Skim, Dive, Surface

PART 1: How to improve student’s learning on devices as a parent or educator.

I have been a collegiate educator for over four years and before that taught high school for two years. During this time, I noticed a trend, especially during the pandemic. When students picked up books or articles for their research and pleasure, they started using digital media more often. Over time, I began to see professors begin to assign their readings as PDF’s or assign open-source books that could only be accessed online. Seeing this, I followed suit, because of trying to help my students access the readings because of price and ease to carry so many books on a single device. But there was an issue. Well, many, but a large one that I will be focusing on.

“Just like reading using any media, we need to cultivate the skills required to be able to capture the ideas that we are engaging with.”

We do not teach our students how to read digital texts. Just like reading using any media, we need to cultivate the skills required to be able to capture the ideas that we are engaging with. With this idea, I found a fellow professor, Dr. Jenea Cohn, who addressed this same issue. If students are using digital media—self or professorially assigned—then those around the students need to be able to help those same students foster the skills to engage with this new paradigm.

Dr. Cohn, in her book Skim, Dive, Surface: Teaching Digital Reading give five skills that we can cultivate in our students (be as a teacher, parent, or other trusted adult). While engaging with a reading, our students need to learn to curate, connect, create, contextualize, and contemplate the material. While this is important for any form the media takes (be it paper or digital), we will discover how these five skills specifically help students with engaging with digital media.

Before we get into the skills themselves, there are two reasons major reasons that I will engage with that we adults shy away from digital media.

First, we are not used to it ourselves, so how can we teach the students how to engage with digital media.
Second, we are afraid of the distractions and other negative side effects of using a screen while studying. These are real worries that I have had as an educator, and one that many others have as well.

I grew up taking paper notes, writing in the margin of my books, using photocopied pages of library books to compile lists, and keeping all of the ideas in giant three-ring binders. I have used computers and phones and know firsthand how distracting it can be. I alt-tab so often it is almost comical. But, digital media is going to be a major factor for these students, so we need to know how to prepare them to succeed with the challenges that digital media present.

Side story time:

Back in ancient Greece, there was a famous philosopher named Socrates. He taught others through dialogue and discussion, asked questions, and annoyed the people of Athens so much, they eventually put him to death as told in Plato’s Apology. However, we only know any of this because of his student, Plato, who wrote 20+ dialogues where Socrates is a main character, talking to different leaders at the time. In one, the Phaedrus, Socrates discusses his fear of a new technology that will destroy discourse, make students worse, and ruin societies collective memory. That was writing. The written word. Sounds very similar to fears we have now when talking about screens.

And it is something to worry about! But, like writing, screens will only become more prevalent because of the advantages that come with this new technology. Three major reasons that digital media is here to stay are:

· Lower overall cost (for student and schools)
· The ability to update text without printing a new book
· Ease of access (all the books on a single easy to manage device)

Because screens and digital reading are here to stay, it is better t focus on ways to improve students abilities in doing readings in a digital space than just avoidance. What follows are the five skills that Dr. Cohn suggests and how we can foster these skills in our students.

This blog is continued on our next blog, Skim, Dive, Surface, part 2