University teachers often ask themselves, "Is my teaching effective?", "What could I do better?", “How can I improve my teaching?” The teaching method that most teachers are taught is based on the tradition that “teachers teach and students learn”. It is a one-way transmitting of knowledge. It is concentrating on the teaching, but not on the learning.
However, learning can happen without teachers. Some students can learn by themselves. We all learn many things by observation, by making mistakes and by actually doing something. These types of learning often stay with us and we call them experience. We may forget what we are taught in school but we never forget our experience. The question is instead of focusing on the teaching, should we place our priority on the student’s learning? The best ways to improve teaching is to focusing on how students are learning and this is the essence of active learning.
Active learning starts with questioning. Questioning creates curiosity that leads into the need to know. It is better for the teacher to ask, to stir the curiosity in students then allows them to come up with the answer. Students can discuss with each other to find the answer, and sometime come up with several possible answers. It is the class discussion that leads to understanding and better learning. That is why it is important for students to read course materials before go to class so class time can be used for discussion and learning. Some students are not familiar with this approach. Some want to be taught as they are passively listening to what teachers say. They try to memorize as much as they can so they can pass the test. That is not learning but memorizing. Without learning; without a profound knowledge of the subject, many will have difficulty in applying what they know to solve problems. There are many people with high degrees but cannot even solve simple problem. They can recite a lot of theories and formulas but they do not know how to apply them. Most of the time they have to rely on someone to do that for them. Sometime that person may not have the education or the degree but they can solve problems and make decision for their bosses.
It is important for students to learn by asking questions. They should learn to ask each other or the teachers. They should question the ideas and the information from the course materials. They should question the answers of their own and of others. Learning is a journey in pursuit of answers, not for what they agree to, but for the new questions they may raise. In this type of active learning, teachers facilitate the discussion among students to ensure that they come up with the answers, not just one answer but maybe several. That will broaden the knowledge and students will learn that there could be more than one correct answer. In this case, they will learn to analyze to identify the “best answer” for that situation.
University should not be a place for those who learn by memorizing materials. University should be a place for those who learn by asking questions and pursuit the answers. There are more answers than just a correct answer and by understood that there may be more than one answer, students will learn more. Of course, not all students know the same things or have the same levels of understanding that is why students have much to learn from teachers. But teachers are learners too; they learn by helping students and understand how students learn; how students come up with the answer. For every learner there are always more things to learn; there are things you already known and thing that is still unknown. Nobody knows everything. Thousand years ago, Socrates told his students: “The only thing I know is I do not know much.” A great philosopher and learners like him admitted that he did not know much than there is no way that we can say that we have all of the answers.
Only by asking questions and seeking answers, new ideas may be formed, new discoveries are made, new innovations are developed. This creation of new knowledge is important to all of us, whether you are the teacher or the student. Only by asking questions and try to come up with the answers more learning will happen.
Prof John Vu
Carnegie Mellon University
Original source: http://www.segvn.org/forum/mvnforum/viewthread_thread,1791
0 comments:
Post a Comment