Multiple Personality Pedagogy

I read the article concerning Multiple Personality Pedagogy. The article discussed different ways of ‘making your students talk’. We all have had professors and teachers that talk AT us, instead of to us. Those educators that love hearing themselves explain ideas, and then are completely flabbergasted when majority of the class fails a midterm because they didn’t have the chance to discuss the topics and introduce different view points. Mark Spitzer introduced the idea of coming up with multiple personalities to engage the students in conversation about the texts that they were required to read. His idea is, if we are choosing what they HAVE to read, they should be able to have their own voice to express their opinion, but they won’t unless they have something to defend. So one of his personalities is a very conservative non-flexible older professor. His ideals infuriated the students to the point where they became incredibly defensive over a 150 year old text by Whitman. Something most college students (even if they are passionate about literature) would not do. I didn’t quite understand how the other personalities worked out in the literature courses, but they still sparked conversation and personal understanding for the literature/subject matter.

As far as how it relates to our course. I feel like as future educators, we’ve talked about the ways to make students engaged with what they are learning so they don’t forget as soon as the semester or quarter is over. I know there are multiple classes, that if I was asked about them now, or that subject matter, I couldn’t even begin to have an intellectual conversation about them. (EX: Calculus). So having an idea of how to engage students and make a memorable educational experience is something that we are all looking for, to implement in our own classrooms.

 

http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/Journal/files/Multiple_Personality_Pedagogy.html