![]() I hear teachers talk about “covering” concepts in class and even reviewing them with games, only to end up with half the class failing an exam. But I listen to teachers talk all the time: in schools, on social media, in private messages, and I know that things are not going well for you all of the time. I realize I’m probably preaching to the choir here-that people who read these posts are probably doing a lot more in class than this information-in, information-out model-and if that’s true for you, then great. To really learn in a way that will stick, they have to DO something. If we want our students to actually learn the facts and concepts and ideas we’re trying to teach them, they have to experience those things in some way that rises above abstract words on paper. ![]() After this cycle repeats four or five times, they have some kind of test. Then they have some sort of worksheet where they’re basically regurgitating what was on those slides. This was a couple of years ago, when my kids were all still in elementary school, but since that time, I’ve seen this pattern more and more as they’ve gotten older: Every day, for the most part, information is delivered to them in some really basic way-usually PowerPoint-and the kids copy down what the teacher tells them to from the slides. “Is it like that all the time?” I asked, hoping for a no. We just opened it up to page 36, and then she would read a little bit to us, and then explain something, and then we would read a little bit more, and then she would say something else, and that was it.” “Did everybody sit down quietly and read it and then the teacher talked to you?” ![]() “What do you mean ‘we read the book’?” I asked. “Well,” she said, “we just read the book.” I said, “Well how did you learn this? How did you actually learn this for the first time?” She looked at me like I was crazy and said no. “Did your teacher ever do anything like that?” I asked. It seemed like even a three-minute re-enactment of how these systems work would help the kids get it right away. I was trying to figure out if there had ever been some kind of physical demonstration of these concepts. And this group, I want you to move really, really slowly.'” And I want this group here, I want you to wiggle around really fast because you are, I don’t know, high pressure. ![]() I said, “Did you guys ever do anything like where the teacher would grab a small group of kids and say, ‘OK, you three, you’re going to be a cold front, and then you three, you’re going to be a warm front. So we were having trouble explaining it to her, and at one point I finally said to her, “You know, in your class, didn’t your teacher ever draw a diagram on the board?” We were really frustrated, my husband and I, because all we really had as a reference was the top half of this worksheet that explained the concept. We were trying to help her prepare for a test and also do some sort of homework, and she didn’t get it at all. I first became aware that there might be a problem a few years ago, when one of my kids was studying weather systems: high- and low-pressure systems, cold fronts and warm fronts. Listen to an extended version of this post as a podcast ( transcript):
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