JITP Roundup: “Why Failure Matters”, a Lunchtime Presentation for ACERT
Photo Credit: Jessie Daniels @JessieNYC
On October 27th 2016, the Academic Center for Excellence in Research and Teaching (ACERT) at Hunter College held a lunchtime seminar entitled “Why Failure Matters: Editors from CUNY’s Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy on Learning from ‘Teaching Fails.” The Managing Editor of JITP, Laura W. Kane, introduced the aims and editorial guidelines of the journal, and discussed how the journal operates through a collaborative effort between 23 faculty members, graduate students, and academic staff at CUNY and other institutions.
Also joining the lunch was Sarah Ruth Jacobs, the editor of the journal’s Teaching Fails section. The Teaching Fails section provides an opportunity for faculty members from all disciplines to reflect on the ways in which their use of technology in the classroom fell short of their expectations. These failures can help instructors gain insight and improve in their future class plans. For example, in her Teaching Fails piece, Professor Karen Gregory reflected on how her public-facing course inadvertently failed in giving students a private space for assignments and online discussion.
As part of the session, attendees were asked to reflect on how their uses of technology had failed in the classroom. One insight that came out of this discussion was how it was important when introducing a new technology to students to explain not just “the how” but “the why:” why the technology is necessary and the ways in which it benefits students. When students don’t understand the motivation for learning a new technology, they are less engaged and willing. Attendees also reflected on how students need a lot of time and detailed instruction in order to properly use new technologies in their assignments; that is, the myth of the “digital native” who perfectly implements technologies can be a faulty line of thinking.
You can read more about the presentation on the ACERT blog. Details about our Teaching Fails section can be found on our sections of the journal page. We encourage submissions about ideas that didn’t work in the classroom – assignments that didn’t work out, readings that none of your students understood – that may help others to fail better. Questions about our Teaching Fails section should be sent to teaching.fails@jitpedagogy.org
