They interviewed exchange students that were in the U.S. from high achieving countries and asked them about their year in U.S. schools...the overwhelming theme was that it was the easiest year of education ever for these students. When asked why, they reply that it is because in the United States the teacher does all the work and the students just have to take the information in.
I have long felt this way. We learn by doing. Ninety-eight percent of what I've learned as an educator came from experience, not from my schooling...and I'm sure you all feel the same. We have teachers that are working extremely hard, but we aren't getting the payoff in student learning because the teacher is doing all the work and the kids aren't.
I think we have an awesome tool now to turn the current paradigm around and make it so that kids are creating the content and kids are working hard.
One example the presenter gave was our notes. He basically rambled for 5 hours about technology in the classroom, but he had created a google document and shared it with people in the audience. The people in the audience were responsible for organizing it and taking notes for the day. At the end, we had an organized set of notes that was better than anything he could have put together and he didn't have to do a thing...the kids (audience) created it. (Here it is...Please check it out...there are some great links to awesome tools here...especially khanacademy.org)
So, please think about this as you prepare for this next week. Who is doing the work? Who is creating the content? Remember that we learn best by doing, not listening. Make the kids create and then their learning will be visible.
Oh yeah...throughout the lecture he pulled up the google doc with the notes to check for understanding....very cool.
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