Flipping WILD
“Just you wait and see,” scoffed the colleague sitting behind me; “Pfft, in a few years they won’t even need us anymore!” I winced as I bit my tongue and reminded myself that I was not the facilitator of this discussion, nor of this particular way of thinking. This fellow teacher, quite substantially my elder and perpetually disgruntled at our ongoing administrative efforts to incorporate technology into every course, was clearly feeling the pangs of marginalization coupled with a severe case of technophobia. The “they” to whom she was referring was the students, specifically the millennial learner, and her comment came hard on the heels of the announcement that the college had upgraded its standard CMS to include a number of more desirable features. As the conversation morphed into a debate about the student cell phone usage policy, I sat at my annual adjunct faculty in-service and quickly realized that my zeal to make learning a more accessible and empowered endeavor for the learner through ubiquitous computing is still an uphill climb.
Overwhelmed by a sense of stagnation, I drove home from that meeting agonizing over what I should have said. Often I am amazed by how resistant we educators are to change. A few years ago in the very same room one of our psychology adjuncts had posed the idea of collaboration to establish a flipped classroom model of engagement. That idea was met with moans and groans too. The thought of removing the instructor from the lectern and allowing students to lead entire discussions, perhaps even answer questions, was an insulting notion to many while to some others it was simply lazy teaching. Self-directed learning experiences with more classroom time devoted to team-oriented objectives rather than a learned professor dispensing sage wisdom to captive students would surely promote anarchy. (Right?) However, the concept of learning by doing and engaging students in a more active learning role is a trend that does not seem to be going away (Johnson et. al, p. 36). Further, it shifts the role of the instructor to become much more an adaptive facilitator.
The majority of my students are millennials. They have never known life without the internet; they cling to their smartphones the way my mother once clung to her Beatles 45’s. It is not our responsibility to judge their entire generation; it is our job to find ways to reach them, and that necessitates embracing the WILD. Let’s face it, technology is going to reach the top of that mountain whether we climb along with it or not! In 1965 the Etch-A-Sketch was a wireless interactive learning device (WILD); about a century before that, the school slate was the mobile learning tool du jour; and the ancients utilized the abacus as ready-to-hand equipment. Pea and Maldonado assert that WILDs “allow teachers to take a conductive role”(p. 437) in the delivery of content. Continuing along that same vein, Sharples (p. 10) asserts that the challenge of mobile learning is “to set guidelines for appropriate use and to provide tools and resources for personal learning.” Educators are facilitators of the learning process, not knowledge embodied. Flipping classrooms and embracing technology are just two examples of how we may better serve our learners. And while some may find it daunting to move toward a community of inquiry wherein we embrace the current and common WILD, I feel strongly that failing to do so is a failure to our students.
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & Freeman, A. (2014). NMC Horizon Report: 2014. (Flipped classrooms, 36-37).
Pea, R. D., & Maldonado, H. (2006). WILD for learning: Interacting through new computing devices anytime, anywhere. (Chapter 25).
Sharples, M. (2013). Mobile learning: research, practice and challenges. Distance Education in China, 3(5), 5-11.
