Does taking advantage of technology retard the development of important intellectual skills? I encountered an article today that addresses this issue on a broad scale (intelligence in the Internet age). It is an important question.
Whether we realize it or not, as educators, we make such decisions frequently. The elementary school teacher must decide whether or not students are allowed to use calculators and in what circumstances. The college statistics teacher must decide whether or not students are allowed to use computers or must rely on a calculator. We decide whether exams will be open or closed book.
A question I face concerns whether or not I should use technology to help students study more effectively. I design and evaluate computer supported study environments. As a simple example, I evaluate the benefits/detriments of providing notes (outline and complete) to students in introductory classes. I had a discussion related to this interest with a new faculty colleague today and it was like so many I have had with other colleagues over the years. The core issue in this discussion concerned whether providing notes to students retards the development of these students’ literacy skills. My colleague wanted to help students learn to process the increasing amount of material they encounter and suggested that by “making it easy” for students to identify key points and the structure of my presentations I may not be requiring the students to develop such skills. In addition, maybe the students would simply download my notes and not come to class.
It is not that I am suggesting that these are trivial decisions. Rather, I am suggesting that the positions people take are guided by assumptions rather than actual data. I cannot prove that by providing notes to students I am not undermining the long-term development of “learning to learn” skills. I think I can demonstrate that by providing notes I can improve student performance on exams. I am waiting for someone to demonstrate that “toughening students up” by providing them minimal support is a good long term strategy. If this turns out to be the case, I will have to rethink my position.
