When it comes to education, many would reasonably be averse to risk. To many, education is more a process that happens to students where the teacher passes on knowledge. However, hopefully by this point equally as many, possibly even more would recognize the flaws in this sentiment. Concepts of lifelong learning pin the teacher as an equal learner to the process the students follow. Concepts of banking education, coined by Freire, revealed the flaws of viewing students as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. Many would use these concepts to create interactive and open classrooms, but there may yet be a greater ideal to reach.
The answer can be found in the margins. Education, even if innovative, exists in a box. This box was built by hands not shared by all. Even if we add our own flair and knowledge to this box, the box remains subtly restrictive, in ways we may not see but our students may feel. The solution is to leave the box entirely. In nature, margins between ecosystems are places without order; places where diversity and unpredictability flourish. To go to the margins in your class is to let loose a similar environment. The control of the class leaves your hands and is handed to the students. In this they may represent themselves and explore in a much deeper and personally driven way than a teacher could ever manufacture. This is where the risk many are averse to comes in, it’s a good idea to know when to return to the content that must be covered, but you have to be willing to allow the class to float into unsure areas. This is the most direct way to allow students to truly express themselves and feel like they belong in the class they are taking as well as finding a motivation to want to know more. It should be a top priority to foster as possible should you desire living up to the exemplary notion of passion in learning for all students.
A similar but very distinguishable idea in the field of education is the idea of “teachable moments” that may arise. These moments may happen by chance but they are not in the hands of the students or reflective of their minds and curiosities. The key difference is that typically they lack real risk. They are engaged by the teacher with a deliberate answer to hand the students. In the margins, you won’t have all the answers. You may be at the center of the conversation and answering the questions they ask you, but you have no idea what they may ask.
The most obvious next question is how does one deliberately incorporate the margins into a class when it is inherently random. The first answer to me is to simply be open. If a student asks a question and it is way off course, still within the field, but nowhere near what you planned to cover, engage it. If you have an idea, give them an idea, but open the floor to the other students to add their thoughts and questions on top of that one and what you add, quickly forming a chain. Even if you don’t have time in your plans, note it down to circle back to it later either at the end of class or a different day. You have to create an environment where students are willing to ask questions, so the worst thing you can do is stop them entirely with a straight refusal. If you struggle with finding the time in your class I found this particular post dealing with time management for your classroom: https://blog.acceleratelearning.com/time-management-tips-for-teachers.
In my own physics class, I will hopefully find myself with a wealth of time to engage my students. As I currently plan to have many days devoted to open learning and working with problems, I should have time to engage with many students’ inquiries, however I should still be careful in this. The priorities for this time should be helping students learn how to work through their physics problem, so student questions on methods of solving should not be accidentally buried by indulging in conversations. As such, despite the allure of using that time for discussion, it may actually be better to prioritize it on the days where the lecture would take place. Here I can cover the few terms and reasonings behind required formulas as students can ask the inquiries they want to know. Especially if I already plan to make it clear the openness to general questions during lecture, this can easily be expanded to allow questions of all variations.
Beyond the willingness to be open and embrace unpredictable moments that may arise, the nature of margins makes them hard to deliberately bring about. The best ways to attempt the generation of these moments is to avoid the standards as possible (worksheets, cookbook labs, etc.). Truthfully, it would take more time as well as knowledge of what resources I would have access to in order to create anything further than that, but armed with the knowledge of forming labs that place the students as the ones directing their own processes may be enough.
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I really enjoyed your post. Many teachers may be scared to allow teaching into the student’s hands and allow students to use the classroom as a curiosity playground. How can you practice good classroom management while still allowing students to have their independence and hand student control of the lessons?
It would definitely be a challenge to manage the class enable the ideal conditions for learning. I would definitely lean into groups as is best so that groups of students require attention rather than individual students as a main strategy.
I really like the way that you will have open time for your students in the classroom to explore. I know for curriculum the student needs to be able to write a coherent lab report. How would you teach your students to be able to format those lab reports without having a cookie cutter like method that you do while still getting the point across of what the objective is?
I would take the approach of explaining the individual parts of a lab report and their purpose. An approach where they know to include the methods and results not because they “have to” as part of a formula but because it provides what would be needed for others to understand their procedures.
Hi Ryan! I really like the box analogy you make for the center of instruction and leaving to the margins. If your physics lectures are primarily focused around required formulas, how are you planning to incorporate real-world physics, sans formulas? When I was in physics the questions I had that could have gone into the margins were almost never about the formulas and were instead focused on the phenomena I could see with my eyes in a non-symbolic form, so I am curious as to how you will incorporate those phenomena into your class to complement the formulas and help stimulate student curiosity and questions.
During lecture-oriented classes formulas will be introduced but the discussion will be open to the ideas of real world phenomena and how they connect to these formulas. Students will be given the space to inquire about any parts of reality these formulas may connect to for them.