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Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Empowering Students and Teachers -- Freedom Within Limits (Part 1)

Assessment drives instruction.  Well, so too, classroom structure drives instruction.  I believe this is why so many great ideas in education die.  Teachers give them up out of frustration.  The structure of learning time has to change in order for innovative educational ideals to survive.

This past semester, I set out to give my college students a world-class math education.  During the first couple of weeks I interspersed activities designed to teach and re-teach what an effective mathematics classroom should look like.  They got it.  They wanted it.  Then they got to work with what was prepared for them in the course.  It wasn't work that I had prepared though.  It was prepared by other instructors and handed to them through me.  It bombed.  I could tell that my students were frustrated that I was telling them one thing, and the work given to them was telling them another.  I was seen as an obstacle to completing their work and to their success because that's how they viewed success.

I realized that it wasn't that the ideas I had given them weren't good or desirable or effective, it was that the model was garbage.  This was the case in both classes I taught.  In one class, they read a textbook before class, took notes, then completed homework exercises on a computer during class.  Blah!  In the other class, they were supposed to function in groups by working through tasks prepared for them in a textbook.  In both cases, they had tasks given to them that they wanted to accomplish.  The moment they were given those tasks to complete, the role of the teacher changed.  Students were now empowered to take control of their own learning.  There was one monstrous problem though.  The teacher was removed from the equation!  In both instances, it became the individual's responsibility to learn, without much assistance.

I knew that what they were doing merely had the appearance of learning, but no substance.  That's why I set out to teach them more effective ways of learning math (though I would contest that they weren't really learning math in the first place).  The structure of the class did not allow for that though.  The structure defined my role as a teacher in both instances--wait until students ask you for help.  That's about the sum total of my role.  I can't do much else or they will get frustrated because they feel like I am impeding their success by preventing them from completing the task before them.  Bottom line, the structure of these classes gives students freedom, but no limits.

I have experienced much more success when I have been given control as the teacher to decide what my students will do.  In both instances above, I was expected to follow the structure of the class, although a vain attempt had been made to assure me that I could do whatever I wanted to within those limits!  But my freedom as a teacher was gone.

The problem with the tasks given to students in the second instance was that the task was too scripted.  The task was set up so that students had a smooth path to the goal.  The key to a successful task is a design that places students in a position that is just a little too difficult for them.  They can accomplish the task with the help of a teacher.  This ensures the teacher plays the role of facilitator, not observer.

Many educators and writers maintain that students need specific goals visible to them each day.  I prefer learning time constraints to agendas.  Students tend to rush to get to the end when they know there are a limited number of topics to explore.  On the other hand, when students know that learning is a never-ending journey, they tend to think deeper and not rush.  Time constraints allow for that, agendas don't.

I have described two typical classrooms where too much freedom is given: flipped classrooms, and group instruction driven through fill-in-the-blank textbook prompts.  The more traditional approach of simply lecture, homework, test, repeat doesn't even allow students the opportunity to take charge of their learning.  In this setting, any learning that occurs happens when the lecturer closes their mouth!

I am proposing that one way to empower students is by giving them freedom within the limits of smaller exploratory tasks, or tasks that are just beyond their reach.  When they finish, they are given another task.  When they finish that, another task is given.  This conveys the message that the limit is time not the number of topics.  There is an eternity of learning before them!  This gives the students freedom to work while at the same time giving the teacher the freedom they need to facilitate learning.  Both teachers and students are empowered in this model.

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