Technology and Pedagogy 

AACSB Annual Meeting 
Atlanta, GA, April 18-20, 1999 
First Plenary Session 

Note:  This presentation was paired with an address by Sir John Daniel, Vice Chancellor of the Open University, Great Britain.  His speech, "Technology's Impact on Cognition," can be found at:  http://www.open.ac.uk/vcs-speeches/ 

As I listened to Sir John's speech, it struck me that we represent two very different (though complementary) perspectives on the issues at hand.  As the chief administrator of an enormous educational enterprise, Sir John sees these technological issues from the perspective of a company CEO--like Jacques Nasser at Ford Motor Company--and his remarks reflect a sweeping, global view of higher education.  On the other hand, I work on the "factory floor" and see these issues from the perspective of students and faculty.  To extend the metaphor, he told you about global strategy, production efficiency, earnings growth, and the like--I'll tell you how we assemble cars.  

I've been in the field of faculty development for the last 21 years, working with faculty members, helping them innovate and improve their teaching.  Most of this work was accomplished in individual consultations, often carried out over many weeks.  I'm pleased to be able to say that, after our work together, my clients report both higher student evaluations and better student performance on exams.  (Of course, with a few clients, I had regression to the mean in my favor.)  I also present, on average, 40 faculty development workshops a year, many of them at other universities. 

These experiences have taught me a few things about faculty members, students, and the teaching/learning enterprise, and I'd like to share with you some of the lessons I learned.  I've selected three of the most important principles to talk about this morning.  Obviously, we don't have time to analyze these points thoroughly, but I invite you to contact me if you want to discuss them in greater detail.  

First, the effectiveness of instruction is determined by its underlying method,  regardless of the technology employed in its delivery.  In other words (in education at least) the medium is not the message.  

Second, learning to think critically should be the primary goal of any instructional program in higher education.  (This goal, in my opinion, is what sets education apart from training.)   

Third, learning is a social act, requiring interactions among students and between students and their instructors.  Higher-order learning a dialogic process, and learning affective skills (such as leadership) is impossible outside the social context.  

These principles are, of course, highly interrelated, and therefore difficult to talk about individually, but I think they provide a useful framework for examining some of the issues regarding technology in education.  

A.  The Medium is Not the Message. 

I've noticed that there are some principles that are common to most effective instruction.  They include: 

1.  Planning a course so that students can easily follow  
      its organization.   

2.  Course goals that emphasize higher-order learning. 

3.  Challenging, interesting, and relevant assignments. 

4.  Clear expectations for student performance.  

5.  Using a wide variety of instructional strategies and 
      methods. 

6.  Using techniques that require active student  
      involvement.  

7.  Clear communication of the subject matter.  

The next four elements are critical to effective teaching, but they may present difficult challenges in distance learning environments: 

8.  Providing individual help for students who need it. 

9.  Giving prompt, constructive feedback to students on 
     their performance.  

10. Fairness and impartiality in grading.  

11. Demonstrating a positive attitude toward students. 

When I conduct teaching workshops, I sometimes ask faculty to generate a list of the characteristics of the best teachers they ever had.  Typically, they reproduce this list almost exactly.  Interestingly, all of these characteristics have also been verified by empirical research--isn't it nice when research confirms what we know intuitively?   

Okay, so we know a lot of the elements that contribute to learning in traditional environments.  How do they apply to the new, "technologically rich" environments?  I've noticed that many of my clients who were effective teachers prior to the technological revolution have successfully made the transition to a media intensive environment by doing what they have always done.   

UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School recently moved into a brand-new building, with classrooms equipped with the latest technology.  Gary Armstrong, a professor of marketing and an award-winning teacher, consulted with our teaching center on how best to use the technology he would have available in the new building.  He developed wonderful applications, simulations, and Powerpoint demonstrations.  Midway through the semester, however, disaster struck--20 minutes into his class, the entire campus lost power and he was left in a dark room with no technology.  Should he dismiss class and call it a loss?  Fortunately, a student produced a flashlight from her backback and Gary went to the board and conducted a discussion on the day's topic.  He achieved his learning objective for the day's lesson without any electronic technology.  A good teacher can do wonders with the technology, but a great teacher knows that success depends on the method, not the machinery used.  
  

B.  The Importance of Teaching Critical Thinking 

Over 40 years ago, a group of psychologists developed a taxonomy to differentiate levels of learning, and although it has its critics, it has persisted as a useful schema for analyzing what we're teaching.  Benjamin Bloom was first author of the publication, and hence it is often called "Bloom's Taxonomy."  I've used the taxonomy for years in curriculum and course planning, and find it tremendously helpful.  

Knowledge--Recalling facts, patterns, theories.  (e.g., "Define the terms revenue and expense.") 

Comprehension--Reproducing knowledge without verbatim repetition.  (e.g., "Explain what is meant by the term accounting period.") 

Application--Using abstractions in concrete situations.  (e.g., "Given a company financial statement, compute gross profit percentage.") 

Analysis--Breaking down concepts into component parts, organizing ideas. (e.g., "Explain the assumptions underlying a corporation's financial statement.")  

Synthesis--Combining elements to create a (new) whole.  (e.g., "Given the marketing research data, develop an effective marketing plan for a new product.") 

Evaluation--Exercising judgment, making critical choices.  (e.g., "On the basis of operating data for the past six months, decide whether a company should buy steel from Company A or Company B.") 

I have noticed that the first three levels of learning are frequently the only ones emphasized in many undergraduate programs, but critical thinking is what occurs at the top three levels.  

What exactly do we mean by "critical thinking?"  The concept is very complex, of course, but the operative skills in critical thinking include the ability to: 
 

• Identify and define issues or problems
• Determine the kind of information that is relevant to solving the problem or resolving the issue
• Gather, judge, and connect the information in meaningful patterns
• Generate hypotheses, construct arguments, make inferences
• Test hypotheses, make counter-arguments
• Evaluate the results

Obviously, critical thinking can't be learned by simply listening to lectures on the subject.  Case studies and course projects are among our most important tools for teaching these skills.  By using various technologies, we can replicate (or better, enhance) the kinds of exercises and experiences that we have used to teach these skills in traditional ways.   

Unfortunately, one of the barriers we face in teaching critical thinking is the resistance of the learner.  Last April, the Chapel Hill Herald published a column by Jack Behrman, a professor emeritus in the Kenan-Flagler School of Business.  In it, he recalled an incident from one of his courses in which the president of the MBA class stood up to say that the class had delegated him to deliver a message:  "Tell us the seven things that we need to know and stop trying to make us think!"  Maybe this is the reason they say that "MBAs are often wrong, but never in doubt."  I'm afraid technology can't help us much with this problem, but it can be addressed pedagogically.   
  

C. Learning as a Social Act 

One of the problems with teaching critical thinking is that students can't learn the skills by practicing them alone.  They must be engaged with each other and with the teacher in meaningful (and often strenuous) dialogue and debate.  Moreover, important affective skills such as leadership, collaboration, cooperation, tolerance, and ethical behavior are only learned via social interaction.   

In traditional classrooms, we know that this kind of engagement not only requires free and open communication, it requires the creation of an appropriate social context for discussion, with carefully established rules of conduct and clear expectations for outcomes of the engagement.  In well-run classrooms, we can easily see these principles in action, but virtual courses can present significant barriers to this kind of interaction.   

Even if we take a fairly simple task, group discussion, we find that "virtual discussions" often don't work.  Students may not participate in discussion boards unless they are required to post a certain number of messages every week, and the quality of their contributions can be very superficial.   

Last year I received an e-mail from one of the national leaders in the educational technology movement.  He took me to task for saying that it is difficult for technology to replicate the interactions that occur in a live group.  He insisted that "a chat room is the same as a physical room."  I replied that I would accept his argument if he could convince me that groups of humans normally sit around in a room with bags over their heads and pass notes to one another.  The functional act of exchanging information or opinion is NOT the same as the social act of communication.  (If this weren't true, we wouldn't have to travel all the way to Atlanta to hold this conference--we could do it from our offices, "on line.")  The "electronic curtain" that separates participants in virtual space constrains the dynamic that exists naturally when people are face-to-face.  Developing group identity, cohesion, and rapport among students is much more difficult under these circumstances.   

Also (judging by examples of course "discussions" on the Internet), it is often difficult to find evidence that students are learning tolerance and acceptance of others, learning to entertain opposing views without reacting defensively, or learning to examine seriously the sources of their attitudes, beliefs, and values.  If one visits a typical course discussion board to read the student postings, one frequently finds that they are not really having a discussion in the traditional sense of give-and-take, they are simply making sequential position statements.  Often, in response after response, students simply refine their initial position rather than modifying it in the light of what others have written.  In short, it is too easy, in an electronic environment, for students to escape the confrontations, challenges, and learning opportunities that are present in the classroom.   

These problems are not the "fault" of technology, they are the product of a simplistic view of the social learning process.  We must always be careful to look beyond the purely technical capabilities of electronic communication (and all the bells and whistles) and ask how well the technology is being used to create the social context that exists in a real classroom.   

Conclusion 

In conclusion, I think this quotation from the immortal Pogo sums up our situation:  "We is confronted by an enormous tidal wave of opportunity."  We are faced with a great (and somewhat scary) opportunity to use technology to improve education, both in traditional courses and in distance learning programs, but I feel strongly that we must assess the effectiveness of the technology we use on the basis of what we know about how people learn.   

If we fail to apply the appropriate pedagogical standards, it is far too easy to create programs that fail to serve our students effectively.  A number of companies have advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education to the effect that they can put one's entire curriculum online in six months!  That's what I would call "shovelware."   

I fear that there may be "Gresham's Law of Distance Education"--that bad programs may drive out good ones, because good ones are harder to design and more expensive to produce.  I recently found an on-line course offered by one of the new "virtual institutions"--"Ethics: Theory and Practice."  The course description sounds like a course one might find in any college catalog, but the final exam is a 110-item multiple-choice test.   I suppose if life presented ethical dilemmas in multiple-choice format, this course would be excellent preparation for our students.   

In our haste to use technology, we must be careful that we donít find ourselves saying to students, as the Wizard said to the Scarecrow, "I can't give you a brain, but I can give you a diploma."