My students like me (or so they say) but are they learning anything? I guess this is a bigger question then it seems. It sounds like Dr. Mazur felt like he was doing a pretty good job only to be humbled a little. I fear that this would happen to me if I was to dig deeper into this question. So, for the benefit of my students, I probably should.
I teach lecture courses that are heavy in PowerPoint and I teach courses that are heavy in real world, practical instruction. I have no doubt the students are taking something valuable away in the practical courses because they are forced to think on their feet; no two situations are the same, but you learn universal lessons from each. Much like in Dr. Mazur’s examples of different ways to ask the same questions, in practical instruction this seems to be the nature of the beast.
It is the lecture courses I am worried about. I teach very specific information that, if it comes at the students in another form in the real world, are they even going to recognize them? In one of my Tuesday/Thursday lecture courses I guess I already attack this scenario to some degree with what I like to call “Group Hug Thursdays”. The premise of Group Hug Thursdays is I lecture on the Tuesday and the throw a monkey wrench in the material/concepts from the lecture and make them work though it on Thursdays.
Now the question is: how do I apply this concept to everything I do?
One of the jargon words we hear a lot in conversations about teaching methods is balance. Balanced instruction, balanced curriculum content, balanced approaches. We get to sounding like broken records...but really this emphasis on an educational equilibrium is practical and appropriate. It would be overzealous of us to attempt to provide application-based lessons 100% of the time...and, beyond that, we would be doing a disservice to our students. That doesn't mean we should lecture all of the time every time, but explicit instruction of concepts is hugely important, whether we're talking about teaching grammar or linguistic analysis in language lessons or phonics in literacy lessons... It sounds like you have found some balance, though, of direct instruction via lecture paired with student application of content through Group Hug Thursdays.
ReplyDeleteI love the concept of group hug Thursdays! It is a bit easier for me to work with my students because I feel they are a bit more impressionable. Middle school students are still malleable. I can bend and mold them into ways they are not even noticing they are being transformed at times. That is the beauty of middle school. The down side is you have about 15 good minutes of attention and they are toast. So, direct lecture does not really work well. I love using technology, because for every 15 minutes of lecture, there is at least 30 minutes of hands on. I can see as students get older and high school approaches, lecture is necessary. I do appreciate your understanding of a balance and I am sure your students do too!
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