Here’s a great video (found via Conversational Leadership), I recommend watching it all, but if you are rushed start at around 7 minutes.
I share this in the context of community and my personal belief that learning in community is the most powerful education opportunity out there.
I’m yet to develop clear thoughts on this, but I base this on my personal of experience of learning in community myself, over the years and without having any formal qualifications.
I took a few notes:
All 250 students started talking.
It was complete chaos.
They forget about me in the class.
I could have walked away and they wouldn’t have noticed.
In two minutes they figured it out.
A student is more likely to explain to to someone else because she has only recently learned it. She knows what the current learning difficulties.
It is the curse of knowledge.
It is often easier to solve problem with each other.
He stopped lecturing. He asked students to read a book before class, not after.
In class: he taught by questioning. He would teach for a few minutes then ask a question.
The teacher is the coach…and you can triple the learning gains.
The key point is: it’s not about the instructor, it’s about the student’s mind.
You don’t learn by listening, you learn by doing.
In a sense, this brings the doing back into the classroom. This technique can be applied to any field that involves critical thinking.
Education is a two-step process:
- transfer of information: (books, videos, lectures, etc)
- make sense of the information: aha moments to apply the knowledge, in a lecture there is no time for the aha moment
Flip the learning process, the transfer of information happens outside of the classroom (the easy part), then in the class we think about it, talk about, create chaos, but ultimately create learning.
Personal I love this and I’m currently thinking of ways of bringing this into Rosieland.
Instead of focusing on refined content, deliver small things, and then create a space and questions to create a discussion around it.