I want to be absolutely clear: I don’t have any problem with lecturing as one tool among many that we can use to help our students learn. It can be a very valuable strategy in certain instances…. Worthen [the author] not only dismisses discussion, group work, and other forms of pedagogy, but does so with derision. As a result, she ignores decades worth of research and relies almost exclusively on anecdote. It’s hard to build a case that way. In what follows, I want to get to the bottom of all of the assumptions that underpin Worthen’s piece by closely reading passages from the essay itself, which I’ve placed in bold font.”
There are sound reasons for sticking with the traditional model of the large lecture course combined with small weekly discussion sections. Lectures are essential for teaching the humanities’ most basic skills: comprehension and reasoning, skills whose value extends beyond the classroom to the essential demands of working life and citizenship.”
The documentary is about relationships, not subject matter. In the school, too, teachers cover about half as much content as in a regular school. Long stretches of history and other subject curriculums are effectively skipped. Students do not develop conventional study habits. The big question is whether such a shift from content to life skills is the proper response to a high-tech economy. I’d say it’s at best a partial response.”
The purpose of [this document] is to summarize the existing research from cognitive science related to how students learn, and connect this research to its practical implications for teaching and learning. This document is intended to serve as a resource to teacher-educators, new teachers, and anyone in the education profession who is interested in our best scientific understanding of how learning takes place. This document identifies six key questions about learning that should be relevant to nearly every educator. Deans for Impact believes that, as part of their preparation, every teacher-candidate should grapple with — and be able to answer — the questions in The Science of Learning.”
1) There are many pedagogical techniques. 2) These techniques vary in usefulness, depending on the discipline, class size, role in the major/GE program, level of instruction, content, classroom layout, time of day…”
Copyright
Every week I send out articles I encounter from around the web. Subject matter ranges from hard knowledge about teaching to research about creativity and cognitive science to stories from other industries that, by analogy, inform what we do as educators. This breadth helps us see our work in new ways.
Readers include teachers, school leaders, university overseers, conference organizers, think tank workers, startup founders, nonprofit leaders, and people who are simply interested in what’s happening in education. They say it helps them keep tabs on what matters most in the conversation surrounding schools, teaching, learning, and more.
– Peter Nilsson