Adam Lefstein’s Navcon2k7 keynote focussed on the challenges facing teachers charged with “keeping my customers satisfied, satisfied” in generation.com classrooms each day.
Lefstein framed his keynote “Interacting with generation.com in the classroom: popular culture, policy and the promise of dialogue.” around two questions –
1. How if at all are classroom communication regimes changing?
Adam provided transcripts of generation.com classroom exchanges that clearly revealed a breakdown of the pervasive IRE (initiation/ response/ evaluation) classroom genre – a rejection of the IRE communicative regime – and a refusal of the generation.com students to accept the monologic classroom discourse (discourse where classroom talk is closely monitored and controlled by the teacher).
The transcripts provided showed that the IRE exchanges pasted below
MR THOMPSON: So, the first part of the story is always important… if you’re a writer… to try and do what with the reader? What sort of things might you be trying to do when you’re writing something? Yeah, Lucy?
LUCY: Draw the reader in.
MR THOMPSON: Draw the reader in. What do we call that? A::A – beginning with ‘H’… Might be something (you’ve thought about). Yeah?
-: A hook.
MR THOMPSON: A hook, you want a hook in the story, possibly, some way of drawing them in.
... had been replaced by exchanges whereby the teacher has clearly relinquished authority to the group
After listening to some generation.com student classroom exchanges (and unpacking the written transcripts) it was obvious that the generation.com students (the customers in the classroom) were far from satisfied.
It was easy to imagine teachers staggering from their generation.com classrooms each day to grasp the mike in karaoke bars and belt out that old Simon and Garfunkel classic ... Keep the Customer Satisfied
It’s the same old story
Everywhere I go,
I get slandered,
Libelled,
I hear words I never heard
In the Bible
And I’m one step ahead of the shoe shine
Two steps away from the county line
Just trying to keep my customers satisfied,
Satisfied.
After setting the scene Lefstein asked
2. How should we change classroom communication regimes (if at all)?
He elaborated on the tensions that might drive teachers to grab the mike in karaoke bars each evening – It seems that in trying to keep the customer satisfied we are charged with
• Establishing (and preserving) conditions for dialogue
• Opening up content
• Maintaining conversational flow
• Encouraging participation
• Insuring fair access to the floor;
• Probing others’ thinking;
• Protecting "weak" -- either socially and/or academically – pupils
• Undermining own content authority
• Exemplifying in own actions dialogic dispositions
• Inviting pupil criticism of and participation in directing the dialogue
In conclusion Lefstein challenged the keynote audience to think about
• Why is it so difficult for us to change our ways of talking?
• What will we lose if we manage to get rid of IRE?
• Should we give up on whole class discussion? Can we afford to?
• How can we develop new models of classroom communication and participation (e.g.
rotating stage, student facilitation)? and finally and provocatively
• Why not lecture?
In an hour and a half keynote we didn’t have enough time to more than a cursory exploration of the difference that participatory Web2.0 media might bring to classroom communication regimes and new models of classroom communication ... which I regretted - this is an idea that that I reckon we should be exploring further in the context of “dialogue” in classrooms.
I suspect that in terms of the presentations at Navcon2k7 (and for that matter at ULearn07) we are running behind on this thinking compared to what is going on in other professions... check out the ideas developing at Ailsa Haxell’s blogspot a musing space; a performance in progress – where she is exploring “Issues of heart and soul using IT.
I'm doing a doctoral thesis in education about change and changes in using computers and communication technologies to communicate care. “ – or how new media (txt messaging) might mediate communication regimes (counselling) in the health sector.
I think I’d like to hear Adam unpack “dialogue” in the context of the “new media” available to “generation.com” through the lens of McLuhan’s 4 Laws of Media
The 4 Laws of Media
1. What human trait or experience does the new medium ENHANCE?
o What is the intended function of the new medium or technology?
o What does it improve or make more efficient?
o Does it extend part of the human body, or one or more of the senses?
o Does it extend some aspect of the human mind (such as memory)?
o Does it amplify some human capability or augment some form of human action?
o Does it extend the individual, the group, or society?2. What pre-existing technology, method, system, or medium does the new medium OBSOLESCE?
o What older technology does the new medium replace?
o What does it render unnecessary?
o What procedures does it “short-circuit” or by-pass?
o What happens to the old medium that is rendered “obsolescent”: does it disappear entirely, become an art object, or find a new niche?3. What technology, method, system, or medium that was previously obsolesced or abandoned does the new medium RETRIEVE?
o What archaic elements are made relevant again?
o What previously marginalized or repressed ideas, practices, artifacts, or cultural aspects are brought forth and revived?4. When fully utilized or pushed to its extreme, what will the new media or technology REVERSE into?
o What effects will the new medium create that are OPPOSITE to what was originally intended?
o What are the contradictions inherent in the new technology? What is the “ecological”/”environmental” impact of the medium on its contemporary media environment?
Until then you can find me in the local karaoke bar wrapped around the mike belting out "I'm one step ahead of the shoe shine."
PAPER 33: 'Dialogue in Schools: Towards a Pragmatic Approach'
Adam Lefstein (King's College London), 2006 (pdf, 432 KB)
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