I don't know if you've already seen the Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, or took the cue from our speaker last week, but it is a must see! One thing that I took from it was the idea of a head fake.
Many students, including myself, have referred to school as boring. What Randy has termed a 'head fake' has the potential to erase boring from someones vocabulary when talking about education. This puts the student in an environment that (s)he enjoys and teaches him/her something they would normally not enjoy learning by tricking them. 'One' of examples Randy gives is about the Alice program he's working on. In the program the user thinks (s)he making a movies and video games, when they are actually learning computer programming. I think this is something that is greatly lacking in the educational institutions I have attended, especially the higher I've gone. I remember having to do pages of math homework in middle and high school AND hating it. I remember playing a game in my elementary days that emphasized math skills on a computer AND loving it.
The student doesn't even need to be tricked into doing something, it only needs to be fun to increase the chance the student might actually take something from a lesson.
This is only ONE of the many things that I took from and enjoyed about Randy's speech. I highly recommend watching it, just give the title of this post a click, sit back, relax, and watch it.
3 comments:
Some of what you said hearkens back to Seymour Papert and constructionist studies of the 70 through the early 90s. Fun is such an important element of learning situations and the feeling like you have control over a project is also crucial to learning. Learning is much harder when you try to live up to someone else's expectations, especially when you are unsure of what they are. What's more fulfilling is making the project your own and setting goals to yourself. This is when learning is the most meaningful.
This also makes things easier on the teacher who focuses less on how to efficiently distribute information and more on how they can help students reach their own goals.
I agree, the Last Lecture is a must see.
I have to say though that we have had guest lectures throughout this semester. In almost all but one, I found myself “bored”. I was all up during last week’s guest lecture, mainly because of the entertainment aspect of it. Because the speaker was entertaining, I felt that I learned more, and the information—through the way he presented it—still resonates in my mind.
I wish Randy Pausch all the best, and lest support his cause by viewing this video
Boring is a word and a concept that did not enter the human vocabulary until quite recently (1852 to be precise). Engagement is a two way street. If you don't put a good effort in understanding and appreciating what other human beings (or animals, or paintings, or music) have to say, regardless of their status, social class, education etc. it is inevitable I think that you will be bored. I myself don't remember a time in my life when I was bored although I know what it means because I see it in others (including my own children sometimes), specially young people when they don't have access to their Nintendos or whatever the distraction of the day happens to be. Learning to be engaged and interested in the world around you and not only in your own little niche or routine activity is a skill that can be acquired easily with a change in attitude and some practice and it will open your horizons tremendously.
What Bryan mentions is the basis of programs like Montessori and of the theories of Papert, Piaget and others. When you are a kid you do need some structure both in the environment and in the activities to be able to transmit/receive needed information and I agree 100% that it should be a game or in the form of playing that the information will be transmitted more effectively. Kids who grow up in such learning environments usually keep that same attitude as grown ups as they realize that everything they do can be understood as a game or play.
Yesterday I was able to observe a large group of black, disenfranchised students from one of the poorest schools in Gainesville (Smallwood) give a demonstration of their math understanding and skills. It was a mixed age group from about 7 to 13-14. This school has the highest math score in the entire Florida and one of the highest in the nation. They could solve arithmetic and math problems in their head simultaneously as a group. The audience (mostly educators) threw questions at them at which they responded instantly in unison. All of them (students and educators) were 100% engaged.DW is now trying to convince the powers that be (at a national level) to implement the methodology used in these school so that the US can regain a little of what has been lost to many other countries in the world who are now leaders in technology and education.
As you grow older and become "responsible" for your life, it is up to you to find or create the methodology that will allow you to keep the learning process alive for the rest of your life.
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