Networked Media Unlecture?
I am not normally a negative person, however when it comes to this ‘unlecture’ business I don’t know if this is me just being too closed minded, but I simply just don’t get it! I get that it is a new radical way of experiencing your lecture session, however to me it just feels like another tutorial class with more people…
Some people struggle to say anything in their classes as it is because they are nervous of scrutiny or getting the ‘answer wrong’, and I feel that having a big lecture room full of people doesn’t make anyone want to speak up more as there are now more people to embaress themselves in front of. I do believe that we should all participate in class, but isn’t the purpose of having two scheduled classes in university for the same subject so that we hear everything the lecturer has to say about the weeks content, and then discuss this content in class unpacking the ideas and having the ability to have one on one discussion with your teacher.
I don’t want to ramble on because I hate ramblers, but I just feel that this idea needs to be worked on more because I don’t see the benefits at this stage of the course and it is already week 3!
I am definitely one for new approaches to learning especially considering our current learning system needs to be updated as it is an old style of learning for when we didn’t have the modern technology and abilities we have today. Networked Media’s ‘unlecture’ structure, however, just doesn’t work for me.
I’m not attacking this new approach to learning, I am more questioning it. I do agree with the point you make on how the current style of lectures are ‘a very hard way to distribute knowledge’, however I still feel that knowledge comes with ones personal self interest to learn the subject. We all have different techniques and ways of learning for instance some are visual learners, some auditory, and some interactive.
All I am stating is that a lecturer standing up and ‘teaching to the class’ is one of the many styles of learning, it is the oldest style of learning and true, is becoming a little outdated, which is why it is good for schools to investigate into new approaches to better able students to learn, I don’t disagree with this. However, this new ‘un-lecture’ is also a style of learning. No one style of learning works for everyone which is why I believe the system should somewhat try to acknowledge all forms of learning. This un-lecture is a step towards that, however it still does not cover all ways of ‘distributing knowledge’ to students.
The traditional form of learning (how my classes in school ran) went a little like this:
1. Teacher talks and presents information about subject matter to class (audio learning)
2. Teacher tells class to read their text books (visual learning)
3. Students interact with one another doing practical work (kinaesthetic learning)
The current teaching system definitely has room for improvement but I feel that the balance of learning styles is quite good at the moment.