That’s what it feels like when you take a class of ninth graders to the lab and try something new.
In this case, it was transforming a typical World History lesson on the French Revolution by adding a collaboration tool to see if it increases student participation and encourages deeper analysis of content.
A staple of history lessons, the Estates Generale simulation requires students to examine the three competing orders of the semi-feudal society of France at the advent the Revolution by assuming the role of either the clergy, the nobility or the peasants and bourgeoisie. With France brought to the brink of bankruptcy by an inadequate system of taxation, and people starving from rising prices and diminishing harvests, the archaic royal government of extreme wealth was facing inevitable change. Reenacting the first meeting of the assembly which had not met in 175 years, the students were to research the issues upon which their assigned role would focus, and bring to class a list of demands to negotiate first with the other members of their order to produce a single list of proposals to reform France and then with the other two orders in a whole class debate.
E-mails with detailed individual role descriptions were sent to students along with a homework assignment to post their personal list of demands in a Moodle forum. In class, each order would draft their common proposals in a single Google document. Although it is a little buggy at times, Google allows for simultaneous editing of documents. Instead of sitting in one corner of the room and arguing about taxes and voting schemes and the structure of government with only one student trying to reduce the conversation to a concrete list of proposals, all students could work on the detailed list of proposals at the same time.
In theory. Reality is a little different than theory.
In reality four students never made it into the documents. At first I thought this was a common PEBSAK error due to lack of screen awareness. No digital natives here, when denied access to the document it was easier to raise their hand and call my name than click on the link that read “request access to document”. Yet we were still unsuccessful when I walked back and forth between their machine and mine and went through every step of the process of inviting them as collaborators and logging into Google. At the same time a half dozen others were calling out my name with other problems that were solvable, yet each took a minute or so to resolve. This is the head in a blender effect and is likely to strike any teacher who takes a class to the lab to try something new.
The easy solution to this is to take a hint from the elementary schools and have a red plastic cup that students can put on the top of their monitor when they need assistance rather than calling for the teacher. Plus I can rest assured that none of these problems will exist the next time they use Google docs. That’s not the point.
The question is how can I transfer my tolerance for the head in a blender to other teachers?
If it is frustrating for those of us with experience in technology, how much more is it for someone who doesn’t know where to start with those login problems?
You could try to transfer the excitement of the process, but that can be construed as grandstanding or at the very least, more evidence of technology’s bell and whistles.
You could demonstrate its effectiveness by showing the product of the students who did make it into the document. After they used it for a chat room, they realized what they were doing and got down to some serious business. Because the students were collectively writing the document rather than just shouting at the one person writing it, there was a much greater level of detail. Some students who are usually quiet in class discussions contributed more because they were in a comfortable environment.
You could show how the collaboration on the shared document generated excitement that spilled back into the forum as students continued their discussion later that day.
Do any of these approaches stand a chance against the head in a blender?