Think Like a Teacher

In “reading” through a fitful string of blog posts sparked by a tweet, I ran across this post about the changes to our reading habits due to technology. It actually struck such a chord of guilt — as I was about to skim and run — that I stopped to read the entire post. I am living what Patrick Kingsley describes:

our hyperactive online habits are damaging the mental faculties we need to process and understand lengthy textual information. Round-the-clock news feeds leave us hyperlinking from one article to the next – without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content; our reading is frequently interrupted by the ping of the latest email; and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts.

We know our students are even more likely to skim and run, since their standards for full web site attention are more demandingly fickle and their reading skills more spotty. As Jakob Nielsen points out:

Teens’ poor performance [at web site “success“]  is caused by three factors: insufficient reading skills, less sophisticated research strategies, and a dramatically lower patience level.

So what does all this rather intriguing research tell me, aside from the fact that I am a true edtech readerwritergeek?  It makes me wonder:

How can we create incentives for Slow Reading?

An iPad zone with comfortable chairs might be the 21st century equivalent of the bean bags in the 1980s middle school media center where I once worked: comfy, inviting, and reading ready. But the physical space and gadgets do not make Slow Readers. The desire to stick with one article, post, or thread of thought long enough to see it through to a conclusion is what we are all missing.

What could make a teen stick with a thread of thought throughout an entire article and related discussions? It is much easier to toss the links into a class wiki or Diigo group after skimming two sentences, perhaps with a pithy comment.  Done. Next assignment, please.

I would like to try confronting some students with Nielsen’s analysis of teen site navigation. I would like to ask them whether his findings of 2005 are still true or more exaggerated today. I would like to share Kingsley’s post with the same group and ask them what they think. Of course, they’d have to READ both to be able to respond, and the only initial incentive might be a grade.  I really wonder what would happen if we confronted teens with these two posts to form framing questions for an entire semester in almost any course: social studies, English, even science:

What are your incentives for Slow Reading in today’s world? Where/how can it happen? Does it matter any more?

We might be surprised to hear what our kids have to say about all this.  Instead of telling them why they must Slow Read (for a test), ask them why they might want to. They might even create Slow Reading places and incentives of their own. How would that be for 21st century learning?