Talk to the faculty at OFDAS, February 1997
Leon James (leon@hawaii.edu)
Professor of Psychology, Gartley Hall
Leon James Home Page
(click on "Student Generational Reports" or on "Tour Guides")
Description:
This project uses electronic technology to create a cumulative generational database of the papers, reports and course assignments that students hand in. The database grows every semester with the addition of each student "generation." Every semester, the new students read and process the online work of all the prior generations before they write their own. Their reports are then added to the database for future generations. Since hypertext technology is involved, the students write their reports by integrating their text with the text of prior students. The generational database is not simply a collection whose index is growing longer with new additions, as is the case for artificial documents and databases. Rather, the online generational curriculum is a single virtual super-document that grows in size as well as in complexity or inter-relationship. It is organic and has a cultural life and rhythm of its own.
Educational Purpose: To produce an instructional context for teaching critical thinking and effective writing skills through two techniques:
(I) Enhancing learning through social motivation and group identification (online community classroom)
(II) Cumulating, processing, preserving, and making use of the work of generations of students (the generational curriculum)
Philosophy of Writing Assignments:
1. Students write for students -- same generation and across generations (authentic writing -- "I'm not just pretending")
2. Students write about what they thought and felt when reading, searching, reporting, and carrying out instructions (objective writing -- "What I know from experience")
3. Students write their assignments by following a written outline or sequence of questions prepared by the instructor (responsive writing -- "Making sure I address each question or item")
4. Students always read, process, and critique prior generation assignments before writing their own (project writing -- modeling and furthering group topics)
Classroom Techniques:
1. Social ingathering activities to overcome technophobia and resistance:
(the roll call interview; pep talks about generational identification; group problem solving about assignments and new vocabulary; identifying and acknowledging the leaders who finished first or best or were most creative and innovative; e-mail communication and critique of each other's reports; giving points for bringing hints to class)
2. Encouraging the feeling of organicity through the analogy of forming an online learning community:
(cumulative generational topics; common deadlines and extensions; mutual responsibility (e.g., being a tutor to someone); common phases of development; generational identity; joint lab attendance; class photo; alumni volunteers as tutors)
3. Fostering intentionality for self-reliant leadership:
(written self-paced exercises to achieve computer literacy; class debates on topics; oral reports on magazine articles with required discussions; identifying with the success of prior generations)
Benefits:
1. The generational curriculum allows students access to the ideas and discoveries of other students, across time and geographical location
2. It encourages students to learn and adopt professional standards in writing since they are writing for an actual audience
3. The topics students write about are also of interest to the general public and can be informative to people on the Web who use a search engine to look for certain topics covered by the students' work
4. Students become information and computer literate as a by-product of their online work assignments
5. The virtual super-document produced and grown by successive generations of students is a unique cultural resource suitable for historical and ethnographic research
6. Students are experiencing difficulty learning new computer skills but at the same time they see themsleves as contributing to a totality that is bigger than themselves. They see themselves creating something valuable for the use of others, something which will survive them
7. All past students can go on the Web wherever they are and see how their work was interpreted and processed by subsequent students. This is revealing and delightful to them.
References:
An entry point to all generational student reports
Four online articles explaining the rationale for the generational community approach
Sample assignment instructions for the current semester will be found here