We're in trouble, folks!

A recent article in the newspaper extolled the new technological "learning tool" being used in some of our universities. To be perfectly honest with you, I didn't read it. It was the inset accompanying the article that caught my attention.

It showed an example of a new high-tech gadget that allows a professor to project a multiple choice question onto a screen or wall. Each student has a clicker that gives him the ability to record his answer. A graph charting the responses is then projected.

Here's what I find astonishing. The example came from a recent class in Law and American Society at Temple University. The question and possible answers were:

What happened in 1215?
A) Last Eagles championship
B) The Spanish Armada
C) Temple University opened
D) Magna Carta

I can't believe that a college multiple choice question is not more challenging than that. You don't have to know at all what happened in 1215 to get the correct answer. You can pretty well eliminate choice A as we're not about to have Super Bowl DCCXCV. Since it's a class in Law and American Society, it's a good bet choice B is not correct. Unless you think Temple University predates European settlers in North America, choice C is out the window. That leaves the Magna Carta which anyone on a college track should have known without going through the process of elimination. Yet 18% of the students who responded to this question missed it. We're in trouble, folks! Maybe it's time we went back to that low-tech learning tool called reading a textbook.

"Learning tool clicks with college students." The Dallas Morning News; September 19, 2010; p. 6A.