1 00:00:08,340 --> 00:00:12,060 I try to practice what I preach in my class, or practice what I teach in my class, which 2 00:00:12,060 --> 00:00:16,970 is that learning happens not from me telling things to students, but from them experiencing 3 00:00:16,970 --> 00:00:20,340 things. And I want them to be able to enable that with their own students, and I'm trying 4 00:00:20,340 --> 00:00:24,680 to do that in my own class with my students. So, on the first day of class, I might give 5 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:28,850 a lecture for 20 minutes about what the class is about, and that's pretty much it for lecturing 6 00:00:28,850 --> 00:00:34,120 for me for the rest of the semester. So, we do a lot of stuff that's discussion-based 7 00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:38,230 and activity-based. I do try to have, I don't think constructivism-From my perspective, 8 00:00:38,230 --> 00:00:41,500 I'm not a radical constructivist who says, "Everything needs to be learned by the students 9 00:00:41,500 --> 00:00:45,399 on their own." But it's a matter of having, figuring out what those experiences are, how 10 00:00:45,399 --> 00:00:48,390 to design them, and then how to engage in conversation and reflection based on those 11 00:00:48,390 --> 00:00:53,180 experiences to have students learn about what it means to teach and what it means to learn. 12 00:00:53,180 --> 00:00:57,829 So it's about constructing those right situations that I think hopefully foster learning, and 13 00:00:57,829 --> 00:01:01,610 we do change that year after year after we realize, "Well, this didn't work so well this 14 00:01:01,610 --> 00:01:04,530 year. Maybe we'll change it for next year. Maybe we'll get rid of this and replace it 15 00:01:04,530 --> 00:01:07,649 with something else." And then it's a matter of figuring out, for any particular group 16 00:01:07,649 --> 00:01:11,610 of students, where I interject myself into the conversation--where I have to sort of 17 00:01:11,610 --> 00:01:14,649 ask a critical question, or where I have to offer an opinion, or where I kind of just 18 00:01:14,649 --> 00:01:21,649 let the conversation go where it may. "Some people really like to talk, and some people 19 00:01:22,830 --> 00:01:29,830 really don't like to talk. So sometimes I just let that naturally evolve, and try to 20 00:01:30,849 --> 00:01:35,490 be able to gauge whether there's some people who are not talking who would like to be talking, 21 00:01:35,490 --> 00:01:39,959 or who could benefit from talking. One of the reasons why we sort of rotate the responsibilities 22 00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:43,830 is that it makes sure that at least at some point for each activity you're up at the front 23 00:01:43,830 --> 00:01:48,450 of the room. You're in charge of a Current Events. You're in charge of a Chapter Reading. 24 00:01:48,450 --> 00:01:51,509 You're in charge of teaching a lesson. So there are a lot of opportunities where you're 25 00:01:51,509 --> 00:01:56,979 required to sort of be engaged at the front of the room, or centrally in the room, even 26 00:01:56,979 --> 00:02:01,840 if you're not at the front. And I think that that tries to break down some of the barriers 27 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:05,220 in terms of why some people don't participate in the class, why they sit in the back and 28 00:02:05,220 --> 00:02:08,590 are quiet. Once they sort of have that opportunity to come to the front, some of those barriers 29 00:02:08,590 --> 00:02:14,040 are broken down and they're more willing to participate. I don't typically cold-call on 30 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:19,250 people, but we do break up into groups, so sometimes when students are reluctant to talk 31 00:02:19,250 --> 00:02:23,829 in a group of 25, they're much more willing when everybody in the group needs to talk 32 00:02:23,829 --> 00:02:30,829 with each other. The Modes of Teaching activity allows us to do student teaching but in a 33 00:02:31,180 --> 00:02:35,120 way that gets everybody engaged and thinking about this. And I think one of the things 34 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:38,209 that students come into the class thinking is that, "Well, the most efficient way to 35 00:02:38,209 --> 00:02:42,219 teach is to get up at the front of the room and talk to people. And I'll tell them that, 36 00:02:42,219 --> 00:02:47,760 and I can cover so much in an hour. It's really great." And then it's a matter of having them 37 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:50,840 think about, well, what are the benefits of using other activities? What are the benefits 38 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:55,049 of having people do things hands-on? What are the benefits of using other media and 39 00:02:55,049 --> 00:02:58,250 hands-on activities that you might do with even a small group of students at the front 40 00:02:58,250 --> 00:03:02,310 of the room? And how those fit together. It's not to say that one of them is better than 41 00:03:02,310 --> 00:03:05,459 the other, but it's to think about, what are the ways they fit together, and what are the 42 00:03:05,459 --> 00:03:10,560 ways they engage you in different ways? So, it gets people thinking about, what are the 43 00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:15,370 merits of these different things? And then also, how do they fit together in ways that 44 00:03:15,370 --> 00:03:18,530 may not be obvious? Because it's... sometimes people think about the lecture as the thing 45 00:03:18,530 --> 00:03:22,650 that should go first: "I should tell them the stuff, and then they should rehearse it 46 00:03:22,650 --> 00:03:28,150 in a lab or an activity." And the way we mix it up, sometimes that comes first. Sometimes 47 00:03:28,150 --> 00:03:32,319 the lecture comes first, and sometimes the activity or lab comes first. And it's about 48 00:03:32,319 --> 00:03:36,010 understanding, "Wow, that really... diving right into it really gave me some context 49 00:03:36,010 --> 00:03:40,340 for this. And then when I went to the lecture the next class period, it actually made a 50 00:03:40,340 --> 00:03:44,249 lot more sense because I had already done this activity where the... that lecture was 51 00:03:44,249 --> 00:03:45,410 put into some sort of context."