Lecturing - an arcane word- but how do you get the best from students?

The BBC Journalism college, now available online.

Rhetorical question! Firstly this is a personal post, I do not speak for colleagues at my university, though they may agree with some points, let alone.. you're ahead of me. Good!

Secondly, this is just a few thoughts - and thus should not be taken as academic principles.

There, disclaimer done!

But Lecturing does sound in our times a dated word. I guess it's such a fixed sign, that there's no chance of coming up with something new, though I'd welcome a stab.

Do we really lecture nowadays. Er, Yes! But it's more than that now. It is a conversation, er.., it's a swapping of ideas.... it's facilitating... I hope its something than merely standing at a lectern.

The last of these comes from a former Vice Chancellor I interviewed, who claimed with the wealth of knowledge out there, that soon lecturers will take on a facilitating role. You can watch the interview here

MAJI times
I had a four hour session with some of the Master in Journalism students from the International stream couple of days ago.

No, there was no lecture, just four hours yeah non-stop talking about everything and anything.

One of my earliest put downs by friends was : "he can chat!", so I have never been shy of that but the point I'm getting to is how to turn the study room from this evocation of a lecturer's ideas, but something where there's ongoing interaction.

Set the parameters and allow some slack.

I hope we ( Paul Majende and me) achieve this in some small way, but the bigger question is still creating an environment where students feel free to engage at any level and start a conversation.

It begs a question whether in a room of future journalists my role is about processing ideas or being part of a set of new ones. Wasn't the latter the raison detre for universities a good number of centuries ago.

I guess its a bit of both, but the US provides an interesting charlie brown blanket. Most of what we've come to know, experience and use in newer journalism has come from seekers of tertiary education and the ones that graduate.

Innovators and receivers
Granted not everyone can be an innovator. Why Not? but I love the idea of pushing against structures and looking at the wheel. Not to long though, otherwise that job for grads goes elsewhere.

I'm ruminating on this, because there's a meet up in January courtesy of Lorna from Journalism.co.uk which might help us discuss the changing roles of journalism training.

Yep not about to throw the baby out with the bath water. But there is something in this; the BBC once again raises the stakes, with the public launch of its journalism college.

How do we lecture in a web 2 going on 3 age?

Videojournalism Presenter fatigued explained

Rachmaninov concerto No 2 - got there.

I'd tried all the other stations, but this time even a tight bit of soul, Bill Withers wasn't doing the trick.

Earlier in my fuzzy state, I turned to Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start definitely worth its chunk of 40 minutes.

You see I have a presentation in two days time to a class of Chinese Masters students. It's about something to do with "practice and pedagogy, the web and new things that make you go woo" or something like that.

I presented to a similar group 6 weeks ago and went off message, talking about mediating and motivating theories that underpin our behaviour - far more interesting I thought.

For instance, why are YOU reading this. It it because you're

a) looking for something interesting (chancing it)
b) you're looking to fill time ( reading a newspaper on the train is an example)
c) you have a relationship with this blog, albeit a cyber-like conversation ( which would prob mean I'm saying something of relative value)

Making it happen
What motivates how we spend our time doing those things and how can the very things we seek be made stronger by the providers?

That was the thread. A common sense take. But as I sit here pounding away, I have no desire to repeat that. Perhaps I'm tired, perhaps I'd rather be talking about something else, but you know when sometimes you get this "heavy head" syndrome.

Manager: Hey Chris we'd like you to talk about automated drive systems
Chris: Ok

And you think ***** what am I going to say. Happens to me all the time, usually 15 seconds before a presentation, when I go, wouldn't it be fun if I just went on stage and said, "right, what shall we speak about?"

It's got nothing to do with me not knowing. I kinda do this metaphoric what do I know, and what have they paid their money for?

there are broadly two kinds of talks.
1. what motivates the system
2. the system itself

When I talk about videojournalism et al, I'm mindful people want to know about how to accomplish that edit and that shot, but the alternative, a hybrid practice-theory, begs you to look inside the system.

Why did you want to shoot that way?

I love videojournalism for the reason that's it's not just about point and shoot, and even when it gets really complicated, it's about human behaviour.

Shine a camera on some one, nod sagely and stay quiet and anytime soon they'll begin to speak.

What you're doing with the camera is capturing the essence of a lengthy conversation, in which some piece of valuable information is divulged.

Hilariously, when I first became a Videojournalist, the widespread argument was you couldn't use the two main senses, sight and sound proficient enough at the same time. Well.

Back on Message
Anyway back on message. So in the same way I've illustrated with Videojournalism, I'd rather be inclined to do the same with my online presentation.

So what's the fuss?

Well I get the feeling that the group would want to know more about the system.

Here's the site, that went to the blog, that shifted into a tweet and here are the supporting Twit apps, the 1,000,000 or so that fulfil various functions.

From tech crunch you get a list of 20 apps
no, 1 Twit pic
no, 2 Tweetdeck
No, 3 Digsby
No,4 TwitterCounter
No, 5 Twitterfeed

Now if you're a twitter aficionado you've prob sourced 100 of the above. If you're an addict, 1000. At this rate you could spend a life time explaining to friends and family; in my case, Chinese students, the next best app.

There's legitimate reasons for doing that if you're in marketing, defacto personal branding or want to make those millions of friends. But at some point you have to simply ask, "why?"

Why are you doing this? What's the value? The thin line between addiction and practice is ever shortening.

These things that we do and I count videojournalism in this camp flourish from within an inner social need SMOs. Ambient awareness always existed, but twitter provided the microscope. Making our own programmes is something many of us would like to do; videojournalilsm makes that possible with the right tools.

But to quote Kawasaki and what I tell my own students, "ask why you want it?" "Create meaning rather than pursuing money" says Guy.

Some of the most selfless proponents of this are Mindy McAdams who publishes all her modules and academic findings online, Guy himself whose presentations are micro MBA modules, Mike Jones who possesses a rare deep insight into visual imagery intelligence. Off course there are many more.

They are driven by their "kwa". You could presuppose the group I'm presenting wouldn't be interested in knowledge. There is a strong propensity to always want to learn what other people are doing, so cracking open the SMO model of new apps would do the job.

No, that's not my point, but that perhaps, in this case I'd much prefer we had an open forum and attacked issues on their own need to know.

It cuts into this idea of the conversation, the exploration of ideas and moves away from the idea of the grand lecture, which at times and I rather think doesn't always work. I rather think I'll do that.

Now don't you feel better now David?

Generation Next Digital Students in the classroom

This is a superb package with views that will be self evident to many, irrespective whether you're a lecturer or not.

I'm reminded of my own antics, my past which has become part of the school of learning both in and outside my Uni.

Made in 2004 and spotted from the Teachers Tube Network it is inspirational and also motivational and I agree with it more so than I disagree. There are some things I could pick holes.

We might have a philosophical chat on what now constitutes an accepted form of teaching, but yes we live in a visual world, and you have to be on the curve or ahead of it to make sense of the many questions which will be posed.

But after you've watched this I'd like to add my two-bits.

Classrooms can very often mirror society, so the range and diversity of knowledge can be broad. Broad enough to make some students feel inadequate and others to feel under nourished.

Part of the skill is recognising in the compressed time we have, to use Marine talk, "no one is left behind".

Last week I spoke to some of my colleagues about "Learning without Walls" - a world where the Fordisation of module delivery is almost non existent.

Many are gradually inching there, with cross -discipline modules on offer.

So I would hope my lecturer should have broad knowledge of other things. Many experts are looking to the Lecturer pretty soon becoming the "filterer" - much in the same way we speak about the journalist.


EXPERIENCE MATTERS
Experience is thus a good teacher

But there is another thing I would want from my lecturer/ teacher and I have found them in my own sister, who recently was informed by her educational authority in the borough of Kensington they would like to send newly qualified teachers to observe her.

We've seen him in Patch Adams, a mad bonkers, confident tutor looking to do things differently to heighten his students' sense of worth and sensation.

And more recently I heard her on BBC Radio 4, a breathless woman teacher talking about physics, CERN's new particle smasher, as if it were a racy novel.

I want to be inspired. I want to have fun. I want to learn.

My sister teaches young children, 5, 6 years old and on one occasion disappeared from the class in front of an educational expert and returned with flippers, a wig, face mask and tassles all around her.

The inspector was gobsmacked, the class went "wow" and they finished off their whale story in class of intrigue, group participation and at times utter silence.

Ultimately, and with greater transparency now, to quote Dan Gilmor, my audience know more than I do, and as such I confess I may not know about the latest AJAX. It may even deliberately be outside my sphere of knowledge.

But I'd like to know even if my Lecturer/teacher doesn't know, he/she had an idea of how to get somewhere closer to get to know.

That coincidentally is the job of a good researcher. You may not have the contact number for Obama , but you know someone, who knows someone who does and you can get it.

Teaching is often comodified because we serve a system predicated on exams and learning tolls, but it's also a medium to expand our horizons, to teach us to understand, to teach us to learn how to understand, to teach us that the process is a reciprocal one.

Help me to help you said Cruise's character - and for that no one should truly be left behind.

Post script: Incidentally the inspector who observed my sister at her school called some months later to the school and joined her class again, insisting she should not start any of her methods without him. Do you have spare flippers? he asked.