Multimodality in the Classroom

Exploring the Possibilities

Saturday, October 28, 2006

"Is Teaching Still Possible?: Writing, Meaning, and Higher Order Reasoning" - an essay by Ann E. Berthoff

Before delving too deeply into the question of whether or not multimodal presentations can aid in the endeavor of classroom education, I feel like we should first focus on the question asked by Berthoff's "Is Teaching Still Possible?: Writing, Meaning, and Higher Order Reasoning." After all, if it turns out that the act of teaching is actually no longer possible, then this whole blog would be dissolved into a moot point.


Article Breakdown:

With this essay, Berthoff investigates the cognitive process involved in learning and in expressing one's self through writing. She emphasizes a duty for instructors, through alternative interpretations of language and meaning, to "invent a pedagogy that views reading and writing as interpretation and the making of meaning" (743). This consideration will in turn allow instructors to circumvent the hazards of traditional developmental models. The underlying goal with this reconsideration is that unless “a learning is engaged [with the teaching model], no meaning will be made, no knowledge can be won” (744). She cites the Piagetian model of education, which “represents the stages of development of the language and thought of the child” (743), as insufficient in addressing the needs of older students and further investigates the writings of several prominent field researchers that support or detract from this idea.

By breaking down the essence of learning via language, Berthoff further shows why it is necessary for modern teachers to move beyond these traditional understandings of language and education: “If you start with a working concept of language as a means of making meaning, you are recognizing that language can only be studied by means of language” (745). This presentation seems to imply a limited effectiveness for teachers who rely too heavily on archaic lecturing tactics to shape student understanding (instead of including various multimodal discussions and activities that would expand the "language" used and studied in class). Because of this limited focus, Berthoff explains that students are not given the guidance needed to adequately interpret and apply writing concepts. The author cites I.A. Richards in showing that this inadequacy prevents students from recognizing the role of language and expression as tools for defining one’s “becoming.” Instead, language is viewed as a hard-to-crack code, an obstacle that must be overcome in order to convey information.

Further emphasizing the importance of engaging the student’s mind in active learning, Berthoff explains that “[teachers], by means of a careful sequence of lessons or assignments, can assure that the students are conscious of their minds in action [and] can develop their language by means of exercising deliberate choice” (747). According to Piaget, these lesson plans should test students’ cognitive understanding by removing themselves as far as possible from “language-dependent settings” (749). However, as we hark back to Berthoff’s earlier stipulation that Piaget applied his youth-teaching techniques to the role of post-secondary teachers, we may be inclined to notice her disagreement with this assessment. Instead, one might note that while this method could be effective for teaching children, young adults may need a more advanced focus.

Berthoff explains that students do not experience difficulty in forming abstractions as much as they do in forming generalizations. Abstract thinking, she claims, is “the way we make sense of the world in perception, in dreaming, in all expressive acts, in works of art, in all imagining” (751). This imagination is something naturally inherent to us all through birth. The difficulty that we all face as teachers, then, is in moving “from abstraction in non-discursive mode to discursive abstraction, to generalization” (751), in other words, applying a method to the madness of abstract thinking.

To give us direction in our quest to develop our students’ generalizing techniques, the author cites Kenneth Burke and his studies concerning multiple perceptions: “Looking again and again [at a subject] helps students learn to transform things into questions; they learn to see names as ‘titles for situations’” (753). Expanding on this idea, Berthoff adds, “In looking and naming, looking again and re-naming, [students] develop perspectives and contexts, discovering how each controls the other. They are composing; they are forming; they are abstracting” (754). This consideration of multiple perspectives drives the students’ learning as they begin to learn less in terms of facts and more in terms of concepts. Concept formation as it is often called,” explains Berthoff, “must be deliberately learned and should therefore be deliberately taught.”


How Multimodality Can Help:

Right off the bat, we can see that teaching using multimodal concepts would speak directly to Berthoff’s request for pedagogies that “[view] reading and writing as interpretation and the making of meaning.” Particularly employing the idea of multiple perspectives, presenting students with a subject through a variety of different media would guarantee the inclusion of many different opinions, and thus perspectives, on that particular subject.

For example, consider a lesson plan discussing the influence of Miles Davis in the world of music. One lesson plan could include the instructor’s commentary on a particular text or writing that discusses the trumpet player’s role in the history of jazz. In this case, the students are presented with two perspectives: the writer of the discussed text and the instructor’s commentary concerning that writing. Now, consider a lesson plan that incorporates that same text and commentary with pictures or video of Davis on stage. Also, consider how adding musical selectionsselctions that not only demonstrate Davis’s playing ability, but the playing ability of others’ who were influenced by his workmight aid in students' understanding of Davis's overall musical prowess. Our limited two-person perspective has been expanded into the realms of visual presentation through video and photography and audio presentation through the musical selections. The increased number of perspectives that the students see will help them in forming a more general and complete concept of Miles Davis beyond what the original limited lecture showed.

This multimodal presentation appeals to the engaged mind on so many more levels than a traditional lecture alone ever could. From this multi-layered presentation of materials, the students are able to pick and choose the media that most appeals to them while forming a concept for the lesson. Their abstract imaginations are harnessed through multimodality to form a generalized and diverse opinion of the subject matter.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home