Choice and Educational Paralysis

My students got me thinking about the role of "lectures" in the classroom today. I rarely lecture. And if I do, it is only for a few minutes.

Instead, I oftentimes employ activity lists. These lists include activities that I have created to help my students dive deeper into material that they 1) know they need more work on, or 2) that they find interesting. Students come into class having read a selection from our textbook. They then work on activity lists aimed at allowing them to exercise choice in their learning as they engage content related to their readings. My hope was that choice would lead my students to be enthusiastic about their learning; after all, they are choosing what they learn!

However, my students recently indicated that they want me to offer more lectures, PowerPoint presentations, and guided notes. We discussed this in class, and it became clear to me that what they really want is feedback, that, and more interactivity. One student said it well when she said, "We are completing these activities, but we don't know if what we are doing is correct."

One could translate my students' desire for lectures in the following way: "Give us the information that we need to memorize in order to get an A on the test." But I don't think this is what my students mean or want. I think they want to know that the work they are doing is worth their effort, that it is worth their choice. Choosing to do something can be quite frustrating if it doesn't seem worthwhile, especially if the chosen activity entails much effort.

I mentioned this to a friend and he shared the following resource with me. It is an NPR story about Barry Schwartz's TED Talk on the "Paradox of Choice." In essence, we like the idea of choice, but in the end, too many choices leave us feeling less happy. I do not think that his talk is an indictment against choice per se, but against limitless choice. I think that my early activity lists have felt limitless to my students, and therefore have also felt paralyzing.

My new aim is to provide my students with reasonable and worthwhile choice activities that will lead to interactive engagement with others over compelling course content. My hope is that choice within appropriate bounds will lead to productive content engagement and instill confidence in my students as they make self-directed learning choices.