My skepticism remained constant during our next class meeting as he explained more about the assignment. As the class period progressed, it seemed as though the class let out a small yet collective sigh of relief. Almost as if we said, “Okay, we can do this.” I believe that my and my classmate’s initial hesitation stems from exactly what Dr. Ekin is so worried about. The ancient system of education has required that we do very little. We are asked, as students, to show up. To be physically present, but not much more. We buy the books, read and highlight the chapters assigned according to the syllabus. We complete cases and assignments. We write papers and most importantly, we study for tests. Lastly, we take the tests and earn our grades. Students at Providence College are no doubt bright, but they are products of their previous years of education. We were so nervous about this assignment because we have never encountered anything like it before. We were more comfortable with the boring, vanilla syllabus filled with industry analyses, executive summaries and cases that asked nothing more of us than what was stated on the paper. Why are we so scared to complete an unprecedented task?

In my senior year of high school I took an advanced level English course. Our end of the year assignment was to create a twenty-minute documentary on a subject of our choice. We decided to complete a project on the problems with education since we experienced them firsthand. Over the next three days, with little sleep and a lot of junk food, we created something we were truly proud of. We focused on how much time students spend in school and how little of that time is stimulating for them. We took a deeper look at how the current system of education, since it is so outdated, still forces the student to memorize and repeat, rather than form original ideas. I can still say that creating that documentary with my peers was the best learning experience I have had. We bounced ideas off one another, discussed the meaning and implications of the problems and said things that hadn’t been said before. Our ideas unfolded as the hours went on and we created something greater than we thought was ever possible. The reactions from teachers, students and administrators was extremely encouraging.

Clearly, the ideas explored by my friends and I are still important. If anything, the influx of technology and online access to youth has created further gaps in education. A recent article I came across supports these claims. Since students are spending an increased amount of time online and with mobile devices, their interest in learning has decreased. It is of no surprise that textbooks and maps can no longer hold their attention. Students are becoming more and more like consumers, shopping around for the best deal and skimming for the most relevant, helpful information. Students today read a Wikipedia page on a subject they have never encountered before and feel confident that they have mastered the idea. But just getting “the jist” of a subject is not enough. We are forgetting that mastering a subject is far more valuable and rewarding.

These changes in education have been a long time coming. It seems as though those who are capable of making changes – politicians, law makers, educators and administrators are acting with extreme complicity. They see the problems as China and India’s students make ours look positively brain dead; however, they are slow to do anything about it. Students are graduating without the ability to access complex thoughts, use critical thinking skills and truly form an idea their own. These skills are not something we can “Google.” I feel as though if we are committed to this cause, the system of education, through time and hard work, will only benefit from the implementation of new methods.

This post is a welcome addition to this site. Allison shared the video clip she mentioned in her post with me and allowed me to share it here. There will be a better quality version coming soon, but I think the video really complements her post. Thank you Allision for your thoughtful post. Others are welcome to share their thoughts too.

For the benefit of thos who are not in the class, we are undertaking to organize an “event” at the end of the semester to “market” the idea of “learning-centered education, creativity, and thinking”. We do not yet know what that event will be, that is up to the entire class. But, “learning-centeredness” has already started.

Watch the video

– Cemal Ekin

Now, I am not providing these videos as a point where everything ends but rather where we start our journey to discover who we are. You will find many more thinkers who have devoted their lives to enhancing learning, education, creativity, thinking, and in general human capacity. Let us follow their lead and see where the journey takes us at the end of the semester.

As you can tell, I am a fan of Sir Ken Robinson, and for good reason. I hope you will watch the videos with care and attention they deserve, they are more about your future than my past. I also enjoyed reading the works of Edward De Bono who is a noted expert on thinking and teaching thinking. Here are a few more words and phrases that may lead you to other fertile grounds: “abductive reasoning”, “lateral thinking”, “divergent thinking”, “design thinking”.

Post comments if you like, take notes, open your mind, learn how to forget to learn more.

Turkish American Cultural Society of RI

Atlantic RI (GoFaucet.com) on its own domain

International Business Development Association (IMDA) (visible soon)

St. Pierre’s Shoes (visible soon)

One of these sites has already gone live under its own domain and the others will be ported to their respective domains soon. Congratulations to all for a job well done, I am proud of your work and so should you be.

[Show as slideshow]

I hope all is going well.  I was a student in your class back in 2004 (Marketing on the Internet).  I went through the motions of the course but didn’t really fully understand or apply the course to the real world.  I didn’t have ambition and lacked motivation.  This was a huge mistake on my part.  The major project of the course was to create a website for an established business.  Our group chose my father’s company – JJ’s Appliance Repair.  We constructed a very well made website but I never registered the website or secured an address for it and the computer I used in College is no longer.

I was wondering if you still had this site saved in the Providence College database, or have a draft of it saved in your files.  If you do not have this I plan to create a website from scratch for my father’s business.  I realize now that the Internet is an integral piece of marketing/advertising your business properly and am seeking to help my father achieve this goal for his business.  I need to make up for what I already had at my fingertips.

Please let me know if you can help.

Sincerely,

Joe Student

To which I replied:

I remember you and your father’s business being your project. Good to hear from you, I hope everything is going your way. It is also interesting to hear your hind-sight take on the course. If you do not mind, I would like to share your message with my students this semester, I will suppress your name.

I do not have a copy of your Web site. However, in those days you kept your projects on the StudentWeb server and with some amount of luck you may be able to find it. First, remember whether it was saved under your account or one of your team mates’ account. Then check the studentweb.providence.edu to see if it is still there. It may not be. Then, you may contact the administrator of StudentWeb and see if they have a backup copy that they can resurrect. If none of this works, then you are back on square one.

Starting this semester, I am teaching the course using a freely available blog/CMS (content management system) software called WordPress ( www.wordpress.org ). I suggest that you look into that. It will make your life significantly simpler. My academic and photography Web sites both run on WordPress platform. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of “themes” that allow you to give the look you want and the content is very easy to update. Take a look at my syllabus for MOTI and read the blog section for a couple of entries on WordPress that I posted for my students. There are a couple of recommended books which you may find helpful. If you decide to take on this and try WordPress and occasionally stumble, write to me and I will try to help you out; I still have a chance to make you learn the material, better late than never!

Take care and keep in touch.

Cemal Ekin

A little after sending the above message, I heard from “Joe” who enthusiastically told me to share this story and added:

You can definitely share my message with your students. Out of embarrassment for myself please do suppress my name. I was very naïve in college and definitely took some of my courses and studies for granted. I am doing very well …
…
<snip some text>
…
Here is another story if you would like to use it:

I distinctly remember arguing with you about my grade at the end of the year – I think I received a C or C– or something. I completed all of the coursework and our team received a really good grade on the website and presentation. If you took into account the projects and coursework that I completed and calculated it based strictly on my grades I probably should have ended up with a strong B if not an A-. I was pretty upset to see that I had been given such a low grade. Looking back now, I think the C was gratuitous because you probably should have failed me for being stupid enough not to take the final/easiest step of getting the website on the Internet and taking advantage of the online platform for my father’s business. Looking back on my College career, all I cared about was the grade and not so much learning and understanding the work behind the grade. I guess it’s never too late – I am sure you will be hearing from me about WordPress. Thanks again.

Sincerely,

Joe

I am grateful that “Joe” wrote to me and gave me an opportunity to share his experiences during and after his college years.

Thank you Joe.

Study by objectives

Understand what you are trying to learn before the study session begins. Quickly browse the chapter in five minutes or less to get familiar with the general nature of the material. Then, write on a piece of paper several learning objectives.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

There is no doubt that we will all make a mistake sooner or later. There is a great learning opportunity in what you might otherwise call failure, like receiving a low grade on an exam. Instead, take that as a great opportunity to find out why you received that grade and devise ways to prevent it from happening again. The greatest failure is the failure to learn from mistakes and the worst mistake is the one we repeat.

Assess learning

After you finish studying, refer back to your objectives to assess their achievement. If necessary, go back and review the part that you may have missed. You may save a great deal of time this way since you only have to study what has not clicked yet.

Teach to learn

Teaching is an excellent learning method. Try explaining what you have learned to a willing friend. You will be surprised to see how much more sense the material makes all of a sudden.

Don’t daydream, have fun

Daydreaming is a black-hole that swallows your time. In a contest, leisure wins over study. Don’t let them compete. Spare time for fun. Don’t steal from your study time and feel guilty about it. Have fun after serious studying.

Don’t procrastinate

“Later” is too close to the deadline and the end of the semester is sooner that you think. After procrastinating for a while, the backlog will be so great you will fall into another trap: “there is too much to study, I don’t know where to start.” It is easier to go over little hills than great mountains.

Manage time

One of the most important factors in good class performance is time management. The most likely reason of missed-deadlines is lack of organization. You need to have a system that will let you handle several classes with assignments, upcoming job interviews, personal commitments, and a good dose of “senioritis”. Organize your day, week and the semester to do all that and still have a little time for fun.

Be realistic

Don’t underestimate the time required to complete a project. You feel comfortable when you have the most time at the beginning of the semester and panic when you can least afford it, at the end of the semester. Remember, most projects will take more time than you think.

Set a schedule and stick to it

If you don’t stick to your schedule, time will slip through your fingers. Do things on schedule, not later or tomorrow.

Visit these pages periodically

If you have tips to share, send them to me. I will incorporate them to these pages with due credit to you unless you wish to remain anonymous. Wisdom cannot be told but experiences can be shared to build it.

Organize early and you will be rewarded. Select a team leader who can organize meetings, keep assignments on time, and make the administrative burden much lighter on everyone. Exchange telephone numbers and e-mail addresses with each other and make sure that I have a copy of this information for the entire team.

Schedule standing meetings when everyone will show-up. Allow extra meeting time during the heavy load periods if necessary. Remember, the only people responsible for an efficient team are the team members! If there are minor difficulties in scheduling, assignments, etc., at the beginning, I will be glad to lend a hand to organize the team. I am a member of every team!

Learning is hard and it requires deliberate effort and it is intensely personal. Other people may do many things for each other but nobody can learn for someone else for it happens in the mind of the individual.

There is brute force “learning,” memorizing. This may be useful in the short run for some kinds of learning. Learning that will endure over time is important. That requires more care and determination on the part of the learner.