I enjoy working with college level students who are hoping to become teachers in the near future. In our class for the last few weeks, students have been designing their own lessons of their choice and teaching in small groups. We've spent most of the semester learning about different theories of learning, reading research on best practices, and experimenting with different student-centered approaches. After all, the research supports teaching in these ways. But what surprised me this week was the number of my students that fell back on traditional lecture-style teaching for their mini lessons. I could see the boredom on the faces of their classmates as they tried to politely listen. Lecturing is NOT effective. Who wants to sit and listen to Charlie Brown's teacher mumble "mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa" ? Not me; and chances are not students in K-12 classrooms either.
Research supports the notion that we tend to teach in ways we were taught. So if we are going to break this cycle, we need to be mindful and purposeful about it. Student engagement makes a huge difference in learning. Engage your students by letting them take the reigns of learning. They should be up and moving, playing with models, discussing and debating with classmates, and using hands on materials. Today's classrooms should look nothing like the classrooms we grew up in. No more rows of desks where students are discouraged from talking to one another; no more worksheets of meaningless drill and kill math problems, and no more teacher standing in the front of the classroom going over vocabulary and other mundane facts.
Cycles are hard to break; the first step is to be aware. We can't deny scientific research supporting best practices for teaching. I will continue to plug along and encourage my students to step out of their comfort zones and try new teaching techniques. Hopefully they will see the rewards once they have a chance to see the excitement on their students' faces.
