The Lower Columbia Informer: . . . for the times, they are a-changin’

Posted @ Nov. 05 2011 03:46PM by Susan - viewpoints

by Perry Piper

This quarter at LCC I am taking astronomy and political science.

Now, before classes started, I was thinking we’d be going out each night to observe moon phases and keep a journal of other heavenly observations. To my surprise, we haven’t had any homework calling for such action in reality. Instead, we use a very well-made and sophisticated interactive computer program called “Starry Night.”
Meeting once a week, our class goes over the week’s lesson that mainly covers how to do the next packet of homework. The computer software reminds me a lot of an older game that was fairly popular and came before 3D graphics. “Myst,” released in 1993, dropped players on an island alone and lefy them to find clues around the island in order to solve highly intellectual puzzles. They were so hard, my dad and I had to buy the strategy guide in order to solve them.

One “Myst” area in particular was of interest: an observatory. This control center for the stars had you enter in certain dates that loaded fictional star positions corresponding to mythological clues on the island. In our “Starry Night” software, we do the same thing with entering dates and comparing real star patterns to better understand the concepts of astronomy.

Moving on with the theme of these “bah-humbug” modern classes, my political science course has excluded any traditional formal papers to write or tests to take in class. Instead, our instructor emphasizes the course text and has us keep a journal of notes, definitions to new words and contextual questions for class discussions.

I like the format, as it is one of the first classes in a long while in which I can actually recall all the names of my classmates and call them by name when expanding on a point they made.

Even though the political text is very dense, I enjoy the class and look forward to our final exam, which is an impromptu political discussion with our instructor in a public place for a minimum of 20 minutes.

Longstanding college professors probably see value in the traditional term papers and testing proceedures, but I look forward to the day when all classes will use computer software and less structured methods of helping us learn.

Have you or someone in your household taken a class that used technology or unorthodox teaching methods that you think enhanced the learning experience? Please explain in a comment below.
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Perry Piper attends Lower Columbia College, where he plays French horn in the Symphonic Band. He enjoys a technological lifestyle and has faith that even people over 50 can get on board.