Getting Better Results From Students

It's all about control!

>What? We don't control students!

Yes! We have to control the students!

>What about allowing students to control their own learning i.e. student directed (centered) learning and independent learning?

Yes, that is fine, but, COVID taught us that most students are not able to self-direct independently.

>What about allowing students to follow their interests and passions and learn the way they like to learn?

Yes, that is fine, but, the idea of learning styles was debunked long ago. Students need to be controlled!

>What do you mean by control?

Glad you asked. When I say control, I mean that the teacher is the engineer of the learning experience. An engineer designing in canal controls where the water is going to go by creating channels and pathways for the water to flow freely. When a teacher controls the environment and gives students a chanel to follow, students will follow it. This takes planning, preparation and persistence on the teacher's part. Sorry to break it to you, but it will take more time, energy and creativity than simply telling students what they should know.

Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer of Constructivism, and I believe that students who do something with knowledge or skills, will remember them more than those who just catalogue them and keep them in their notebooks. Students who are engaged physically and mentally will give better learning results than those that don't. We already know those students. They sit in the front of the class and their arms are on springs and pop up everytime there is a question. What about all the other students?

Engaging all students is the key. Notice, I didn't say entertain all students or keep them busy. What can you do to engage all students all the time. We know the answer. Quit talking! I wrote a controversial article a few years ago on Edutopia.org . The title of the article was, "Great Teachers Don't Teach. " The point of that article was to make the students DO something instead of sitting there passively listening.

The following is an example on chanelling student thinking and actions from the book, Better Questioning for Better Learning: Strategies for Engaged Thinking

Teacher Y and the Photosynthesis Lesson

Teacher Y:? “What do plants eat?”

Some students raise their hands, most just look at Y.? Y asks one of the boys frantically waving his hand in the front of the room.? “Charles, you look like you know the answer.”

“They eat dirt!”

“Well, that is not precisely the right answer.? But how could we find out what plants eat if they eat at all?”?

“We could perform an experiment”, a girl conjectures.

“Great idea!? Let’s all go outside to do an experiment, but first I have to prepare you for the experiment.? You are all going to pretend to be plants.? Your faces will be the leaves of your plant.? No, we will not paint your faces green, but you have to imagine that they are full of chloroplasts—the organelles within plant cells that make the leaves look green.? Next you need to bring your field notebook and a pencil.? Ready?? Ok, let’s go to the field.”

…

Teacher Y gives instructions, “Everyone sit on the grass please.? Ok, close your eyes. Remember, your faces are the leaves of the plants.? What do you all feel on your face?? Just say it out-loud, all at once.”

“The wind.”, “Coldness.”…

“Yes, there is a slight wind. What else do you feel?”

The students do not respond for a moment.

“OK, here comes the experiment.? Raise your field notebooks above your head to shade your face.? Now what do you feel?”

All the students respond in general, “It feels cooler.”

“Everyone, tell your neighbor why you think it feels cooler.”?

The general consensus was, “Because the notebook blocked the sun.”

Teacher Y notes that he needs to correct some thinking, “The notebook would burn up if it blocked the sun.? Everyone, what was it really that notebook blocks?”

“Ahhhh!? Light from the sun.”

“Now lower the notebooks.? Ask your partners, ‘Now, what do you feel?’”

In general the students agree, “I feel heat from the sun.”

“Describe to your partner?what heat is.”

Teacher Y then asks the students to make a judgment, “If you think that heat is a form of energy, raise your notebooks in the air.”

All notebooks rise.

“If you think dirt is a form of energy, raise your notebooks in the air.”

No notebooks are lifted.

“Now turn to your elbow partner?and in 30 seconds discuss how animals get their energy to survive?”

In chorus, the students respond, “They eat living things.”

“Wonderful!? You remember the food cycle.? If eating is the way animals get their energy, how do plants get their energy?

“The sun.”

Teacher Y feels he needs to get the students to be precise, “Remember, the sun would burn them up.? How do plants get their energy from the sun?”

“They soak up light from the sun.”

“Back to my first question.? Class, what do plants eat?”

All the students respond, “They eat light from the sun.”

“Do plants eat?”

“No, they soak up light from the sun!”

“Again, what do plants eat?”

In unison they reply, “They don’t eat.? They soak up light from the sun.”

“That is correct.? Take a minute to write down in your field notebook how we learned that plants get energy from the sun’s light.? When we go inside again, we will learn how the green chloroplasts in plant leaves turn the sun’s light energy into food using ATP.”

In the book I explain that if a question is important enough to ask the whole class, then the whole class should answer the question in some fashion: choral response, total physical response, elbow partners, small groups, etc... That is how you control students! You have to engage them in something productive.

So quit talking so much and get the students talking more in the chanels for learning that you have engineered.

Dr. Benjamin Johnson

Author of Better Questioning for Better Learning: Strategies for Engaged Thinking and Teaching Students to Dig Deeper: Ten Essential Skills for College and Career Readiness

Also author of the Fire Lord Trilogy