Things have changed a lot since my days as a student. We used floppy discs and shared one computer between several classrooms wheeled in on a cart on special occasions. Phrases like “hard copy,” and “soft copy” weren’t in the vernacular. We read from books made of paper, worked on paper worksheets, studied paper handouts, and took notes on our paper notebooks. In this uni-media context, we had very little demand for more stimuli solely because we were unaware that such multi-media enrichments could ever exist.
Not so today. Growing up in this technology-rich and multi-media rich age, today’s students are utterly bored by paper. And, let’s be honest… black, times new-roman font sized twelve on a white background IS boring. Blue markers on a white board are no improvement. Online software laden with black, times new roman font sized twelve on a white background is not really any better either.
So what does capture the attention of this generation of student? That’s right, selfies.
For better or for worse, the students of this generation are absolutely captivated by their own images. The extreme popularity of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat provide evidence toward this point. If the activity involves taking their own photos, shooting their own videos, and sharing images from their daily lives, students will without a doubt be more engaged. In light of this, we have two options as educators: either we bemoan and fight against this propensity, or we embrace it and repurpose these habits into opportunities for learning and increased engagement.
In the population of students I work with, it is nearly impossible to get them to do homework or engage with the material outside of class time. This changed dramatically when I asked them to do a simple exercise: take a photo from your daily life and annotate it, showing how it illustrates one of the mathematical concepts we have been learning. After the first day, only a small handful of students completed this assignment. However, after projecting the few photo submissions at the start of the next class, my email became flooded with the multitude of mathematical selfies the students were eager to share. Students who beforehand may have been totally uninterested in concepts like unit price, ratios, or classifying types of angles… suddenly and almost magically engaged with the material, produced high quality visual demonstrations of their mastery, and retained the conceptual understanding far after the lesson was taught. Ahhh… the educational power of selfies!
Not so today. Growing up in this technology-rich and multi-media rich age, today’s students are utterly bored by paper. And, let’s be honest… black, times new-roman font sized twelve on a white background IS boring. Blue markers on a white board are no improvement. Online software laden with black, times new roman font sized twelve on a white background is not really any better either.
So what does capture the attention of this generation of student? That’s right, selfies.
For better or for worse, the students of this generation are absolutely captivated by their own images. The extreme popularity of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat provide evidence toward this point. If the activity involves taking their own photos, shooting their own videos, and sharing images from their daily lives, students will without a doubt be more engaged. In light of this, we have two options as educators: either we bemoan and fight against this propensity, or we embrace it and repurpose these habits into opportunities for learning and increased engagement.
In the population of students I work with, it is nearly impossible to get them to do homework or engage with the material outside of class time. This changed dramatically when I asked them to do a simple exercise: take a photo from your daily life and annotate it, showing how it illustrates one of the mathematical concepts we have been learning. After the first day, only a small handful of students completed this assignment. However, after projecting the few photo submissions at the start of the next class, my email became flooded with the multitude of mathematical selfies the students were eager to share. Students who beforehand may have been totally uninterested in concepts like unit price, ratios, or classifying types of angles… suddenly and almost magically engaged with the material, produced high quality visual demonstrations of their mastery, and retained the conceptual understanding far after the lesson was taught. Ahhh… the educational power of selfies!