A Learner’s Way

For our Media Relations course, we assign William Wray Carney’s  In the News,  published by the University of Alberta Press.  It’s been our required text for a number of semesters now because it serves as a basic primer with a Canadian slant. 

Earlier this week I asked students to read Chapter 3 about the relationship between journalists and communicators. My challenge?  How to make chapter content more engaging and relevant.  This time around, I tried using two graphical organizers for our in-class work.

First I described what I meant by graphical organizers and why they’re helpful to reinforce concepts and organize thoughts. I referenced Tony Buzan, inventor of Mind Maps, and displayed examples of a few different mind maps on the overhead projector.

In pairs, students picked up coloured markers and pieces of 11 by 17 inch paper and I instructed them to create mind maps based on Carney’s Chapter 3 content. They were to concentrate on ideas about professional relations between journalists and communicators.  When they finished, students posted their work at the back of the classroom so we could compare and share.

The results were certainly diverse.  Some students were quite linear in their thinking and their mind maps showed this.  Others created mind maps with lots of pathways and connectors.  Still other used lots of colour to connect their ideas.  In the main, however, their efforts looked very little like the mind maps on Buzan’s website and other places. 

And I was stuck by the lack of creativity that most displayed.  They just didn’t look like work produced by a generally high-responding, energetic, enthusiastic group of PR students.  It was like they were all concerned with “colouring within the lines, “ rather than having fun with the exercise.

Either I had explained the concept too quickly or students didn’t get the point of why we were doing this.  When they came back from break, I acknowledged that some might be questioning the value of our exercise. I explained why I felt learning this way was preferable to me going over exactly what they had read. (I find that most adult learners—especially those who actually complete their readings—really hate it when professors just regurgitate chapter contents.) Then, I restated my belief in the value of graphical organizers.

Not willing to give up, I then descibed the Venn Diagram and asked students, individually, to create one that represented what journalists and communicators have in common.  When I checked their individual diagrams after class, it appeared they got it.  Guess that’s all I can expect at this stage.