It seems like I have been a student forever, and
that even though my next graduation is not far in the future, I don't think I
will ever stop being a student. Looking at some scholarly articles about
teaching vs. learning has brought some things into perspective for me. While I
have been in college, I have tried to live by the notion that "If I am
learning from the class, I will get a good grade." For the most part, it
has worked. The articles seem to focus on how the teachers are failing because
they are so focused on imparting their structured knowledge onto the students.
I think that we all need to make the shift to becoming both teachers and
students. When I am out in the "real world," as opposed to a
traditional classroom, I talk with people. I make connections between what I am
learning in church to what I am doing at my job, even if some people think that
those to areas have nothing to do with each other. If there's something I don't
know how to do, I ask questions. This started with my first teachers, my
parents. I think if more and more teachers moved to this model, it would change
the view of students.
Now, we get to the most difficult part, how to
measure the success of teaching. I have taken so many tests. Some of them have
absolutely no bearing on what I actually learned because they were full of regurgitated
information. Others I thought I would do well on because I understood the
homework, and how it applied to real life, but I walked out of those tests considered
a failure more often than not. What is the disconnect between the measuring
standards and the internalizing of information? One of my more recent teachers
only tested on material in the textbook, and lectured every class on whatever he
or she felt like. It was a terrifying class because I never knew how much I
should actually pay attention, or if my teacher was really worth my time and
effort to come to class because his or her standard of measurement made no
sense to me as a student. I ended up getting a fairly good grade in the class,
but I learned almost nothing from the material presented to me.
In essence, I am saying that life is a continual
learning process, and the best way for people to learn, is to create a learning
environment instead of a teaching one.
Some of the articles I read:
http://www.assessment.uconn.edu/docs/TeacherCenteredVsLearnerCenteredParadigms.pdf
http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/drogers/essays/teachvlearn.html
http://www.teachersfortomorrow.net/blog/learning-vs-teaching-is-this-a-difference-we-should-think-about
