Funky Cats and Our Teaching Stats
Shoutout to one of my favorite pandemic binges (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), for the inspiration for this title:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/H09aVaZ4ydk?start=5&end=13As my years in the classroom go on (and I sadly find myself with an ever-growing age gap between myself and my students), I am always intrigued by how the lives and experiences of my students are changing-I think it’s honestly a fear that soon will come the day that I am truly ‘out of touch’. I know what I often hear from my own students, trends I see as far as lifestyles, how they communicate with one another, how they claim to spend their free time, but I realize that might not be indicative of students their age across the country. Luckily, there is a variety of reports that can offer greater clarity to we educators who want to get more insight on just how much time our students are spending on social media, which apps they prefer over others, or even just knowing what in the world our kids are referring to when they use the newest slang words/sayings (it’s been nice knowing how to respond to comments about my ‘fit’, or if I think something passes a vibe check).
One trend I have been curious to learn more about is how students view e-learning versus in-person, especially since they have been through a mostly e-learning year, a mostly masked year, and now a mostly ‘normal’ year. According to Project Tomorrow’s report, “Does School Format Impact Students' Learning Experiences & Expectation?”, 16% of all in-person students actually report that they learn best in an online classroom setting, with 27% of online students feeling the same way.
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I have heard students talk about missing online learning, but never for any reason related to it being better for learning (kids would rather learn from their beds, they can take a break without asking, etc.). I would be interested in hearing more about why those students who say they learn best online feel that way, and what it is about in-person learning that could be improved to address those concerns. I do not know if there have been any meta-analyses done on the difference between online and in-person learning, but I would imagine the social-emotional aspects alone would be a huge point in favor of in-person, let alone the greater variety of activities, among other factors. The one thought I had (and it would be a sad reality) about why students might say they learn better online, would actually be because they don’t feel comfortable or look for those social-emotional connections; I know that conflict and lack of communication skills have been an issue in my own school, at least so far this year.
I feel that this overall speaks to the importance of educational research, because there are statistics that we might find that are surprising, or even seem to stand in the face of what we might see in our own classrooms or schools. This is not to say that we need to drop all that we are doing and just follow what national studies tell us (I’ll save the debate on nationalizing standardized education for another day), but it’s also important for teachers to not just live in the bubble that is their classroom, or think that what we see on a daily basis is reflective of education everywhere else in the country or the world. Similarly, coming out of what has undoubtedly been a crazy last two years, I think that the changing entity that education has become overall necessitates that teachers stay as up on the movings and happenings in that space as possible. Who knows what teaching and learning will look like in a couple more years out of the pandemic, once we get a complete picture of how different things are in schools and for students, so staying informed is something that we have to do.
One other report that I found interesting was Common Sense Media’s “The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Teens and Tweens, 2021”. That report showed that the entertainment screen usage per day for both teens and tweens has GREATLY increased in the past two years; while there was an 11% increase daily entertainment screen time for teens between 2015 and 2019, and a 3% increase for tweens in the same timeframe, both groups saw a 17% increase in just two years between 2019 and 2021. That's a LOT of new YouTube rabbit holes to go down.
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I realize that part of this would be the increase in screen time during the pandemic, when students spent extra time at home. However, I would have hoped that this would stay steady, or even decrease, once students had returned to school in-person. Just the sheer amount of time that students are spending on entertainment screen usage (which I would imagine is separate from educational) is shocking to me-almost nine hours per day for teens makes me feel like they essentially get home from school and are in front of a screen until they go to sleep. To me, this makes me feel like it is important for teachers to continually seek to incorporate non-screen time into their planning, even at the same time as looking to employ new technology. I think a lot of us have seen the screen zombies emerge among our students from time to time as it is; knowing that kids are already spending that much of their time in front of a screen outside of our classroom seems to me a need to double down on finding a balance between screens and not. Similar to the point above, this statistic tells me that schools need to be especially mindful of helping students understand ways to forge and nurture interpersonal relationships, and how to resolve conflict in the moment, which are harder to do online. At least it feels to me that way; I also sometimes wonder if I’m just getting too old to know how kids form their healthiest relationships with each other, and that there is a lot more than can be done on a screen than I would have thought possible when I was 13, when AOL Instant Messenger was the apex of my online communication.
References
Common Sense Media. (2022, March 9). The common sense census: Media use by teens and tweens, 2021 [Infographic]. Commonsensemedia.org. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2022-infographic-8-18-census-web-final-release_0.pdf
Project Tomorrow. (2021). Does school format impact students' learning experiences & expectation? [Infographic]. Tomorrow.org. https://tomorrow.org/speakup/School-Format-Expereinces-and-Expectations-7-2021.html
Thanks for the additional context for your title! A couple of things stood out to me in your post, Adam. First, the online learning vs in-person learning for students. I've found that most people want to quickly condemn education's response to the pandemic but I think there was a lot that came out of that. I did an informal poll via social media during the closures and several teachers of older students said their students would often work late at night and reach out to the teachers then. They loved that. The ability to stop working and grab a quick break as well. Aren't these characteristics of some professions? Could we see this as helping get students ready for adult jobs?
ReplyDeleteI also loved your observation that teachers shouldn't use technology for technology's sake. Students (and parents, and teachers, and the world) spend so much time online (in part because it's so easy to do with mobile devices) that it is a must that we be intentional with our use of technology in school. Great post.
Adam, great post. I agree I was shocked by the numbers of screen time that was recorded. It made me wonder as educators were we not providing enough non screen time activities that allow them to learn those skills to communicate and learn from one another in person or had the pandemic along with technology being included in learning create a lack or desire for them to interact with others in person. I liked how mention that teachers often get lost in their classroom bubbles. I think is true, we easily forget that schools are not all the same as the one your are in and being aware of that is important. Thanks for sharing.
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