Mercedes Olivera:
Dean at SMU arts school paints realistic picture for students
Mercedes Olivera column: 'But José Bowen's decision to strip classrooms of computers and encourage professors to "teach naked" – without high-tech presentations – has made him a household name in some quarters.'
Teaching without technology seems like such a quaint idea in this digital millennium.
But José Bowen's decision to strip classrooms of computers and encourage professors to "teach naked" – without high-tech presentations – has made him a household name in some quarters.
Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, believes the main challenge for today's universities is to help students sift through all the noise on the Internet.
"Twenty years ago, knowledge was scarce and therefore expensive," he said recently. "What the Internet, Google and Wikipedia now tell us is that knowledge is cheap because it is so readily available."
Today's institutions of higher education are therefore being challenged as never before to help students sort through all this knowledge and develop critical thinking skills.
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