20 Minutes Is All ‘Ya Got? You Better Prepare!
Monday, February 1st, 2010While the exchange below was cordial and a followup meeting was scheduled, it highlights the disconnect between the professionals in the educational technology field and, well,….the profession of “education”.
To give you some context: this meeting was on the heels of a hands-on workshop announcement that the faculty member below was unable to attend. Because this person expressed interest I offered to meet with them one-on-one to presumably go over the workshop content. That was my mistake.
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“So, tell me again; how do faculty use this tool “?
Me: “Well, it’s a great tool for giving feedback to students either one-to-one or to the entire class. There are lots of different ways you can use it. For instance….”
“But I don’t provide feedback to students that way. I generally use office hours for individual feedback. Or I send them written feedback. I find that email is a great tool for that. I actually do use technology you know”.
Me: “Well many faculty are using it to post discussion questions to be answered outside of the scheduled class time. They’ve found that the results transfer into a richer class discussion. If you did this, it would allow you to free up time to do other things during class time. I can show you some examples if you’d like.”
“But I don’t use that tool now and I’m not sure if I could add on something new. My class is crammed full already.”
Me: “Well, how did you envision using this tool?”
“It seems like there has been a lot of talk lately about technology and how we should use it to engage students. I just don’t see how I could possibly add it to what I already do. I was hoping you could tell me how to use it.”
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I have to admit that I left the meeting a little frustrated but in the back of my mind I understood the resistance. I assumed that we were going to be discussing the technology but I should have steered the conversation towards this persons expectations. This would have taken the focus off of the tech/workshop content which ended up hamstringing the conversation.
For most faculty adopting something new (new assignment, new piece of media, new…anything) can’t just happen in a 20 minute exchange (yeah, I know, that’s not revolutionary). And, the conversation shouldn’t center around the adoption of a particular tool unless the deeper (i.e. – harder and more time consuming) conversation about learning (or efficiency which is always the big carrot) has already occurred. There are those of course who constantly re-work their syllabus and can tighten up an assignment mid-flow but many are so overwhelmed by the unknown that anything new causes panic.
So, I’ve decided to do an about face on the way I conduct one-on-one meetings following a workshop announcement. I will ask faculty about their ideas for adopting the technology and suggest that they share with me their assignment objectives. Again, not revolutionary. But it did take this exchange to remind me how important it is to take full advantage of the 20 minute face time with faculty who seem mildly interested in adopting technology.