociology course, you’ll notice we have ambitious goals for our students. We not only want our students to understand sociological theories, we want them to use these theories to meaningfully analyze their everyday experiences, interactions, and observations and draw greater meaning from them. How can we encourage this type of engagement in an introductory sociology class? I have realized that the key is by guiding students to think innovatively through a self-directed research project where the students are the drivers of their learning process.

In his TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson, author of the book Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, states, “We are educating people out of their creativity.” By asking students to make the study of sociology meaningful to their own lives, they begin observing their environment and perceive the choices they make through a greater sociological lens. Creativity is fostered and developed when students’ curiosity in the world around them is tapped and nurtured through the use of creative, hands-on projects.

For my Introduction to Sociology course, I developed an intensive, hands-on assignment that gives students the opportunity to experience sociology at work. This project asks students to reflect and relate real-life issues to the ideas and techniques discussed in the classroom lectures. It probes students to choose a topic relevant to their lives and analyze it based on the theories that they have learned throughout the semester. It’s a semester-long, self-directed project that puts the students in the drivers’ seat and enhances their learning experience.

By allowing students to choose the topic themselves, students become invested in the research and the theories become meaningful as they relate them to their own lives and interests. In the past, students have selected, researched, and presented on widely varied topics, such as the symbolic meaning behind African-American women’s hair, how Halloween costumes encourage gender stereotypes, video game industry’s gender bias, minimum wage, transgender people and bathrooms, tattoos and society, and the media’s influence on society’s perception of beauty.

The first part of the project follows a fairly standard research paper approach. Students must write a research paper that not only supports their view, but also incorporates opposing viewpoints. Students learn to search and evaluate peer-reviewed academic articles to support their observations, as they are required to incorporate at least two peer-reviewed academic articles in their paper. They then have to interpret the social problem from the selected sociological perspective and suggest a social policy to improve or lessen the social problem.

Once they complete their research paper, students move to the second part of the project. This is where they get to tap their creativity. Students amalgamate their research and synthesize it into a video or infographic, which they present to the class and post online. I’ve compiled a list of free technological tools that students can use to create infographics and videos.

Millennials are mass consumers of technology, based on the findings of the 2014 Pew Report. Rather than simply consuming mass media, the project asks students to leverage and apply their knowledge for academic purposes. The technological portion of the independent study acts to engage the students as well through the purposeful integration of technology. The fascinating part of this project is not the research itself, but how students transition of consumers of information to creators and explainers, sharing their new knowledge with their peers.

A study by Chavez-Eakle in 2009 on creativity found that “the basic components of the creative process” incorporates “generating new possibilities, experimentation, exploration of the limits of reality and fantasy.” By asking students to problem-solve and explore the possibilities of how to change the world around them, we foster and nurture their potential and ask them to apply this kind of analytical and creative thinking in other areas of study.
This type of creative project can be applied in other subjects and in all levels of education. This project teaches students how to pursue an inquiry on a topic of their choice and guides them to think through it using a sociological lens. By giving students assignments that require problem solving on self-selected topics, it inspires curiosity and fosters the type of creative thinking we expect from our future leaders and innovators.

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Technology in Classrooms Doesn’t Always Boost Education Results, OECD Says

Overexposure to computers and the Internet causes educational outcomes to drop, study finds

A study tracking student's use of technology in classrooms found that performance improves only when using computers in moderation. WSJ's Ben Kesling reports.

Beefing up technology in the classroom doesn’t always lead to better education for children, according to a new study from an international consortium presented Tuesday.

The report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, tracked educational outcome among students based on their use of technology at home and in the classroom. While student performance improves when they use technology in moderation, the group found, overexposure to computers and the Internet causes educational outcomes to drop.

“Despite considerable investments in computers, Internet connections and software for educational use, there is little solid evidence that greater computer use among students leads to better scores in mathematics and reading,” the report said.

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Technology in Classrooms Doesn’t Always Boost Education Results, OECD Says

Overexposure to computers and the Internet causes educational outcomes to drop, study finds

A study tracking student's use of technology in classrooms found that performance improves only when using computers in moderation. WSJ's Ben Kesling reports.

Beefing up technology in the classroom doesn’t always lead to better education for children, according to a new study from an international consortium presented Tuesday.

The report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, tracked educational outcome among students based on their use of technology at home and in the classroom. While student performance improves when they use technology in moderation, the group found, overexposure to computers and the Internet causes educational outcomes to drop.

“Despite considerable investments in computers, Internet connections and software for educational use, there is little solid evidence that greater computer use among students leads to better scores in mathematics and reading,” the report said.

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Technology in Classrooms Doesn’t Always Boost Education Results, OECD Says

Overexposure to computers and the Internet causes educational outcomes to drop, study finds

A study tracking student's use of technology in classrooms found that performance improves only when using computers in moderation. WSJ's Ben Kesling reports.

Beefing up technology in the classroom doesn’t always lead to better education for children, according to a new study from an international consortium presented Tuesday.

The report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, tracked educational outcome among students based on their use of technology at home and in the classroom. While student performance improves when they use technology in moderation, the group found, overexposure to computers and the Internet causes educational outcomes to drop.

“Despite considerable investments in computers, Internet connections and software for educational use, there is little solid evidence that greater computer use among students leads to better scores in mathematics and reading,” the report said.

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5 Unique Uses of Twitter in the Classroom

Social media has found a prominent place in the college classroom.

In fact, nearly 80 percent of faculty members are using social media in some way, according to a recent survey of nearly 2,000 college faculty by the Babson Survey Research Group published in April.

While some platforms, such as YouTube, have been widely accepted in the classroom, Twitter has been slower to catch on as a teaching tool. In the same survey, only 2 percent of professors reported using the microblogging site—which limits posts to 140 characters—in class.

[Read about Twitter in the college classroom.]

Jim Newman, a Ph.D. student and instructor at Northern Illinois University, says that he uses Twitter not as a news source for his class but as a bulletin board.

"[Twitter] is not something I'm going to be using to chat [with students]," Newman says. "I use it as an additional way to let students know if there's some last-minute news, like class being cancelled."

Where some college instructors use the platform to update students on classroom logistics, it offers others an opportunity for community learning. "The growth of knowledge is a very social process," says Patrick J. Murphy, an associate professor of management at DePaul University's Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. "It's always involved someone giving knowledge or information to someone else. I believe [Twitter] has the potential to transcend the boundaries of the classroom and socialize knowledge."

While some professors may see the appeal Twitter can bring to a classroom, they should put some thought into how the platform should be utilized, says Chris Machielse, a rising junior at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor.

"I think [Twitter in the classroom] would be well received if it were used in a good way," Machielse says. "I think if [professors] are using it just for the sake of using technology, students are going to complain about it."

[Discover five social media tools for college students.]

Some professors are using Twitter in innovative—and effective—ways that benefit students. Here are five unique ways Twitter is enhancing education:

1. Creating a personal brand. A motivation for going to college is to prepare for a future in the workplace. But good grades without a strong personal brand may not lead to immediate employment, says Alyssa Hammond, associate director of undergraduate career services and adjunct professor at Bentley University.

To help her students, Hammond created a social media course that focuses on building a personal brand through social media. "Students need to know how to use Twitter for their own personal branding because people are using it and really gaining a lot of notoriety," Hammond says. "The goal of this class is to give them a good education into what these various systems do from a branding perspective."

In the course, students were required to build a personal brand on Twitter, deciding what type of voice and content they would produce for their online community. They also created a professional brand in which they were a "social evangelist," or cheerleader, for an existing company or corporation, Hammond notes.

"We were able to understand how it could benefit our own lives through branding on the web but also how social media can help companies to brand themselves," says Puja Shah, a recent graduate from Bentley. "I know [this class] will be helpful to me as I enter the real world."

[Learn how job seekers can build their online brand.]

2. Learning to be concise. Although writing lengthy essays about the Declaration of Independence or the Federalist Papers involves heavy research and labor, exacting a response to these materials in 140 characters or fewer can also require deep thought.

Daniel Klinghard, an assistant professor at the College of the Holy Cross, uses Twitter to debunk the fact that these new technologies are destroying the English language. In his political science courses, Klinghard uses a Twitter-inspired project that requires students to summarize major political text without going over the Twitter-imposed character limit.

Students reacted positively to the assignments, says Alex Wong, a rising junior at Holy Cross. "The assignments were helpful because they forced us to try to condense our thoughts about a particular reading," Wong says. "It made us look at the overall point of the [text]."

3. Personifying characters on Twitter. In a literature course at California State University—San Marcos, students brought characters from the New York Times bestselling Twilightseries to life.

"The popularity of Twilight is very much linked to social media," says course lecturer Natalie Wilson. "So when I taught this course, I wanted to bring that into the classroom and make students aware of how its Internet presence has fueled its massive cultural popularity."

Each student chose a character from the series to personify on Twitter, demonstrating their knowledge of the book's writing style in their tweets. The project was initially received with skepticism, Wilson notes, but students quickly accepted and engaged in Twitter. Students worked together to create campaigns, including one to rid the social platform of Bella, one of the main characters in the series.

"It was really impressive what they did," Wilson says. "It was much more effective than just sitting in the classroom talking about the characters."

4. Teaching executives about social media. The goal of the Social Media Marketing course at the University of California—Los Angeles Extension, a continuing higher education provider for working adults, is to equip students with social media tools of the business world, says Beverly Macy, author of The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing and professor at the UCLA Extension.

"There's a complete shift in how we're doing business," Macy says. "People are now getting their [information] from LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook."

The course, which Macy calls "social media for executives," teaches students how to act and react in real time by implementing social media practices. Macy live blogs during her class, and students are encouraged to live tweet notes and ideas using classroom hash tags to create Twitter conversations.

Though her classes are normally a mix of older students who are wary and skeptical of the value of real-time social platforms, "by the middle of the class they get it," Macy says.

The course has been "nothing short of life changing" for Tiffany Paralta, one of Macy's students. "I've been introduced to an entirely new world," Paralta says. "[I] realize that this class is a serious game changer in my career and in how I consume information in general."

5. Bringing clients to class. Students at DePaul University can go to Twitter for lecture notes in the Entrepreneurial Strategy course, led by Patrick J. Murphy, the associate professor.

During the course, students aid and consult entrepreneurs as they attempt to grow local businesses. With lecture notes available on Twitter for students—and the public—to view, students are able to better connect with the business community and even develop relationships, Murphy says.

"I've found clients through [Twitter]," notes Murphy. "They hear what [the class] is talking about and then they reach out to me. They may not have found [our class] if it hadn't been for this medium."

[See why college grads may find more jobs at entrepreneurial firms.]

Students have bought into Murphy's practice of using Twitter to connect their classroom with business professionals, says Rajiv Nathan, a graduating senior and student in the course. "I honestly think this class has so much more value now than if we had taken this before Twitter [existed]."

The power of this public forum has given Nathan and his peers a voice and an opportunity for more experience before graduation. "We don't know yet what entrepreneurs or clients are seeing our work that'll want to come and work with our class in the future," Nathan notes. "It all happens through Twitter."

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More High Schools Implement iPad Programs

With most schools back in session, students in about 600 districts nationwide will return with a new piece of tech: their own personal Apple iPad.
Since the iPad launched last year, some schools have replaced textbooks with E-books. Programs in two thirds of the 600 districts are new for this year; others started these "one-to-one" programs, in which schools provide one iPad for each student, soon after Apple released the tablet in April, 2010.
[Learn about an Iowa school's one-to-one program.]
Thousands of college lectures, videos, and textbooks are already available on Apple'siTunes U store. Recently, major K-12 textbook manufacturers have started releasing their products electronically as well. Earlier this year, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt released an iPad app for Algebra 1 that combines its standard textbook with interactive content. Similar apps for Algebra 2 and Geometry are forthcoming. Each iPad app costs schools $59.99, a savings of $13 off the company's hardcover textbook.
In a pilot program in four California districts, students who used the Algebra 1 app outperformed students who used traditional textbooks, according to teachers at one of the pilot schools.
Tablet computers are more than electronic textbooks. With their fast processor, Internet connectivity, and large touch-screen display, tablets can function as powerful graphing calculators, video players, and photo editors. The website iPad in Schools has a list of dozens of apps that can be used in high schools.
These desirable features also make tablet computers a potential source for distractions. The iPad has access to thousands of games and all major social networking sites. According to the Associated Press, many high schools that have implemented one-to-one programs are trying to decide whether students should be allowed to take their iPad home and are devising plans to make sure students are on task while using the devices in school.
Schools that are trying out iPads for the first time this fall have a good model to follow: Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop High School in Minnesota bought 375 iPads for its students shortly after Apple released the product, according to a Marketplace article. In the first year, 22 iPads were lost or broken at the school, but the iPads have helped engage students, cut down on paper, and allowed absent students to keep up with classwork.

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Technology as a Tool to Support Instruction

By Lynne Schrum

This week, in an Education World "edu-torial," Lynne Schrum presents her personal perspective on the ways in which technology can enhance learning -- and calls on educators to take a leadership role in determining the ways in which technology is used to support educational goals.

Lynne Schrum, past president of the International  is an associate professor in the department of instructional technology at the University of Georgia. Her research, teachings, and writings focus on issues related to distance education, specifically online learning. Schrum also investigates the uses of technology in K-12 environments and identifies ways to support educators in the effort.

We're all familiar with the extravagant promises of technology: It will make our students smarter -- and it will do it faster and cheaper than ever before. Moreover, the promise suggests, this miracle will occur almost by osmosis. We need only place a computer in a room, stand back, and watch the magic take place. If only life were that simple and learning that easy!

Those of us who remember the 1980s, when computers were first making their way into our classrooms, probably also remember a great deal of bad software. As educators, we were unfamiliar with the technology and uncertain about its possibilities. So we stepped back and let software developers, hardware vendors, and other technicians define not only what we could buy but also how those products would be used. In many ways, the technology drove the educational process. And guess what? It didn't work very well!

Now, we've entered an era in which technology is no longer an intimidating novelty. Its use in business and industry is both accepted and expected. And pressure abounds -- from the federal government, from local school boards, and certainly from the popular press -- for educators to get on board and see to it that students become technologically skilled.

But is mere technological skill enough?

Two points should be considered.

TECHNOLOGY AS A TOOL

Technology is a tool that can change the nature of learning.

First and foremost, educators want students to learn. It is certainly notenough to tell educators that they need to use the boxes and wires that have invaded their schools simply because they are expensive or because students need to know how to use the latest widget. If it's clear that technological tools will help them achieve that goal, educators will use those tools.

The real world is not broken down into discrete academic disciplines. I've heard a number of teachers say that they would like to be able to change the way they teach -- to find ways to implement project-based, multidisciplinary lessons. Let's think about how that might happen when technology is used to support learning.

Technology lends itself to exploration. But before technology can be used effectively, exploration must be valued as important to both teaching and learning. In a technology-rich classroom, students might search the Web for information, analyze river water, chart the results, and record what they've learned on the computer.

In such an environment, acquiring content changes from a static process to one of defining goals the learners wish to pursue. Students are active, rather than passive -- producing knowledge and presenting that knowledge in a variety of formats.

In such an environment, educators can encourage a diversity of outcomes rather than insisting on one right answer. They can evaluate learning in multiple ways, instead of relying predominately on traditional paper and pencil tests. And perhaps most importantly, teachers and students can move from pursuing individual efforts to being part of learning teams, which may include students from all over the world.

Of course, active learning is rarely a clean, neat process. Students engaged in such a process can create busy, noisy, and messy classrooms. It's important to recognize that this kind of learning takes practice -- for both the teacher and the students.

Activities and learning environments must be carefully guided and structured so learners are fully engaged in their learning. Students must learn that exploration doesn't mean just running around doing what they want and ending up who knows where. Educators must recognize that if students are investigating and asking questions, writing about what they're learning, and doing those things in an authentic context, then they are learning to read and write and think.

In a technology-rich classroom, students don't "learn" technology. Technology merely provides the tools to be used for authentic learning. It is a means, not an end.

Technology provides educators with the opportunity to move from simply streamlining the way things have always been done to really imagining things they would like to do.

What a wonderful opportunity!

CHOOSING AND USING THE TOOLS

Teachers must determine how technology tools are used, and they must have a hand in designing the staff development process that trains them.

What will it take to realize the full potential of that opportunity? First, teachers must insist on being part of the planning for technology integration, rather than merely the recipients of other people's ideas.

They must work together to create exemplary units, and then they must share their experiences with one another.

Teachers must take responsibility for helping design the staff development process so that it really meets their needs -- so that it includes time to practice using the equipment, to watch teachers model lessons that infuse technology into the curriculum, and to mentor other teachers.

Of course, teachers cannot revolutionize the educational system by themselves -- and make no mistake about it, that is what we're discussing.

Have you heard the story about the administrator who came to observe a teacher? The classroom had five computers, and the students were all busy on an investigation. Some of the students were using the computers, and others were working on projects or creating information. Some students were working together. Others were working alone. The administrator walked up to the teacher, who was assisting a small group of students, and said, "I'll come back when you're teaching."

As that story demonstrates, we also have to help administrators understand what a technology-rich lesson looks like. We have to insist that administrators provide us with time to work together, to explore, and to play with technological tools. We have to make sure that support for lifelong learning for educators, as well as for students, is built into our schools.

Teachers are creative, intelligent people, and once they learn to use technology in their professional lives -- for keeping records, for creating documents, and for enhancing their own learning -- they will soon discover the many ways in which technology can enhance what they are doing with their students.

WORKING TOGETHER

In order to successfully infuse technology into their classrooms, teachers must have the support of all stakeholders in the educational community. They must resist the notion that learning to use the "gadgets" is an end in itself.

They must provide desperately needed leadership to find the best ways of using technology to enhance teaching and learning. They must expect and demand the best and most interesting software to enhance their educational goals. They must be included in planning the technology implementation -- and be encouraged to experiment with the available tools.

Finally, teachers must educate themselves on how to best use those tools to enhance teaching and learning.

It is an exciting time to be teaching, and we must seize this moment to challenge ourselves, our students, our administrators, and policymakers throughout the country to help all teachers make the best use of the technology tools available to them.

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