Students today have access to more information than ever before. Beyond Google-fu and Wikipedia, new technologies allow anyone to research and order practically any publication with a few keystrokes. College students have access to expansive libraries filled with volumes on the most obscure topics, and at larger universities like DePaul, students can access full-text articles in respected academic journals with a few simple searches. The amount of information we students have access to before we ever reach a classroom or open up Blackboard can be overwhelming. It raises the question, given the wealth of information students have access to outside the classroom, what exactly is the role of the instructor?
It cannot simply be to impart information—all the information is out there and available for students. Rather, I think part of the instructor role has to be to act as a filter—to cut through all the information out there and identify and present only that which is most important, most up to date, and most accessible for students who are just being introduced to a field or subfield of study. The material then needs to be arranged into a coherent, unified form.
I think a lot of professors disregard this filtering function, and either put too much into their syllabi or overwhelm students with “optional resources” for topics they can’t cover within the course.
I know from experience how frustrating it can be when a student is confronted with an overwhelming number of sources. I enjoy being subjected to academic rigor, but I’m put off by instructors handing me articles I “might be interested in” or optional resources, even when I’m really engaged by the subject-matter of the class. First of all, I know of no student that has the time, at least during the school year, to go that far above and beyond the course requirements. And more importantly, I think all these secondary resources can create intellectual clutter, distracting from the central principles the course is trying to communicate.
In short, as a student, I’m interested in what I need to know to meet the course goals. All the other stuff is a distraction, more often than not.
A teacher will usually only go to the trouble of handing a student additional reading if they regard that student as exceptional. They no doubt remember the way that that themselves persued additional reading when they were at university.