Profs, Students and the ‘Smarty Pants’ Problem

Posted by Tad McIlwraith on June 26th, 2007 filed in Academia, Teaching

The Globe and Mail opines on the challenges of internet-enabled classrooms (internet-enabled students?). Their take is apropos of my recent concerns about googling during lectures. Gist:

As Leslie Chan delivered a lecture about the history of the United Nations to his students at the University of Toronto earlier this year, some pupils took notes on laptops, others dozed and one was busy reading the UN website to verify the dates and figures being presented by his teacher.

“After a couple of minutes, he pointed out to me that one of the things I said was outdated,” Mr. Chan said. “It was a good example of fact checking, and I welcomed it. But he was so caught up with proving me wrong that he missed the point of the lecture.”

Like Mr. Chan, more teachers are having to prepare themselves for confrontations with students who can find a second opinion or contradictory fact at the click of a mouse.

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2 Responses to “Profs, Students and the ‘Smarty Pants’ Problem”

  1. itsalljustaride Says:
    June 29th, 2007 at 3:58 pm

    The great equalizer here is that most students would shun this kind of “smarty-pants” assault on professors via google and wikipedia as simply another extension of the “know-it-all” student who likes to hear themselves talk.

    Like the article said, encourage constructive criticism, but shun destructive criticism. One should also note that a prof might want to think twice about what kind of personality they are projecting that students might feel the need to become aggressive with their contrarianism. For some it might just mean they need to lay off the superiority complex a bit, and eat some humble pie.

  2. Tad McIlwraith Says:
    June 29th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    Nicely said, itsalljustaride. Couldn’t agree more.

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