Educational Level of Risk
Based on the information that emotion creates memory, would the fear and intimidation associated with a high educational risk help students remember the topic? I was thinking about the educatioanl risk involved in the Socratic method used in most law schools. Law students expect to be called on and engage in an active debate in front of the entire class. Would this type of learning be deemed more appropriate if students expected it from the first day of class? Would they be more prepared and remember the material? Or is it a just a bad idea in general?
Chrystal, it is our responsibility to assess what each class of learners see as safe, and see as a threat. We then adjust our teaching to accommodate that.
Michele Deck
I agree with the facilitator. Also it is important to recognize why such a method is used in Law school, they are preparing students to overcome the "brain freeze" that comes along with the sympathetic nervous system response of "fight or flight" as that is part of training for being lawyers. Similar methods of high educationl risks are used in medical training for doctors (as I was privy to this method). I think you hit the nail on the head with expectation. I expected this sort of learning environment in my doctoral training and strived on it as I understood its higher purpose and what I needed to do to be successful.
However, many of our students are not expecting such a high level of learning risk and thus I believe will shun such a method resulting in poor attendance and poor academics.
Yet, as an undergraduate student, I preferred lecture over what I saw as "games". I disliked groupwork and preferred long lectures (that's where the "meat" was in preparation for exams). Therefore it is still challenging to regularly implement varying learning activities over lecture but I am very open to do so to improve material retention and student knowledge.
Courtney, yes, negative emotion will foster retention of content. However, if fear and intimidation occur, the brain donwshifts to "Flight or fright" mode and will not recall content.
Michele Deck
