Inductive Learning

COW

The Sandbox Theory

BUZZ Words Inquiry education / Constructivism Discovery Learning / Active Learning The Sudbury School / deSchooling Unschooling / Cooperative learning The Natural Approach / Communicative Teaching Waldorf / Montessori / Inquiry Based Learning

Learning by Discovery "an approach to instruction through which students interact with their environment- by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing experiments" (Ormrod, 1995, p. 442)

Learning As A ……Process self – organizing self – empowering active (Dewey) self-monitoring deep process (Piaget) natural

A Hole in The Wall

WHY DO WE TEACH AS WE DO?

Victims of the Past

Victims of our Egos

Sandbox theory

Active Learning Students learn through active discovery - experimentation, examination and analysis NOT direct instruction

Jerome Bruner we should somehow give to children (students) a respect for their own powers of thinking, for their power to generate good questions, to come up with interesting informed guesses...

The Memoires of Jesse James "I remember all those thousands of hours that I spent in grade school watching the clock, waiting for recess or lunch or to go home. Waiting: for anything but school. My teachers could easily have ridden wtih Jesse James for all the time they stole from me." Richard Brautigan

Examples Categorization Surveys Webquests Interviews Experiments Collecting Simulations Observation Applied Research Games Projects Performance

The “Upside Down Lessons

Upside Down Lesson Delivery Class time

What about Classroom management? This is the anecdote to classroom management problems! Students that are involved and active are much less to cause trouble or be off task. Get them involved and active and your teaching life will be much easier!

My superiors will never buy this! Get reading! Support your arguments with research and use a soft sell. Pitch it as “for the benefit of the student” and it will sell itself. Take baby steps, one week, one unit at a time. Show off your student’s accomplishments!

The parents definitely won’t! Yes they will, once their children return home full of talk about class and excited about their next project or activity! Parents will understand once they see the results.

How do you assess this? Easily. Use rubrics and better if they are developed with/by the students. Focus on functional based assessment, what the students accomplished and can do. Keep tracking sheets and records – let the students do the work by filling them out!

My class has too many levels for this to work! That’s precisely the greatest reason to use it! Students learn by teaching and sharing with each other actively. Other students are great scaffolds and mentors. Don’t underestimate your students as teachers!

Isn’t this too much work? Like anything, it takes time/effort to start up. But in terms of delivery, once it is started, it is vastly easier and less stressful than direct instruction. The pressure is “off” the teacher. In fact the pressure is “off” everywhere.

How do I start? Start experimenting with your GOOD classes. Take a risk and give students the materials and see what they can do with the briefest of instruction/outline. Consciously rein your teaching in and imagine your class as a living space and not a working space.

Suggested “Discovery” Finch, Andrew, “ TEACHERS – WHO NEEDS THEM?: ROLES AND EXPECTATIONS IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM ” Illych, Ivan, After Deschooling, What? Postman, Teaching as a Subversive Activity Rogers, Carl, On Becoming a Person Bruner, Jerome S., The Process of Education Christensen, Clayton M., Disrupting Class Bradburn, Kris, How to Prevent Another DaVinci Kohn, Alfie, It’s not what we teach, it’s what they learn Ranciere, Jacques, The Ignorant Schoolmaster Littky, Dennis, New Ideas Ackoff, Russell L. & Greenberg, Daniel, Turning Learning Right Side Up. Holt, John, How Children Fail Nunan, David, The Learner Centered Curriculum Neill, A. S., Summerhill Gatto, John Taylor, Why Schools Don’t Educate

Prompts "the function of a child is to live his own life — not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, not a life according to the purpose of an educator who thinks he knows best." A.S. Neill

Prompts "the function of a child is to live his own life — not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, not a life according to the purpose of an educator who thinks he knows best." A.S. Neill

Prompts “the objective of education is learning NOT teaching.” “Don’t let your schooling get in the way of your eduation” Samuel Clements

Prompts "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught." -- Oscar Wilde “You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year.” -- Henry Ford

Prompts "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.” Chinese proverb “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”

Prompts “Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” - Winston Churchill “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” - Albert Einstein

Prompts “The only kind of learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered or self-appropriated learning - truth that has been assimilated in experience.” -Carl Rogers “You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.” - Galileo Galilei

Prompts “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” - Mark Van Doren “The biggest enemy to learning is the talking teacher.” - John Holt

Prompts "The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught. -Marquis de Luc Vauvenargues “If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself.... If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience. - Mao Zedong

“ one teaches, two learn. ”