Week 4: Why I still have a job (Annotated Bibliography for Selwyn (2011) and Bayne (2015)))
(Annotated Bibliography) for Selwyn (2011) Will Technology Displace the Teacher?, and to an extent, Bayne (2015) Teacherbot: interventions in automated learning.
The images used in this gif were taken from Goodfellas. 1990. [film] Martin Scorsese.
Immediately after reading this chapter, I took a look at my student feedback scores over the last 3 years. Not out of panic… okay partly… but mainly out of curiosity. I wanted to know what, at least from the perspective of my students, makes (me) a good teacher. Yes, being a “good” teacher isn’t enough to keep one’s job if the brass ultimately decides replace me with a robot because it is more productive, more efficient and cheaper. Nonetheless, this is a good place to start. What is it about me that makes me employable and perhaps, irreplaceable?
So, I printed the responses from over 100 students and I did a some (manual) coding. It just didn’t feel right, to rely on technology to justify why it shouldn’t replace me. Apparently, my students found me to be caring (towards them), passionate and energetic (in class) and knowledgeable (about my subject matter), amongst other things. But there it was, right in front of me. One recurring reason why they made the effort to travel to the end of the country on a weekly basis, for some after a long workday, was that I made them laugh. Nevertheless, the behaviourists could still argue that my role is that of a “facilitator and supporter” (Selwyn, 2011, p. 122) because my students did not identify my expertise as my key strength.
Two hours can be a long time. I would know, because I once accompanied a date to a modern dance performance. It was an excruciatingly painful experience. I’ve always believed in the importance of good teacher-student rapport in order to “mitigate the typical asymmetric power dynamic within the classroom” (Sybing, 2019: 19). This need became more crucial in determining the success of my lessons when I started to teach communication modules to engineering students. I was never really a good STEM student, therefore I need my students to be comfortable enough to participate and contribute in terms of content knowledge. Hence, I try to view my lessons as performances to keep my students engaged. I would go as far as to plant jokes, skits and anecdotes in my lesson plans.
Aside from encouraging participation, humour has other pedagogical benefits. In the table below, I’ll try to use the process of elimination to determine whether a teacher-less environment using new technologies can achieve the same benefits listed by Powell and Anderson (2006). The teacherbot described in Bayne (2015) was able to engage and amuse students, but not intentionally.
| Benefit of Humour | How technology may be employed to achieve the same outcome without the teacher |
| Promoting comprehension and retention | According to Bassili’s (2008) media richness theory, using richer media can aid comprehension and retention. While a live lesson can be multi-modal (e.g. using videos, audio, images), this can also be achieved without a teacher present. Moreover, an online module allows the student to take full control of the pace of learning and this may be less taxing on the working memory (Casey, 2003). |
| Holding students’ attention | Humour can be written into the online course materials. |
| Fostering cognitive development | Powell and Andersen (2006, p. 80) suggest that “the use of humour – especially that involving wit, puns and other forms of wordplay- aids cognitive development by encouraging highly complex linguistic skills and the ability to use these in a creative manner. Again, these linguistic features can be embedded into the online course materials. |
| Managing undesirable behaviour | Powell and Andersen (2006, p. 81) note that humour can be used to manage undesirable behaviour such as arriving late to class, talking amongst each other and being distracted. These undesirable behaviours are largely absent in an isolated learning environment that is controlled entirely by the student. |
| Building self-confidence | It is possible to achieve this using tasks such as quizzes and games with funny characters where students are awarded achievement badges or points. |
| Enhancing the quality of student lives | Powell and Andersen (2006) highlight the responsibility of teachers to use humour to enhance their students’ lives by making them more agreeable and enjoyable. Unfortunately, this can again be pre-planned. |
| Creating a positive classroom environment | Students could use online platforms such as teleconferencing and discussion boards. The “equalising influence” noted by Powell and Anderson (2006, p. 80) that laughter exerts could appear in the form of light-hearted instructions. |
This is bleak. Every benefit mentioned above by Powell and Andersen can be achieved in an automated online course that excludes my active participation.
Perhaps, my saving graces are my wit, spontaneity and most importantly controversial sense of humour. The best stand-up comedians (e.g. Frankie Boyle, Jimmy Carr, Dara O’Briain) are arguably those who not involve their audience but allow them to take the lead and respond accordingly. Carr regularly invites heckling from the crowd and Boyle enjoys destroying his audience. Moreover, Bayne (2015) did mention that the teacher bot’s interventions were “generally ‘clunky’ and often rather wide-of-the-mark’. I have noticed that my most of students like being the butts of my humourous examples. I can’t recall a time when a student got offended by my sarcastic but joking retort to a poorly formulated argument or less-than-relevant example. My well-timed overstressed pronunciations of academics like Fukkink and Bitchener have never failed to leave my students in stitches. Of course, I do calculate my responses so that I do not cross any lines and step on landmines (e.g. religion, disability).
The key to the utilisation of humour in the classroom could be ownership. I have noticed that I am more conscious of what I say online. I am aware that as an employee, I do represent my university and that what I say could possibly be misconstrued as the institution’s stand. However, even when I don’t use a disclaimer (e.g. “in my personal opinion”), my students are clear that the joke is all mine. As noted by Selwyn (2011, p. 130), some teachers resist technology because their work online is more “visible – and therefore, – more easily monitored and ‘assessed’ by their employers”. In my live lessons, I employ the “what happens in Vegas” rule. Online, however, I must admit that I am afraid that what I say can be taken out of context and shared over the internet. I can’t see a situation where an institution, especially in this day and age where political correctness is rife, would purposefully risk their reputation by employing controversial humour in their online course materials.
At this juncture, I think I still have a job because I am human. My jokes can be automated, but my sense of humour cannot. Similarly, I’ve played counsellor to my charges and attended to their pastoral needs. They could seek guidance and help from an automated counselling service on a website. Though they may get answers, they will not receive empathy.
References:
Bassili, J. N. (2008). Media richness and social norms in the choice to attend lectures or to watch them online. Journal of educational multimedia and hypermedia, 17(4), p.453.
Bakar, F. & Kumar, V. (2019). The use of humour in teaching and learning in higher education classrooms: Lecturers’ perspectives. Journal of English for academic purposes, 40, pp.15–25.
Bayne, S. (2015). Teacherbot: interventions in automated teaching. Teaching in higher education, 20(4), pp.455–467.
Casey, P. J. (2003). Teaching How to Solve “That Man’s Father Is My Father’s Son”: Adapting Teaching Method to Working Memory Capacity. Australian journal of psychology, 55(3), pp.140–147.
Powell, J. P. & Andresen, L. W. (2006). Humour and teaching in higher education. Studies in higher education (Dorchester-on-Thames), 10(1), pp.79–90.
Selwyn, N. (2011). Education and technology: key issues and debates. London, Continuum International Pub. Group.
Sybing, R. (2019). “Making Connections: Student-Teacher Rapport in Higher Education Classrooms: Student-teacher rapport in higher education classrooms”, Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, vol. 19, no. 5.
This is an excellent post that gets to the heart of why AI should not replace human teachers. Having an affective/emotional bond or relationship with your students that’s within professional boundaries can help personalise learning and motivate students. Equally, AI can’t replace stand-up comedians – it’s all about empathy and shared experience. I worry though that AI will be cheaper than human teachers so AI is more likely to be offered to working class students.