Authentic Audiences: The Most Powerful Element of a Learning Experience

Okay, so I'm going to give you two choices:

1. Spend 60 minutes creating something that only one person will see
2. Spend 5 minutes creating something that 1,000 people will see

Some of you are already getting what I'm hinting at. 

This is the choice our students face every single day. We assign them something that takes them a long time to do, where the only person who will see it is us, and then we wonder why they spent their time on social media instead of doing their assignment. 

Here's why: Student want to do things that matter to other people. 

I think our tendency is to view this as a negative thing. "Students only want to do things so they can post it on social media." Are there concerning things about the correlations being made in research between social media and things like depression and anxiety? Absolutely. 

But here's how we could view it: Students want to make a difference, but they just need support in doing that in positive ways. 

I really truly believe that the reason students are so motivated by an audience is because they have a desire to make a difference. So, why don't we give them this opportunity in the classroom? 

The first thing I typically hear when I start bringing up authentic audiences in the classroom is that it takes too much work or it's too difficult to find an audience. 

Really? Because I have 600 subscribers that I accidentally got while making terribly-made tech tool tutorials on YouTube. For some fun, here are the worst comments on my YouTube channel...

Nice to know the internet has my back. But really...that video is trash.

Apparently my videos encourage self-reflection.

That one time that I made someone irrationally angry with excessive music.

I always love some good sarcasm.

So how do we get audiences?

First things first, look at your assignment. Nobody cares about your students' tests. There's no audience for that. But the content they are learning? Probably an audience there. For example, if students are learning math, while it's nearly impossible to find an audience for a worksheet, what if students taught the concept they were learning and then posted it on YouTube? Not comfortable having students post on YouTube? Well, there are tons of other students learning that topic in the school. That's an audience. 

That's the first thing. Does the work you are having students do have any relevance to anyone else? If the answer is no, (brace yourself for a harsh comment) then your assignment is a waste of time. Who would want to do work that matters to no one? 

So, check your assignments first. 

Second, ask yourself who this content matters to. Better yet, have students decide that. 

For example, I had a student writing about the Portland Trailblazers a few years back. He wrote this super insightful piece about why one player should start over another, which I loved because he typically hated school. He finished it, and I asked him, "Who does this matter to?" His response: the Trailblazers. So, he sent it to them on Twitter. He came back to class the next day just completely glowing. He'd gotten a response, and they told him to message them if he was ever in Portland. 

His work made a difference. That's why audiences matter. 

Don't we want students walking out of our classrooms knowing that they can make a difference in the world? The problem is that if we're never giving them authentic experiences where they really can make a difference, then they'll never learn the power that they have. 

What do I do?

1. Create assignments that matter. Think about how the content is meaningful in the world and create experience that mirror that. 

2. Think about who the content matters to and connect students with that audience. 

Final Thoughts:

Even though some of the comments were tough to hear on my channel, they taught me to be resilient. And aside from that, there were some comments like this one...

Audiences help us understand that what we do has an impact on other people, and that is one of the most important things I can teach my students. I want them to know that they have the power to make a difference and help other people.

How in the world could I do that without an audience?