| Fashioning the Emperor's New Clothes: Emerging Pedagogy and Practices of Turning Wireless Laptops Into Classroom Literacy Stations @SouthernCT.edu by Christopher Dean, Will Hochman, Carra Hood, and Robert McEachern |
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The
Many Colored Coat of the Emperor: Multi-layered,
Literate, and Physical: Node V The
First Frontier of Space Section Three Joseph Walters, in his piece entitled, "Application of Multiple Intelligences Research in Alternative Assessment," defines the seven intelligences that Howard Gardner discussed in his seminal text Frames of Mind as, "a theory of intelligence that can reflect the complexity of skills and performances that humans exhibit in the world. By examining those skills, we might reason backwards to the 'intelligences' that must be responsible." Those original seven intelligences (they're up to eight now in teacher-education literature) are, as defined by Gardner,
These intelligences are to a degree self-explanatory, and many of them are well served by electronic discourse, particularly linguistic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences. However, I argue that because of the absence of a physical body in electronic discourse, spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences receive less play. This was what stopped me from using communication technologies before because I was trying to teach to all the intelligences in a classroom. I have students discuss, write, perform, and reflect within a classroom--trying as hard as I can to give students a chance to learn in a modality and intelligence they're most comfortable with. It always felt that there was something lacking in online discussions, and what was lacking was the body and physical space. I now know that what I felt was a loss of sorts--a loss I wonder if my students feel. In a classroom dedicated solely to electronic discourse, the body, and the attendant strategies for working with and through the body, ceases to be important communicatively. A classroom that puts students stationary in front of computers puts those students who learn best through their bodies at a disadvantage. It kills the possiblities of having students physically perform in real space and time. Like my colleagues and co-authors, Bob McEachern and Carra Hood, I find that an absence of an emphasis on the physical nature of teaching can lead to odd dislocations pedagogically speaking. For me, there was and maybe still is something about computerized classrooms that can inhibit the way students are able to draw on their bodily-kinesthetic intelligences to make sense of their learning. As someone who teaches student teachers about classroom management, I often have these student teachers act out instances of misbehavior they have seen or experienced in their student teaching. I ask them to assume the posture, voice, and attitude of their students. This can be done instantly in a physical performance, and it allows all the student teachers in the class to see, hear, and understand a performance of a classroom management issue in front of them. You can of course perform in a MOO or MUD, but what is lost is the immediate look and feel of that performance. This may seem like a niggling concern, but becoming aware of non-verbal, physical cues is essential to keeping a class safe and comfortable. In a classroom where computers are fixed, eat up all available performance space, and ultimately become the center of activity, it is near ly impossible to have students engage in spontaneous performance with the end of learning kinesthetically through performance. On a more mundane level, it is nearly impossible to get students to talk effectively after or before using desktop computers. The size of the monitors, the computers' stationary nature, and the students desire to interact with the computers (either on- or offtask) has worked against substantive discussions. That's changed, and I want to talk about why. |
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