Based on interest I received about my most recent blog post The Power of Discussion, I decided to share some responses to Dean Bowen’s Teach Naked philosophy of removing computers in the classroom. To restate, José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas is not advocating removing computers from learning, but rather removing them from inside the classroom to regain class time for active learning.

To me, Bowen is most importantly advocating freeing up class time more so than eliminating technology from the classroom as he is encouraging a more spontaneous and natural process of learning through interaction. Bowen believes that technology should be regarded as a means to prepare students for class, rather than a means for students to skim through the material during class time. In other words, class time should be used to discuss what the students have learned on their own time. The dean’s goal is to use technology to free students from covering educational content in the classroom and instead encourage faculty and students to use class time to engage in live discussion.

In Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from your Classroom Will Improve Student Learning in the National Teaching & Learning Forum, an extended article written by Bowen on Teaching Naked, he states:
“…simple, new technologies can greatly increase your students’ engagement outside of the classroom and thus prepare them for real discussions (even in the very largest classes) by providing content and assessment before class time.”

Bowen is not anti-technology as he acknowledges that “technology will surely be a key component of all future higher education.” Rather, he feels that we must “rethink how we use technology inside [and] outside of the classroom.” He advocates that new technologies can have a “dramatic impact” on student learning with eight key advantages:

1. You can save everything: every experiment serves as the basis for a future trial.

2. Faculty can free themselves from content overload in preparing for class time. Bowen strongly endorses “under-preparing for class,” stating that “it will lead to your best teaching moments though it will feel a bit like teaching naked.”

3. Using email creates more class time. This allows teachers to avoid taking valuable class time to make announcements, such as rescheduling a midterm or making changes to an assignment. Emailing is also an effective way of communicating with students and allows professors to deliver vital information to students after class. In fact, Bowen claims that students appreciate this and it reinforces connecting learning with the entire college and life experience.

4. Teachers can guide students’ time outside of the classroom by providing timely reminders of key themes in the reading or connecting classroom topics to current events. Bowen claims a quick email about an item in the student or national newspaper that relates to a current class topic is the best way to engage students to relate their class to the bigger picture.

5. Facebook is an effective way for professors to reach students. Bowen states that posting an announcement on Facebook may reach students more quickly than other course management software, such as Blackboard.

6. Using online tests creates more class time – moving assessments outside of class time frees up class time for something more interesting. Bowen claims that this also provides opportunities for learning at different hours.

7. Peer review allows for students to share and critique their work. Bowen asserts that peer review is also a benefit to the core value of getting students to prepare for class.

8. Allowing for preparation of quizzes before classes to ensure that students are prepared for class. Bowen states that teachers can create brief multiple-choice questions and email a reminder and a deadline to all students to ensure that they will prepare for class.

Bowen finds quizzing students before class especially effective and claims “new technology makes this easier and even more effective.” He refers to an earlier version of this concept – Just in Time Teaching or “JiTT” (Novak, Patterson, Gavrin and Christian, 1999), where students work on an assignment before class and submit it before class – allowing teachers to focus on issues that students found most confusing or compelling.

Furthermore, Bowen advocates that PowerPoint has become “the most abused technology” in classrooms consisting of 20 or more students and he believes in maximizing the experience of human interaction between professors and students in colleges.

In his blog post On What it Would Mean to Really Teach “Naked”, Dave Parry responds to José Bowen’s Teach Naked philosophy, agreeing that “students shouldn’t spend class time looking at boring PowerPoint lectures.”

Parry states “using PowerPoint as an amped up version of chalkboards and old carousel slide projectors is a really bad use of resources.” Interestingly, he argues that the issue is not with technology itself, but is rather a poorly developed tool mimicking old technology without considering how it might change teaching practices. I agree with Parry that Bowen is not anti-technology but rather opposed to the way that it is currently used.

As Bowen uses podcasts and video games to teach, his approach is largely based on technology. Parry states that Bowen’s approach to teaching through using technology is intelligent as Bowen is able to deliver the course material outside of class time and save class time for discussion. Parry states “this is not a story about a luddite professor, but rather about a professor who has developed an effective way to use technology in education.”

Parry also claims that Bowen’s approach is close to the one he advocates: “use tech to generate more discussion and outsource content delivery.” Parry states that technology introduces new ways to engage students, but if they are used to “reproduce old pedagogies and student-teacher hierarchies… then teachers fail as educators.”

As I mentioned in the Power of Discussion, there was some resistance from students towards Bowen’s new learning model who are accustomed to being educated in traditional instructional ways. Parry supports this notion in stating that “[students] will be made uncomfortable by a classroom space where they have to take ownership of their own knowledge production.” Does challenging students indeed lead to more effective learning? Or does challenging students disengage them from taking part in active discussions as they may be accustomed to the traditional lecturing model?

Parry makes a convincing argument when he asserts that any teaching practice requires technology, stating that books, paper, pen, desks, chalkboards, and whiteboards are all technologies. Parry maintains “teaching, communicating, learning are thoroughly technological affairs… there is no learning without technology.”

I especially agree with this point made by Parry: “The issue is not technology but using the technology well to teach our students… teaching without digital technology is an irresponsible pedagogy because the future is digital… To educate students… without developing their digital literacy is to leave them ill prepared for their futures.” I couldn’t agree more.

I strongly agree that digital literacy is imperative for students as they must know how to use these new technologies to function as employees in society. I am intrigued by the point made by Parry that “the problem with PowerPoint pedagogy is that it uncritically uses technology, doesn’t teach students to reflect on how technology shapes ways of knowing and learning.”

Part of learning is critical thinking and I believe there should be more of a focus on discussion about how technology is impacting the delivery of information. I believe that there must be more education about critically assessing the information that we obtain through technology and students must learn more about how to decipher between true and false information – or credible and less credible information. Regardless, I think we can all agree on one point: the information out there is incredible. And hardly manageable. Eliminating PowerPoint and turning off the computers during class time won’t necessarily solve the problem of gaining class time. Students still need to manage the information that is out there and they need guidance from their professors about how to manage it.

Parry also believes that simply eliminating PowerPoint is not addressing the main issue. He argues that going back to teaching before technology “will produce a generation of students who don’t know how to critically engage with… these very technologies… Eliminating technology produces not the affect [sic] of a more engaged literate student populous, rather it produces the reverse, an ill informed, uncritical, unengaged student populous who will become at the very best passive consumers of the technology being resisted, and at the worst its willing victims.”

Thomas J. Hanson supports Parry’s arguments about the Teach Naked philosophy. In his blog post Dean Encourages Professors to Teach Naked? he states “[Bowen’s] idea of ‘Teaching Naked,’ either figuratively or literally, simply makes no sense.” Hanson writes that “while the idea of teaching naked initially appears focused on eliminating technology from the classroom, it is clear that the issue is not one related to machines. Instead, it is the lack of skill employed by the professor and the inability to use technology wisely.”

Hanson’s point relates back to my initial point in the Power of Discussion that PowerPoint is a tool for teaching and should not be used as the be-all-end-all. Furthermore, there are many channels that professors can consider in their teaching methods.

In my opinion, every student is a different learner – be it visual, audio, or kinesthetic/tactile. Each student responds differently to lectures, exercises, interaction with their peers or teachers, debates, presenting their perspectives on subjects, or written essays. Considering that each student is a different type of learner, the most effective way to teach students the material is to generally cater to each learning style. I believe that professors can do this by mixing the channels through which the information is delivered to students. I feel that repeating and reinforcing the material through podcasts, readings, and lectures will allow different types of learners to process the material. I think the more channels that are used for teaching – be it discussions mixed with online quizzes and even PowerPoint presentations – the more opportunities professors will give for students to engage and learn in the way that best suits their learning needs. How do you want to learn?