CRLA handout_Teaching to the NET generation.pdf

Teaching the ‘Net Generation’: Using Multimedia, Film and Literature in the Developmental Classroom Presented by Jasmine Case, Holly Hassemer, and Patti See Academic Skills Center * Student Success Center * University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Current research demonstrates how current college students (sometimes called the “Net Generation”) are digital natives who thrive in a multimedia classroom. Using multimedia appeals to students’ core intelligences as well as their right and left brain hemispheres.

Why Use Multimedia?* ● Grab students’ attention ● Generate interest in class ● Energize or relax students ● Improve attitudes toward content and learning ● Increase memory of content ● Foster creativity ● Foster deeper learning ● Serve as a vehicle for collaboration ● Make learning fun ● Decrease anxiety and tension on “scary” topics

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Focus students’ concentration Create a sense of anticipation Draw on students’ imagination Build a connection with other students Increase understanding Stimulate the flow of ideas Provide an opportunity for freedom of expression Inspire and motivate students Set an appropriate mood of tone Create memorable visual images

Suggestions for Using Multimedia in the Classroom  Choose a short clip (YouTube, DVD, TED talk, etc.)  Prepare specific instructions. What should students look for? Are there specific questions you want them to consider?  Introduce it. Put it into context and explain the purpose for viewing.  Play it.  Give students time to reflect on paper.  Use their responses for a small or large group discussion.

Where to look Movie Clips (organized by “action,” “mood,” “theme,” etc.) TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks TED Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing < http://ed.ted.com/> YouTube

*Adapted from Ronald Berk’s “Multimedia Teaching with Video Clips: TV, Movies, YouTube, and mtvU in the College Classroom”

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Exercises Using Contemporary Film Clips and Literature about College What does it mean to be educated? Front load with readings from Higher Learning: Reading and Writing about College, 3rd edition: Will Weaver’s “The Undeclared Major,” Davina Ruth Begaye Two Bears’ “I Walk in Beauty,” or Jeff Richards’ “LD.” Ask students to list words and phrases associated with being “educated.” Where do these ideas come from? Who or what influenced you to think this way? Show film clips and ask students to record lists of “what does it mean to be educated” for the various characters:  In Mona Lisa Smile—for the art history professor and her students  In Good Will Hunting—for Will, his friends, the math professor, and grad student  In Accepted—for the “dean” (Uncle Ben) and the students Discuss observations. For the next class period students read William Cronon’s “Only Connect: Goals of a Liberal Education” and work in teams to decide on their “top 3 most important liberal education goals.” Teams share why they chose the goals they did, and at the end I ask:  What does it say about us as a class, given that our top three goals are ?  How is your choice of “important” goals a reflection of your major?

Finding your motivation Ask students to brainstorm the following prompts:  What motivates you?  What are your top three motivations right now in your life?  What have been some of your past motivations?  Where do motivations “come from”? Ask students to share their thoughts out loud. Acknowledge that we are all expected to be motivated, but no one ever really talks about their motivations because they are often quite personal. Show clips from Rudy (15 minutes) and October Sky (15 minutes) and ask students to make a list of what motivates each young man and what gets in his way? Discuss students’ observations after clips from each film. Ask what the boys have in common and how they are different. How does being a “first generation” student affect them? Next class period, share You Tube clips about finding your own motivation. There are tons of them, but I use one that features a lecture by Randy Pausch, whose The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams became a popular YouTube video and a New York Times best seller. This clip is really his last lecture—one on “time management”—3 months into his doctor’s warning that he had “3 to 6 months of good health remaining.” He died of pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008 at age 47.

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NOTE: The following essays are from Higher Learning: Reading and Writing About College, 3nd edition. Edited by Patti See and Bruce Taylor. © Prentice Hall, 2012. From

I Walk in Beauty

By Davina Ruth Begaye Two Bears

This essay originally appeared in First Person, First Peoples: Native American College Graduates Tell their Life Stories (Cornell University Press). Davina Ruth Begaye Two Bears, a proud member of the Dinè Nation, graduated from Dartmouth in 1990 with a degree in anthropology.

. . . My first term at Dartmouth went well academically. I received an A, a B, and a C. But I was lonely, even though I was friends with several women in my UGA group. It was hard for me to relate to them, because I felt they did not know who I was as a Native American, and where I was coming from. They also didn’t understand my insecurities. How could they, when they believed so strongly in themselves? I look back at my first year at Dartmouth, and realize that I made it hard on myself. I took it all too seriously, but how could I have known then what I know now? It took me years to be able to think of myself in a positive light. My mother always told me, “You are no better than anybody else. Nobody is better than you.” Unfortunately, at Dartmouth her gentle words were lost in my self pity. Going home for Christmas almost convinced me to stay home. I was so happy with my family, but I didn’t want to think of myself as a quitter, nor did I want anyone else to think of me that way. I came back to an even more depressing winter term. My chemistry course overwhelmed me and I flunked it. . . . Why did I do so horribly? My note taking skills were my downfall. They were poor at best. The crux of my problem was trying to distinguish the important facts that I needed to write down from the useless verbiage quickly. By the time I got to writing things down, I’d already have forgotten what the professor had just said. In this way, valuable information slipped through my fingers. Not only were my note taking skills poor, but so was my ability to participate in class discussion. At Dartmouth, one was expected to follow everything that was being said, think fast, take notes, ask questions, and finally deliver eloquent opinions, answers, and arguments. It was beyond my limited experience and self-confidence to do so. “Say something!” I screamed mentally, but it was useless. Fear paralyzed me in class. Outside of class I’d talk, but not in class amid the stares of my peers. My freshman English professor and I would have conversations in her office lasting two or three hours, but in her class, when faced with all my peers, I became mute. Once Michael Dorris, my Native American studies professor, asked me outside of class why I did not speak up in his freshman seminar on American Indian policy. I was tongue-tied. Incredibly, I felt that if I spoke up in class, I would be perceived as stupid. It did not help matters that the discussions there utterly lost me most of the time during my first couple of years at Dartmouth. On one occasion I did speak up in an education course, “Educational Issues in Contemporary Society.” It was a tough course with tons of reading. Participating in the weekly seminar was a significant part of the grade. I never talked to anyone in the class. But the professor was always nice to me, saying “Hi” whenever we ran into each other. That day was just like all the other days of the past few weeks. Seated around the oblong table were about fifteen students, the professor and a teaching assistant. The professor did not lead the discussions; he was there as a participant just like us students, and we determined the content of the seminar. I came in, sat down, and my classmates began to express themselves, taking turns at center stage. I looked from one student to another and wondered how they made it look so easy, wishing that I could, too. On this day I sat next to my professor, and as usual was lost. The words, ideas, arguments, and opinions whirled around me like a tornado in which I was mercilessly tossed. Too many unfamiliar words, analogies, and thoughts were being expressed for my brain to comprehend, edit, sort, pile, delete, save, etc. But this was nothing new — all of my classes at Dartmouth were confusing to me and extremely difficult. Out of the blue, as I sat there lost in thought, my professor turned his kind face toward me and asked “Davina, why don’t you ever say anything?” His question was totally unexpected, but not malicious. Rather, it was asked in a respectful tone that invited an answer. Everyone stared me down; they wanted to know, too. I was caught off guard, but thought to myself: this is my chance to explain why I am the way I am. I began hesitantly, frightened out of my wits, but determined to let these people know who I was and where I was coming from. “Well, I have a hard time here at Dartmouth. I went to school in Arizona. That’s where I am from. I went to school in Tuba City, Flagstaff, Bird Springs, and Winslow, Arizona. So I’ve gone to school both on and off the Navajo reservation. The schools on the reservation aren’t that good. But in Flagstaff, I used to be a good student. Bird Springs, which is my home community, is where I learned about Navajo culture in sixth and seventh grade. I got behind though, because the school didn’t

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have up-to-date books. I mean we were using books from the 1950s. I really liked it though, because 1 learned how to sing and dance in Navajo and they taught us how to read and write the Navajo language. I learned the correct way to introduce myself in Navajo, so even though I got behind and had to catch up in the eighth grade, it was the best time of my life, and I learned a lot about my language and traditions. Then when I went to eighth grade and high school in Winslow, I had to stay in the Bureau of Indian Affairs dorm away from my family, because the bus didn’t come out that far. So the dorm was for all the Navajo and Hopi students who lived too far away on the reservation. Winslow was a good school, but I don’t think I was prepared for an Ivy League school like Dartmouth. I mean it’s so hard being here so far away from home. I used to be in the top ten percent of my class — now I’m at the bottom of the barrel! Do you know how that makes me feel?” I finished my tirade. It was quiet. Nobody said a word. Then my professor leaned over and jokingly admitted, “Don’t feel too bad, Davina, I don’t understand what they’re talking about half the time either.” We all smiled, and it was as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. . . . After that day in class, my self-confidence went up a notch. In my junior and senior years at Dartmouth I began to participate in class little by little. By the time I hit graduate school, you couldn’t shut me up.

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LD By Jeff Richards Jeff Richards was born and raised in Washington D.C. He has an M.A. in creative writing from Hollins College. This essay originally appeared in Tales Out of School. . . .Our minds are twisted but they are perfectly good minds. We are artistic, sensitive, impulsive, socially and emotionally immature. Spaced. We are angry, passive, withdrawn or overly extroverted. We tell stories in random order without references, and our academic skills are very slow in developing. At least that’s the way we are when we are young, according to Neela Seldin, a specialist in LD who compiled the above list of our characteristics. When we grow older, we either adapt or don’t adapt. Some of us drop out of high school and clerk at Kmart. Some of us graduate with Ph.D.s in nuclear physics and work for NASA. Some of us are well known: Harry Belafonte, Cher, Vince Vaughn; or leaders in their fields: Dr. Donald Coffey, a cancer researcher at John Hopkins; Dr. Florence Haseltine, a pioneer in women’s health issues; Gaston Caperton, the educator and former governor of West Virginia; and Roger W. Wilkins, the civil rights activist. According to the company of Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, all of them either LD of afflicted by one of LD’s numerous cousins, like dyslexia. Da Vinci often wrote from right to left. He had difficulty completing projects, leaving scores of complex plans and designs for posterity to try to assemble. Ms. Seldin describes the young disabled student as one who “can’t make choices” and “can’t stay with an activity.” “Distractible, impulsive.” The type to sketch out and set aside. . . . I wasn’t instantly cured of LD. It is a disability and not a disease. My mind is still twisted and always will be. What is different is that I learned how to deal with it. I’m easily distracted, so when I was in a college class I concentrated by taking elaborate notes. Many students borrowed my notes since I missed almost nothing of what the professor said. I think they benefited more than I did given my problems with memory. So I tested poorly. I made up for this in out-of-class assignments where I had time enough to think about what I was going to say. On these papers, teachers would act surprised and wonder if I was the same person who wrote the exams. My professors did not understand that I had a twisted mind, that I was as smart as anyone else, that I came to the same logical conclusions as everyone but it took me longer to get there because I was distracted by the interesting terrain I traveled on the way. . . . In the fall the Lab School gives a gala at which they honor successful people with LD. I think it was the year they invited the Fonz that a paleontologist from John Hopkins, Dr. Steven M. Stanley, said in his speech to the overflow audience at the OmniShoreham Hotel that he thought he wasn’t disabled. I don’t remember his words exactly but they confirmed my belief. His brain, like my own, was twisted. It took him through that same illogical Alice in Wonderland world that I go through daily, and when he came out on the other side, usually he came out with a scatter-brained idea. But sometimes when he came out, his ideas were great, the very same ideas, he thought, that made it possible for him to rise to the top of his field. His twisted brain was no disability. It was a gift.

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“Filmography” from Higher Learning: Reading and Writing About College, 3nd edition. Edited by Patti See and Bruce Taylor. © Prentice Hall, 2012. Selected Films—“School Daze” Accepted (2006 USA). A high school slacker who's rejected by every school he applies to opts to create his own institution of higher learning. Circle of Friends (1995, Ireland–USA). Three friends from a strict Catholic small town face old inhibitions and new freedoms when they go to college in Dublin. An Education (2009, Britain). Everything sixteen year old Jenny does is in the sole pursuit of getting into Oxford until she meets a man twice her age and he gives her a different kind of education. The Education of Charlie Banks (2007, USA). College student Charlie Banks has to face old problems when the bully he had an unpleasant encounter with back in high school shows up on his campus. The Great Debaters (2007, USA). A drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school's first debate team, which went on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. Good Will Hunting (1997, USA). Will Hunting, a janitor at MIT, has a gift for mathematics; a psychiatrist tries to help him with his gift and the rest of his life. The Heart of Dixie (1989, USA). Three white southern college women find their lives and politics shifting as they confront the civil rights movement in the late 1950s. Higher Learning (1995, USA). Political correctness and race issues haunt several students, whose lives intersect briefly and tragically on the campus mall. Legally Blonde (2002, USA). A sorority girl becomes the reigning brain at Harvard Law School. Comedy. 96 min. PG-13. National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978, USA). Dean Vernon Wormer is determined to expel the Delta House fraternity, but those roughhousers have other plans for him. P.C.U. (1994, USA). A freshman falls in with dorm mates who organize offensive activities. A social satire of political correctness. Rudy (1993, USA). Based on the true story of Rudy Ruettiger, a five-foot, six-inch college student who must overcome the prejudices of his blue-collar family and an elitist university system in order to fulfill his dreams of playing on the Notre Dame football team. School Ties (1992, USA). A handsome young Jewish prep school athlete hides his religion to survive anti-Semitism in the 1950s. Selected Films — “Teacher, Teacher” The Blackboard (1999, Iran). Set along the Iran-Iraq border in the mountainous area of Kurdistan, The Blackboard follows two teachers in search of students. With blackboards strapped to their backs, the teachers encounter groups of young children, their own backs strapped with contraband, and Kurdish refugees, all headed toward the border. . Dangerous Minds (1995, USA). A teacher who used to be a marine takes a teaching position in an inner city school and struggles to reach her intelligent but socially defiant students. Dead Poets Society (1989, USA). Set in the ’50s. Unorthodox prep school English teacher Robin Williams inspires his students to love literature. Oscar for best original screenplay. Educating Rita (1983, Great Britain). A bright but unschooled hairdresser hires a tutor (a dissolute, alcoholic Michael Caine) to expand her literary horizons. Emperor’s Club (2002, USA). An idealistic prep school teacher attempts to redeem an incorrigible student. . The Freshman (1990, USA). Marlon Brando does a Godfather send-up as he gives a young film student (Ferris Bueller’s Matthew Broderick) an education in the school of life. Lean on Me (1989, USA). Morgan Freeman plays Joe Clark, an unorthodox, demanding and sometimes overbearing principal who is devoted to the students of his inner-city high-school – sometimes at the expense of his own job security and personal safety. . The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996, USA). A college math professor tired of sexual politics makes a deal with a dowdy colleague (Barbra Streisand) that they provide companionship for one another. She teaches him how to be a better teacher Mona Lisa Smile (2003, USA). A free-thinking art professor teaches conservative 50's Wellesley girls to question their roles. Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995, USA). This film follows the career of Glen Holland, a frustrated composer who becomes a high-school music teacher. Along the way he writes music and struggles to reach certain students, all the while neglecting to communicate with his deaf son. The Paper Chase (1973, USA). First-year law students toughen up to survive the acid wit of their intimidating professor. Stand and Deliver (1988, USA). A class from an East L.A. barrio commits to taking the Advance Placement Test in calculus, inspired by their dedicated, tough-love teacher (Edward James Olmos). Wit (2001, USA). A fiercely demanding professor of English literature deals with her cancer treatment. . Wonder Boys (2001, USA). A pot-smoking, aging writing teacher and his bizarre and brilliant student embark on a lost weekend that changes them both.

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Reference list Berk, R. A. (2009). Multimedia teaching with video clips: TV, movies, YouTube, and mtvU in the college classroom. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning, 5(1), 1–21. Boylan, H. (1999). Developmental education: demographics, outcomes, and activities [Electronic version]. Journal of Developmental Education, 23 (2). Brabazon, T. (2007). The University of Google, Ashgate, Aldershot. Cassazza, M. and Silverman, S. (1996) Learning Assistance and Developmental Education: A Guide for Effective Practice. Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series. Consider these ideas to improve developmental education. (2012). Dean & Provost, 13 (11), 7. Gabriel, K. and Flake, S. (2008). Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education. Stylus Publishing. Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books. Gregg, Virginia. (1995) Using feature films to promote active learning in the college classroom. Paper presented at Teaching of Psychology: Ideas and Innovations. Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Undergraduate Teaching of Psychology, Ellenville, NY. Harper, R. E., & Rogers, L. E. (1999). Using feature films to teach human development concepts [Electronic version]. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education & Development, 38(2). Hodges, R. Simpson, M.L, and Stahl, N.A. (2011) Teaching Study Strategies in Developmental Education: Readings on Theory, Research, and Best Practices. Bedford/St. Martin’s. Keen, A. (2007). The Cult of the Amateur, Nicholas Brealey, London. Livingstone, S. (2009). Children and the Internet, Polity, Cambridge. New, J. (2005). How to use digital storytelling in your classroom. Retrieved March 25, 2013 from http://www.edutopia.org/use-digital-storytelling-classroom Prensky, M. (2001). “Digital natives, digital immigrants.” On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6. See, P.K. and Taylor, B. (2012). Higher Learning: Reading and Writing about College, 3rd edition. Pearson Education. Sprau, R. (2001). I saw it in the movies: Suggestions for incorporating film and experiential learning in the college history survey course [Electronic version]. College Student Journal, 35(1). Stover, C. (2012). The stakes could not be higher: developmental education and retention. Recruitment & Retention in Higher Education, 26(1), 3-5. Tapscott, D. (1999). “Educating the net generation.” Educational Leadership, 56(5), 6-11. Tapscott, D. and Williams, A. (2008). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Atlantic, New York, NY.

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