Teaching in Higher Ed-Now

I came across a blog entry of David Williams, the President of University of Alabama Huntsville, in relation to university teaching at http://www.uah.edu/president/blog/teachingblog.php

Below is the part I found interesting.

"Teaching – Now

If we are to teach our students in the way that they are taught in K-12 system, then we must stay in contact with that system and be aware of how new generations of students will expect to be taught when they come to university.

I was recently in Mobile at the George Hall elementary school – a 100% minority school in one of the poorest areas of that city. The teachers were podcasting some of their classes and in the process of setting up streaming video webcasts for some of their other classes. At another high school in Mobile, foreign language class was taught synchronously on-line from a school where there were enough students who wanted to learn Spanish that a teacher was on site. So the web, the ipod and the video from afar are all common in third grade. Should we not be doing the same at a leading technological university?

As teachers we should continually find out the expectations of our students in terms of the best way for them to learn – not seek their input on the content or the way we test their grasp of the content - but the ways that we communicate the knowledge that we believe they must gain from the courses we teach in order that they be successful in applying that knowledge."