The kids aren't reading all right
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What is social annotation and how is it used?
Have you heard of social annotation? It's kind of like the annotation you used to do in a textbook or a novel with a pencil or a pen, except now we're marking up the margins as a group on our screens with our machines. Social annotation is actually how we edit every episode of Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. But you know where else social annotation is huge? on college campuses. Students are completing their reading assignments on social annotation apps where they can comment and ask questions in the digital margins of a reading assignment. And teachers can track how much time students spend with a given article, essay, or journal. And our old friend AI will even grade students' reading for teachers. And why would teachers need these kinds of tools?
Because college kids just aren't that into reading anymore. What on earth are we going to do about that? ahead on the show today.
Why are college students reading less?
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You're listening to Today Explains. Is it Today Explain or Today Explains? Explain-da. Explain-da.
I'm Beth McMurtry, and I'm a senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Okay. You're a senior writer, but we're here to talk to you about reading. Why are we talking to you about reading? What's going on with reading?
Sorry, are we starting, or you're just— This is it.
Yeah. It's so casual.
Well, there's a lot that's going on with reading. When it comes to reading, one of the things that I've been hearing a lot from a lot of different faculty members is that students simply aren't doing the reading. A lot of professors are finding that if they assign anything that's more than five or ten pages long, students tell them that they can't do it, that they get distracted, that they get exhausted, that they get lost in the reading, and then they just give up. Another element to this, too, though, and one I think that is the most alarming to professors, is that students are coming to college lacking critical reading skills. They might be asked to summarize what they've read and they fundamentally change the meaning of it. They can't summarize it. They might be asked to compare and contrast two readings and they simply can't do it.
What challenges are professors facing with student reading?
It's a fascinating phenomenon that we're facing because, yes, we assume that by the time you get to college, you know how to read. Obviously, people can still pick up a book or an article and get the gist of it. But what we're talking about now is like reading a dense or complicated or lengthy article or textbook or novel. That's what seems to have been fading with this generation.
And so I take it a class that might require students to read, what, four or five books? Is it functioning the way it used to when I was in college 15 years ago?
No, I think you would, if you went into a college classroom today or you looked at a college syllabus, you would probably be surprised at how little reading is assigned. I mean, professors understand that they have to kind of meet students where they are. They understand that if students are not doing the reading, they have to change things up. Otherwise, they will have a really bad class session and they will have students who simply aren't doing the work. So what I've been hearing from professors is, you know, maybe 15 years ago they assigned five novels and today they're assigning one. Or they may be eliminating academic articles altogether, those really dense academic articles that we all struggled with and students simply can't read them.
Reading research articles may be a different type of reading than you are used to. This tutorial will help you create a strategy for reading and understanding this type of information.
They're substituting in news articles or essays. More professors are introducing videos.
Hey y'all, I'm Nick and this is my video blog and podcast.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is social annotation and how is it used?
0:00–1:19
2
Why are college students reading less?
1:19–3:15
3
What challenges are professors facing with student reading?
3:15–9:24
4
How has the pandemic affected students' reading habits?
9:24–12:19
5
What are the consequences of a declining reading culture?
12:19
6
What data shows the impact on student knowledge?
11:16–15:03
7
Can we change the trend of declining reading skills?
15:03–18:20
8
What does the future hold for reading in a multimedia culture?
18:20–26:16