[Xmca-l] Re: FW: Sharing a Video

[Peter Smagorinsky]

Ed, I wouldn't necessarily separate the what from the how (as McLuhan said, the medium is the message). When students sit in lecture halls with 400 students, as is the case in large American universities for 1-2 years, the content is reduced to what is testable, rather than what they make sense of. They are learning that learning is tedious and generally irrelevant. That's how I learned history in school, and thought that history was static, boring, and irrelevant. As an adult, all of my leisure reading is historical because I now read good historical writers, integrate the knowledge into my understanding of current events and thus reformulate my worldview, etc. I forget many of the facts (the object of lecture-hall assessment) but remember the synthesis of understanding. So yes, like the students in the brief film, I see them as disjointed.

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Ed Wall
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 12:32 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: FW: Sharing a Video

Peter

     The video seemed to be, for the most part (and perhaps I misread it), how students should be learning not what students should be learning. I've often wondered - given some of the conversion I hear in educational circles - how disjoint these really are?

Ed Wall
 
On Mar 27, 2014, at  8:52 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
> This video is already a few years old (2007) but shows the great disconnect between most university teaching and learning and how/what students should be learning. It fits well with many sentiments expressed on this list.
>