A cruel pedagogical exercise I inflicted upon my students
Several weeks ago I conducted a cruel pedagogical experiment.
The class topic that day was mobile technology. I wanted to get students thinking about how mobility allows us to shake up learning spaces, but didn’t want to convey they idea just through presentation or discussion. I wanted them to realize and think it through more deeply.
So a few minutes before class began, I asked students to rearrange classroom furniture so that they sat in rows, facing front.
To appreciate this, know that the classroom is not a traditional one. It’s not a lab. It’s a studio space, where every bit of furniture — chairs, tables, whiteboards, video screens — is on wheels. Typically classes move items around until all are comfortable, typically in a circular, oval, or square shape, like so:
My own classes had followed that direction. They had also reshaped themselves to welcome people — fellow students, instructors, presenters — who appeared remotely, via video.
So when I asked the students to get retro, they were shocked and appalled. They complied, hauling tables and chairs around, but were clearly unhappy and confused. I kept my goal hidden for the moment.
After a couple of minutes it was done, and the seminar now lined up in ancient style before me. They marveled out loud and compared notes. I asked them to reflect further on the experience, and how it changed their sense of the learning environment.
They dove deep, realizing how many habits were ingrained in them by the row pattern. Experiences from undergrad years, from high school, from childhood rose up. Several students started raising their hands to be recognized, which they usually didn’t do in my class. Two found themselves slouching deeply in their chairs: a high school habit.
Some felt nervous that they couldn’t see each other, and kept shifting in their chairs to eye their classmates. They had a hard time connecting with anyone not immediately to their left or right. We could immediately see how the space now made community formation difficult. Other students saw me, now positioned at the front of the class, the object of their constrained vision, as a more authoritarian presence (my readers know this is the exact opposite of my pedagogy).
Once the reflections ran out of them, I let them change the space to how they liked. Students emitted big sighs of relief as they assembled an oval configuration.
Then I explained my goal, of getting them to think about learning spaces after mobile technology. That set up the next class hour very well, especially as I took the class on a quick tour of mobile’s history. The visceral, social experience made the week’s scholarly readings that much more powerful.
