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Teaching Tips Live: Innovators & Insights – Neil Postman

Neil Postman

February 8 | 12:30-1:30p US PST | Zoom

In the third offering in Innovators & Insights, a series returning to, rethinking, recontextualizing, and reinvigorating some of the great education and technology thinkers of the past, we delve into the still-highly-relevant (and occasionally practically omniscient) work of Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to DeathTeaching As a Subversive Activity, and more.

In this active, audience-encompassing, critical discussion, we will delve into Postman’s thoughts on the problems of teaching and learning in an increasingly techno-centric culture and how we might together toward resolving them to create richer, deeper, more meaningful learning environments for our students…and ourselves.

Questions? Contact Chris Lott <clott@uw.edu>

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Biography

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 — October 5, 2003) was an American author, educator, media theorist and cultural critic, who eschewed digital technology, including personal computers, mobile devices, and cruise control in cars, and was critical of uses of technology, such as personal computers in school.

In 1971, at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education, he founded a graduate program in media ecology.

Postman’s 20+ books include Amusing Ourselves to Death, Technopoly, and The End of Education.

Books and Ideas

The End of Education

(Note the double-meaning of the word “End” in the title)

Postman contends that the bane of modern education is the lack of common—and as often as possible, compelling—stories that give meaning to it. As Postman puts it, “public education does not serve a public. It creates a public.” Schools focus on “false gods” including consumerism and technology, for which he suggests five alternative narratives:

  • “Spaceship Earth” — “human beings as stewards of the Earth, caretakers of a vulnerable space capsule”
  • “The Fallen Angel” — “there is nothing more human than the stories of our errors and how we have managed to overcome them, and then fallen into error again, and continued our efforts to make corrections— stories without end.”
  • “The American Experiment” — The “great and continuous American argument about the meanings” of important abstractions such as “ustice, honesty, self-discipline, due process, equality, and majority rule with respect for minority rights”
  • “The Laws of Diversity” — “sameness is the enemy of vitality and creativity”
  • “The Word Weavers/The World Makers” — “Definitions, questions, metaphors—these are three of the most potent elements with which human language constructs a worldview. […] the study of these elements be given the highest priority in school, I am suggesting that world making through language is a narrative of power, durability, and inspiration.”

Amusing Ourselves to Death

From Typography to Television: “…as typography moves to the periphery of our culture and television takes its place at the center, the seriousness, clarity and, above all, value of public discourse dangerously declines. On what benefits may come from other directions, one must keep an open mind.”

Teaching and Technology: “[educators] are apt to find new methods congenial, especially if they are told that education can be accomplished more efficiently by means of the new techniques. (That is why such ideas as “teacher-proof” textbooks, standardized tests, and, now, micro-computers have been welcomed into the classroom.)”

Technology, Education, and Literacy: “Educators are not unaware of the effects of television on their students. Stimulated by the arrival of the computer, they discuss it a great deal—which is to say, they have become somewhat “media conscious.” It is true enough that much of their consciousness centers on the question, How can we use television (or the computer, or word processor) to control education ? They have not yet got to the question, How can we use education to control television (or the computer, or word processor) ? But our reach for solutions ought to exceed our present grasp, or what’s our dreaming for? Besides, it is an acknowledged task of the schools to assist the young in learning how to interpret the symbols of their culture. That this task should now require that they learn how to distance themselves from their forms of information is not so bizarre an enterprise that we cannot hope for its inclusion in the curriculum ; even hope that it will be placed at the center of education.”

On disinformation: “Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information—misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information—information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?”

Technopoly

Education, Skills, and Technocracy: “There is no set of ideas or attitudes that permeates all parts of the curriculum. The curriculum is not, in fact, a “course of study” at all but a meaningless hodgepodge of subjects. It does not even put forward a clear vision of what constitutes an educated person, unless it is a person who possesses “skills.” In other words, a technocrat’s ideal—a person with no commitment and no point of view but with plenty of marketable skills.”

Redefining “Education”: “You will note that such a definition is not child-centered, not training-centered, not skill-centered, not even problem-centered. It is idea-centered and coherence-centered. It is also otherworldly, inasmuch as it does not assume that what one learns in school must be directly and urgently related to a problem of today. In other words, it is an education that stresses history, the scientific mode of thinking, the disciplined use of language, a wide-ranging knowledge of the arts and religion, and the continuity of human enterprise. It is education as an excellent corrective to the antihistorical, information-saturated, technology-loving character of Technopoly.”


Discussion Facilitators

Todd Conaway, Instructional Designer, UW Bothell
Chris Lott, Learning Designer, UW Tacoma

Teaching Tips Live: Innovators & Insights – Carl Rogers and the Person-Centered Approach

 

Teaching Tips Live - Carl Rogers and the Person-Centered ApproachCarl Ransom Rogers

In the second offering in Innovators & Insights, a series returning to, rethinking, recontextualizing, and reinvigorating some of the great education and technology thinkers of the past, we considered Carl Rogers, his person-centered approach, and how it has (and hasn’t) influenced and improved education, primarily under the rubric of “student-centered” learning.

In this active, audience-encompassing, critical discussion, we delved into Rogers’ ideas, especially student-centered learning, to explore the questions: Where are these ideas now? And where can we take them from here?

November 2, 2023

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About Carl Rogers and the Person-Centered Approach

from Wikipedia:

[Rogers] was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of humanistic psychology and was known especially for his person-centered psychotherapy. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research.

The person-centered approach, Rogers’s unique approach to understanding personality and human relationships, found wide application in various domains, such as psychotherapy and counseling (client-centered therapy), education (student-centered learning), organizations, and other group settings.

Discussion Facilitators

Todd Conaway, Instructional Designer, UW Bothell
Chris Lott, Learning Designer, UW Tacoma

 

 

Teaching Tips Live – Privacy in Public: Student Autonomy and Safety in Open Assignments

Privacy in Public: Student Autonomy and Safety in Open Assignments

 

Marisa Petrich
Marisa Petrich

Erika Bailey
Erika Bailey

November 16 | 12:30-1:30p | Zoom

Teaching and learning in the open can improve pedagogy and enrich the classroom experience across many dimensions—including increased agency, attention, engagement, and varieties of modes of assessment, to name a few—but instructors are often wary of the privacy and safety implications.

Join Marisa Petrich, Instructional Design Librarian and experienced open teacher and learner, and Erika Bailey, Data and Digital Scholarship Librarian, for an active discussion where you will learn how working in the open can be both practical and exciting, share your experience with your peers, and get answers to your questions about student autonomy and safety in open assignments.

Questions? Contact Chris Lott <clott@uw.edu>

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Discussion Leaders

Discussion Host

  • Chris Lott, Learning Designer, UW Tacoma Office of Digital Learning

More Teaching Tips Live opportunities

Teaching Tips Live: Innovators & Insights – Kurt Hahn and the Seven Laws of Salem

Innovators and Insights: Kurt Hahn & the Seven Laws of Salem

Kurt Hahn

In the first offering in Innovators & Insights, a new series returning to, rethinking, recontextualizing, and reinvigorating some of the great education and technology thinkers of the past, we considered the visionary educational philosopher Kurt Hahn. Hahn’s pedagogy—neatly synopsized as Expeditionary Learning, now more often subsumed in the modern idea of Experiential Learning, and a core of one of Hahn’s many creations, Outward Bound—centers on learner agency, leadership, accountability, exploration, and room for failure.

October 12, 2023

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Teaching Tips Live: Collaborative Annotation with hypothes.is

Collaborative Annotation with hypothes.is

Collaborative Annotation with hypothes.is (with Dr. Nicole Blair)

Did you know Canvas provides an integrated tool for shared annotation of web pages and PDF files, an activity that is often significantly more engaging and pedagogically rich than the traditional discussion forum activities? Learn how the tool works, and how students respond, in this 50-minute session with Dr. Nicole Blair.

Teaching Tips Live one-hour workshop: Engaging Students with Peer Review

Engaging Students with Peer Review (Featuring Rebecca Disrud and Ruth Vanderpool)

Thursday, March 9, 12:30-1:30p

Join Rebecca Disrud, Director of the Writing Center, and Ruth Vanderpool, Associate Teaching Professor of Mathematics, for a one-hour workshop on how you can design a peer review activity to engage your students and boost their learning. The workshop will cover the counterintuitive research on what peer review helps students do—it’s not what you think—and show real peer review activities from UWT courses.

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Note: Registered participants, even if they cannot attend, will receive a link to the session recording and associated materials.

Note: This session will be eligible for a stamp on your Passport to Teaching Excellence.

CC-BY image by Ron Mader

Teaching Tips Live: Open Pedagogy with Marisa Petrich

Renewable Assignments depiction featuring a teacher and students pointing to an assignment and the earth and audience.

What is Open Pedagogy? How does it relate to OER? What are the benefits for your students and yourself? What are “renewable assignments?” How do UW instructors engage in open teaching and learning? Where can they get help?

All these questions, and more, are covered in our most recent Teaching Tips Live conversation featuring Marisa Petrich, Instructional Design Librarian and Open Teaching and Learning expert.

View the full Teaching Tip for further resources, including video highlights, links to sites and information shared during the conversation, and information on earning a stamp on your Passport to Teaching Excellence.

[CC-BY image by Giulia Forsythe]

Teaching Tip Live – Facilitating Engaging Online Discussions

Sparking rich discussion can be even more challenging online than in the traditional classroom. In this Teaching Tip Live session, we’ll look at some ideas for prompting and structuring discussions, and even rethinking what discussion means altogether.

Resources

 

Teaching Tip Live: Accessible Pages in Canvas

In this Teaching Tip Live session we showed you how easy it is to create accessible Canvas Pages that are accessible from the beginning. It isn’t just the right thing to do, enhancing equity and inclusion—and saving time in the future—it’s the law. But we’ll focus on the first part!

Resources