Generation Meh: Empathy and College Students Today

What? Me Worry?
Are you of the mind that today’s youth are “blindly self-aggrandizing?” Does all that entitlement send you through the roof? Is it just me or is there some truth to the patterns of behavior many people report seeing? In a paper presented at the Association for Psychological Sciences in Boston (May 2010), Sara Konrath found that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than their counterparts in the 1970s, with percentages plunging primarily after 2000. Her paper, Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students Over Time: A Meta-Analysis, offered a measure of four aspects “interpersonal sensitivity” (n=13,737; ~63 percent female) :

• Empathetic concern (or sympathy) over the misfortunes of others;
• Perspective taking;
• An intellectual capacity to imagine other people’s points of view;
• Fantasy (or people’s tendency to to identify imaginatively with fictional characters in books or movies; and
• Personal distress (referring to the anguish one feels during others misfortunes).

The synopsis of this study, reported in the New York Times on June 27, 2010, shows that today’s college students scored significantly lower in empathetic concerns (48 percent) and perspective taking (34 percent)–considered the more important indicies of empathetic behavior. Shared social ideals such as “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” and “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective” are considered less important than they were by college students 30 years ago. (The results reported were not disaggregated by gender, socio-economic status, or parents’ education level and marital status. A closer examination of the results associated with these independent variables might be useful in determining if there are any correlational effects.)

So what happened?
How did narcissism become so popular? In the Times report, Konrath and her report co-authors suggest that a mixture of cultural forces associated with video games, social media, reality TV and hyper-competition have left the younger generation “self-involved, shallow, and unfettered in their individualism and ambition” (Paul, 2010). The implications are biting, indeed. Research on low empathy in children is associated with violent behavior, aggression, and other anti-social behavior (Damon & Lerner, 2006). As these low empathetic youth grow into adults, these tendencies can lead to the results we are seeing in Konrath’s report. For educators, low empathy in students could make communication, group work, collaborative and networking activities exceedingly challenging.

I do not believe video games, social media, reality TV, and hyper-competition are necessarily the main culprits here. Perhaps the amount of cognitive surplus afforded today’s youth has some impact. Perhaps kids today are spending less time on chores, i.e., contributing meaningfully to the household, and more time in front of their computers and TV. While a recent reports suggests parents are spending more time with their children, it is not clear the ways in which parents are modeling pro-social behavior for their children. Are parents plopping kids down in front of the TV or computer or are they interacting together meaningfully?

So what can teachers do?
The implications for the reported low empathy findings are complex. For teachers, the Times article and report provide an opportunity to discuss these findings with their students. The key here is opening up an opportunity for dialog with students allowing them to share their thoughts on the issue of empathy. Keeping a journal that shows what kids are doing with their time outside school and a class discussion around their findings might also be useful and revealing to students. Role-playing is another safe and pro-social way to engage students in a discussion which, in turn, can help deepen their knowledge of empathy and empathetic behavior. While these suggested activities only scratch the surface, developing empathy and empathetic behavior is a critical skill that cannot be overlooked. If we want this depressing news regarding empathy in children and young adults to change, then we need to act now. If we don’t, as the Times article suggests, “don’t expect the next generation to sigh over it, too.”

References:
Damon, W. & Lerner, R. M. (2006). Handbook of Child Psychology: Social, emotional, and personality development. Hoboken, N.J., John Wiley & Sons.

Paul, P. (2010). From Students, Less Kindness for Strangers? New York Times, June 29, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/fashion/27StudiedEmpathy.html.

Image:

http://www.wickedresistance.com/blog/wp-content/postimg/2009/01/Meh-Web.jpg

50+ Tactics and Resources to Support Integrating Technology into Your Curriculum

Norman Hall G518

In an effort to catalog the various tactics/tools and resources employed in my undergraduate course, Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum, I offer the following list of items we experimented with over the last sixteen weeks. Students reported that while they have not continued to use all of the applications listed below, they do continue to use many for a variety of purposes. There were many additional resources employed that I have not listed. Most of these can be found by visiting my Delicious account and searching under 4406 and/or 4406spring2010.

GMail
I always invite students to create GMail accounts on the first day of a class. GMail is the gateway drug to the entire Google suite of applications that I find myself using multiple times a day.

Google Docs
Google Docs includes spreadsheets, presentations, word processing, forms, that can be shared and posted online.

Google Sites
Google Sites was used to support student portfolios. It’s free, easy to use, and easy to edit.

Google Search
Google Search can be customized for specific specific student activities and include a filter that permits searches for Creative Commons images. We also explored the Invisible Web through the variety of search sites noted on a Makeuseof.com post.

Google Buzz
We talked about Buzz but did not spend much time with it. Like Wave, Buzz seemed like a solution looking for a problem. It did offer a wonderful collaborative potential, but did not replace our other means of working together.

iGoogle & Google Reader
Students experimented with personal start pages like iGoogle and PageFlakes, and were assigned to explore Google Reader as a means of pulling information across the Web to one site.

Blogger & Word Press
Students kept a learning journal throughout the term and were given a choice between Blogger and Word Press. I chose these applications because of their ease of use and customizablity.  I used to use Edublogs, but alas, the embedded advertising made my stomach turn.

Tumblr & Posterous
Students were invited to play with Tumblr and Posterous for projects involving audio, video and pictoral posting and sharing. I also introduced Flavors.me to create websites using personal content from around the Internet.

Twitter
We played with Twitter as a means of informal communication, formative assessments, social networking, personal learning, and sharing.

Flickr
Students were introduced to Flickr for photosharing and digital storytelling.

VoiceThread
We used VoiceThread to support teaching, learning, reflection, and collaborative learning. VoiceThread worked well when I was out of town as well. I could leave instructions and solicit feedback. Students also used VoiceThread as a broadcasting medium for providing instructions and how-to’s in their own lessons.

Social Bookmarking
While I am still experimenting with Diigo, students were introduced to Delicious to support bookmarking and resource searches.

Wikis
Students were given an option to use PBWorks and Wikispaces to support a collaborative Web presence. One of my major major emphases this term was communication with parents. Wikis are easy to create Web sites that require students to think about design as much as content. If a wiki is hard to navigate, it is hard to use. We spent time reflecting and acting on this particular design aspect as well.

Podcasting
Students and I tested Podomatic to support podcasting capabilities. Overall, it worked well and was simple to use effectively. I have used Audacity in the past, however, I wanted to try something different this time through.

Screencasting
Students were asked to develop a how-to video using either video or screencasting applications such as Screenr and Jing.

Chat
While we did not look too closely at chat applications, we talked about Tiny Chat, but only briefly…

Polling
Polleverywhere was a fun application to use for formative assessments and teaching about using personal learning networks to gather information and answers. Google Forms and Survey Monkey where also employed for formative assessments as well.

Animation
For fun, didactic experiences, and demonstration purposes, we played with Go Animate.

Open Educational Resources Commons (OER)
We explored a host of lesson plans available through OER Commons. We focused on the importance of sharing and modifying lesson plans (with an emphasis on re-sharing).

Open Text
For my student microteaching activity, I asked students to sign up for specific chapters in How People Learn. Students were asked to develop a 40 minute lesson on a specific chapter. Chapter presentations were not summaries, but focused on relevant aspects of the chapter content. Students were required to prepare a presentation, group and/or individual activities, and an assessment for the content presented. They were also forbidden to use PowerPoint (hee hee!).

PLE/PLN
In our investigations of personal/professional learning environments and personal/professional learning networks, we enjoyed Graham Attwell‘s Introduction to Personal Learning Environments (and his delicious Welsh accent) and Richard Byrne‘s presentation on How to Build a Personal Learning Network. Students were asked to join a network (e.g., Twitter, Plurk, Classroom 2.0, or FriendFeed) and describe who they followed, what they learned, and the ways they participated on their learning journal.

Browser
I regularly recommend Firefox as the browser to use. It integrates well into our online course management system, Moodle.

Video
Students and I used YouTube regularly to find and share audio visual resources. TeacherTube was also used to support knowledge building.

Finally, all tactics, texts, and presentations described were chosen because they are free and relatively easy to use and integrate into one’s curriculum. I have avoided prescribing proprietary software, applications, and texts in an effort to support the open sharing possibilities that the Web affords.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/csessums/4259696067/sizes/o/

Excerpt from The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future (Pew Internet)

chil-lcat

Institutional change surely will come, often starting at the periphery. There are market opportunities in offering services related to responsiveness, yet, big, traditional organizations such as school systems will be slow to adapt.**

“Ten years is too little for major changes. Efficiencies will of course occur, by automating more interactions – just as all became telephone operators, so we are increasingly all becoming travel agents, information managers, and so on. Small businesses will spring up that are more customer-centered and others will become more responsive at one level by some customized interfaces, but also more impersonal and less responsive to exceptional requests. On the whole, though, change here will be slow. Educational institutions will be the ones to watch, they are highly logical candidates for change, yet it is difficult to imagine much by 2020. By 2030, definitely.” – Jonathan Grudin, principal researcher, Microsoft

“There is a tipping point on the horizon between competition and cooperation. Scarcity of natural resources will require us to work together in ways we have never been required to before. It will take us a few generations to really see a significant change in the ways we currently do business, but it will come. This type of change requires us to plan for a long ‘now,’ which is antithetical to the way populist governments often work. Change will come from the edges and work its way toward the center. First, businesses will see the value-added new digital media provides in terms of access to markets and supporting quality interaction, distribution and customer feedback. This model will then be slowly adopted by government. I also believe the US is too big to govern the way it has been (thus all the red tape and claims of ineffective programming). Perhaps government would be more nimble as productive/supportive if it were to focus geographically (think Netflix or FedEx).” – Christopher D. Sessums, post-doctoral associate at the college of education, University of Florida**

** “This material was gathered in the fourth “Future of the Internet” survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center. The surveys are conducted through online questionnaires to which a selected group of experts and the highly engaged internet public have been invited to respond. The surveys present potential-future scenarios to which respondents react with their expectations based on current knowledge and attitudes. You can view detailed results from the 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010 surveys here: http://www.pewinternet.org/topics/Future-of-the-internet.aspx and http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/default.xhtml. Expanded results are published in the “Future of the Internet” series published by Cambria Press.”

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Impact-of-the-Internet-on-Institutions-in-the-Future/Survey-Method.aspx?r=1

Online Tools for My Students

This is a list of the tools that my students and I have used or played with this semester. Many I rely on. Others I am experimenting with. Feedback and/or recommendations welcome. (^ ^)

A GMail account. All sharing collaborating, communicating starts with GMail including GoogleDocs, Spreadsheets, Surveys, Presentation, Google Reader, Google Sites, iGoogle, and Google Groups. I have replaced my Entourage calendar at work with Google Calendar (and I am excited to start playing with Chrome someday). Wave is still in the “gaming” stage. And while use multiple search engines for differing purposes, I start with Google Search (with ads off and Twitter search). Google Scholar is also useful for finding articles and research quickly. Google Earth has been used as well for student activities and “play.”

Personal learning journals are kept using Blogger or WordPress.

Social bookmarking is done with Delicious. While I use FriendFeed and Diigo weekly, I still rely most heavily on Delicious. I have also taught student to search it and SlideShare to find helpful resources and information.

When playing with concept maps, we have explored Gliffy, Bubblous, Wisdomap, and MindMeister. For rubric development we use GoogleSpreadsheet and Rubistar with some success.

I am experimenting with Mendeley as a bibliographic resource. I started with EndNote, then switched to keeping spreadsheets in Google.

We used Audacity to support digital audio recordings and Jing for our screencasting activities. Prezi has also been used to create unique presentations. Glogster has been discussed but not integrated into our curriculum in a meaningful way.

VoiceThread was introduced as a way to combine audio, visual, and textual interaction online.

Wordle is always fun for looking at patterns in bodies of text.

Twitter has been used to support discussion and dialogue as well as collaboration and assessment. I use Tweet Deck to stay in touch with my Twitter PLN.

YouTube has served as a host for several student projects plus serves as a great resource for teaching and learning.

Tumblr is my digital errata filing cabinet.

I recently discovered hundreds of wonderful music playlists on LastFm.

I use my uni’s library catalog and WorldCat for searching books. I use Amazon for examining similar texts and recommendations.

While visit Facebook on occassion, my students are all dedicated users. They have even presented lesson content and quizzes with it. My students are quite savvy!

I use Flickr for personal photos and Picasa for professional work. Flickr is also used to find Creative Commons media.

Wikipedia is used as the CliffsNotes of the world.

My college uses Moodle as a course management system and we recommend Firefox for browsing. Additionally, Firefox has hundreds of add-ons for enhancing our time on the Web.

Wiki-wise my students have used WetPaint (too many ads), but I prefer Wikispaces or PBWorks.

Skype is still a favorite for VoIP-ing. And in my college we use Elluminate for collaborative Web conferencing.

We’ve played with a number of games in class including The Eyeballing Game, a Wikipedia-based trivia game, short-term memory games, dexterity games, strategy games, prisoner’s dilemma, Poisson Rouge for the six-and-under set, musical ball dropping, and In Bb for a class symphony.

And while the TED site is not a tool, it continues to inspire me and my students and I thought it deserved an honorable mention.

Images:

Compassion: http://www.bestmadeco.com/FEATURES/catalogs/fall09/P1030484.jpg
Computers: http://2.media.tumblr.com/Hxs1TBsQ4lqq501cbrWuOHslo1_500.jpg
Tools Mosaic: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2222/2085828080_9f56f1abc7.jpg