Aclassroom can be lifeless and boring, or even downright dangerous. Students canbe highly disrespectful, uncooperative, unmotivated, threatening, even assaultive. Teachers can be woefully out of touch with even the best ofstudents, so that these students lose their motivation, at least for theduration of this class period. A standard classroom can be a dismal place forall concerned, or a place of excitement and challenge. However, theseenvironments can change.Take thefollowing movie clips … [Read more...]
Films From The New Learning Institute
The New Learning Institute films look specifically at ways in which school leaders and educators are testing and proving project-based models for a new, student-centered model of learning.This collection—which includes profiles of school innovators David "T.C." Ellis, Jean Johnson, and Larry Rosenstock, as well as a profile of school architect Randall Fielding—explores collaborative, creative, multi-disciplinary approaches to engaging students. Each leader has developed personalized, … [Read more...]
What Dumbledore and Other Can Teach Us about Positive Examples of Traditional Classroom
Stripped down to essentials, this is the basic image of a classroom with which we areall familiar. At its best, when students are actually listening and learning,and when the teacher is truly enthralled with the subject and the experience,the effect can be magic. We have only to consult our popular culture torecognize what this scene can produce in our imaginations, at least. Think of To Sir with Love, or Stand and Deliver, or even ProfessorDumbledore speaking at Hogwarts. Greatness in teaching … [Read more...]
Architecture of a Traditional Classroom – An Opportunity for Change
We entera medium sized, architecturally uninteresting space. At the front of this roomthere is a black, white, or smart board. The person standing near the board isthe teacher. Somewhere to the side is the teacher’s desk. It is small to mediumsized, industrial, no frills, except whatever has been added by the teacher. Inmost of the rest of the room, students sit in rows in smaller desks, in chairsof a type that are rarely found anywhere outside of schools. The teacher’sdesk, though not large, is … [Read more...]
Using Technology to Drive Student-Centered Education
During a trial in the East Auburn Community School in Auburn, Maine, a group of students were “taught to read and write using an iPad” and “another group of students were taught the ‘old fashioned’ way, using a pen and paper, it was found that in every single literacy test, students using the iPad outperformed those who did not use the iPad by a significant margin” (TabTimes, February 2012).Noting this story is important to the expanded view of student-centered education, especially in the … [Read more...]
Can a Traditional Classroom Be Student-Centered?
The image of a traditional classroom is familiar to anyone with a modern education,and it often defines the limits of what we consider when we think about schooling. In this classic image of education, the teacher is literally front-and-center and what happens largely depends on her or him. Yet, it must be noted that there is nothing inherently student-centered in the organization of a traditional classroom. The focus is on the teacher and on the information to be passed from the teacher to the … [Read more...]
What Maria Montessori Taught Us About Being ‘Student-Centered’
"Scientific observation has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences in the environment. The task of the teacher becomes that of preparing a series of motives of cultural activity, spread over a specially prepared environment, and then refraining from obtrusive interference.” - Maria MontessoriThe research statement above from Maria … [Read more...]
Can A Child In India Teach You Something About Learning And Education?
When most of us think about education we assume the presence of at least one teacher and one student. More often, we imagine a teacher and a room full of students, the classic and ubiquitous model with which we are all familiar. Who of us imagines a room with no teacher?One answer to that would be Sugata Mitra, an education researcher from India who has done remarkable work in an unusual line of thinking. Mitra has made it his business to investigate a very difficult question: What can be done … [Read more...]
Self Teaching – Are you a genius yet?
A great deal of what we learn is self-taught. We learn through modeling, observation, trial and error, and pattern recognition, and we do all these things with or without the help of others.As evolving humans, this is what we do. As many philosophers of education point out, we are hungry for learning and will naturally develop many important skills and realms of knowledge with no more than the slightest nudge from those around us. In a very true sense, we are students of our world, … [Read more...]
Context In Education Is Everything–Being The ‘Coach’ Everyone Loves
The field of education has typically used the term student-centered education to designate specific types of programming and pedagogical technique. Most often, it is applied to classroom activities in which the individual learner takes a great deal of responsibility for his or her own learning. In these settings, the teacher may organize activities and provide resources, but then takes on a coaching or facilitating role as students work cooperatively to solve problems, construct their own … [Read more...]
