- Design. Create. Dream. If the world needs more Designers, Creators, and Dreamers, in the classroom we should allow students to design their learning, to create experiments, and to dream of a world they have the tools to build. Exemplary teaching gives students these opportunities.
- If we don’t exhibit exemplary teaching, how can we expect to foster exemplary learners? Memorable lessons start with memorable teachers. If teachers focus merely on grades, on tests, and on standardized learning, then student creativity, discovery, and interest will suffer. Everyday lecture should be interrupted by spontaneous questions, a drive to know more, and unexpected discoveries (see more later in Teaching in the Margins).
- Bring it back to learning! Learning and curiosity are human nature. Test-focused education can distract us from the true goal of education– learning. Exemplary teaching allows students the freedom to be curious about their world, and be intrinsically driven to investigate the world around them.
- Example: You don’t have to go far to have a class field trip. Outside your classroom, there is an entire ecosystem waiting to be explored! Have students go on a scavenger hunt in the area around your school. Have them come up with questions about the environment, the ecosystem, and the behavior of animals in the area.
- “Go-Getters” have independence. Students can’t be independent unless we allow them some extent of freedom and voice in their education. Inquiry research allows students to build their own lesson, ask their own questions, and search for the answers. What better way to learn the scientific method than to use the scientific method?
- Example: Many students are used to a classroom in which teachers present questions, and students are expected to come up with answers. Before starting a unit, try having students present questions to you. This gives you an opportunity to see what they know, and where they have opportunity to learn more.
- Example: Many students are used to a classroom in which teachers present questions, and students are expected to come up with answers. Before starting a unit, try having students present questions to you. This gives you an opportunity to see what they know, and where they have opportunity to learn more.
- Project-based learning engages students. When students are involved in a project they are interested in, they become more engaged and driven to learn. Students are more likely to remember projects and activities as opposed to lectures and worksheets. While lectures and worksheets can help students learn the basics, to truly be educated, memorable opportunities should be presented to them.
Loved all of the connections you made to the WAY students learn and their human nature, curiosity, etc. My favorite part was when you introduce the “go-getters” approach to allow for freedom and independence. This can be a very important thing for high school students since they are old enough for more responsibility in the classroom. When they build their own lesson plan, set their own objectives, ask their own questions, they are taking ownership in their learning and therefore will grow even more through their experiences. As I mentioned in one of my other comments, I think a lot of your ideas will be helpful moving forward when we make our margins blog. I’d love to hear more about allowing more independence in a classroom and incorporating some ideas from your design, create, and dream section since it introduced a lot of key approaches to teaching. Great job!
Thank you! I was reading more in the book Drive! today, and the author mentioned the importance of autonomy in the workplace. I thought it was interesting how students are forced to go by the rules, learn under someone else’s control, when it has shown in the work place that autonomous workers are not only happier and healthier, but also more productive. My hope is that by enabling students to be “go-getters,” they can be autonomous and independent when they enter the so-called “real world.”
I absolutely love the parallel between what the world is searching for and what we are fostering in the classroom. You bring up an excellent point, whether in science classrooms or others–students are going through classes ultimately searching for their place in life, and we need to be helping them determine what that could be while also preparing them for the rest of their lives. Like you said, the world wants Dreamers and Creators, and students are naturally those things. We just need to foster it more in the classroom! My main question for you would be how can we as educators create the link between classroom creators and world creators (as in, how can we tie in students’ futures to what they’re currently doing in class)? I’d love to hear your thoughts on that! All in all this post is great!
I think that really varies student to student, but we as educators have to provide many different activities to help students discover this. Luckily, science relates to many aspects of students’ lives. Perhaps an athlete wants to see if sports drinks really do help athletes after a hard workout or practice, or if just plain water is the best way to go. It’s the responsibility of the educator to help the student use his or her curiosity and develop an experiment. In high school especially, providing autonomy is important, as Daniel H. Pink discusses in “Drive!” By allowing students to be autonomous, allowing them to investigate the world on their own and providing them with scaffolding when needed, teachers can help students discover their place in the world. Maybe a student really has a passion for volunteering in his community, and wants to investigate what food is best to donate to a food bank. Help him consider calorie content, price, shelf-life, etc., and compare and contrast different types of food. This isn’t necessarily “science” in the traditional sense, but there is a great amount of research and math involved, and the student will learn something. It’s all about building relationships with your students, seeing their passion and interests, and fostering that passion to allow it to continue to grow, rather than telling them, “Sorry, we don’t have time for that right now, we need to cover this material.”