A Tale of Two Classrooms -- Kids Think

This is the fifth in a ten-part series based on the poster: A Tale of Two Classrooms.

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Kids Think

       It seems crazy to suggest that classrooms in the 21st century should emphasize more student thinking and to imply that this wasn't always the case.  But if you think about the traditional classroom--the sort of classroom that many adults sat in when they were in school--you see a teacher standing in the front of the room and asking a lot of low-level, "recall" -type questions.

       "It's not positive, it's........?"
       "The capital of the United States is........?"
       " The largest planet is........?"

       A student could walk into the classroom after the lesson was taught and still be able to answer these questions.  These are simple, one answer, "just the facts" questions.  They don't require students to think.  Sometimes they don't even require students to memorize anything because the answer to these sorts of questions may be in the book or paper that is lying on the student's desk at the time the question is asked.  I've been in classrooms (today) when a teacher would ask a question and then point to the answer on the screen or the whiteboard and all the student had to do is read the word that the teacher pointed to.  This doesn't require thinking.  Even worse, low-level questions don't promote learning.

         In today's world, we need students who can analyze, evaluate, and create.  These skills are on the highest level of the revision of Bloom's Taxonomy.  These are the thinking skills.  These are the skills that enable students to compare and contrast pieces of information and to draw conclusions.  They help students to learn how to devise solutions to problems and how to come up with ideas and suggestions.  These are the skills that teach students how to learn.

       And thinking isn't supposed to be easy.  Academic thinking takes practice; it takes time; and it helps to have a supportive teacher.  The students with the first answer (the "fastest" answer) may not have the only answer.  Thinking also grows the brain by creating more connection among synapses.  Thinking adds content to students' long-term memory--which is good because more information in our long-term memory allows for more thinking--or more "space" in our short-term memory.  This is the place where we hold on to new information.

       A classroom that allows for a lot of student thinking must also allow for ideas and suggestions to flow without an immediate response from the teacher.  We want students to share their thoughts and ideas and to hear those of their peers without worry about being right or wrong all of the time.  Thinking is hard work; and school is the perfect place to cultivate this life skill.

Learning About Learning

       The goal of school is learning.  The challenge for our schools is to help all students to learn when students are so different.  Some prefer to work by themselves.  Others need to bounce ideas off of their peers.  Some need only to hear the information while others need to actively "do" something to help them to learn.

       The mystery of how students learn has baffled educators for a long time.  The puzzle of "some-kids-get-it" and "some-kids-don't-get-it" has been difficult to understand.  I think that--for a long time--teachers referred to their own ability to learn (and perhaps that of their peers) and felt that all students probably learned the same way they did.  In fact, I wonder sometimes if some present day teachers use the same technique.  And while there are still many unknowns in the field of learning, it is fair to say that we know more today about how students learn than at any time in our history.

       For starters, brain research has provided a wealth of information about how we learn.  Here's a short list of things to know about how the brain learns:

1. We receive information better when it's visual.
2. We remember the big picture better than the details.
3. Sleep affects learning and memory.
4. Less sleep reduces your ability to learn new information.
5. We learn best by teaching others.

       Next, we have a lot of help in the field of learning from experts and practitioners.  After a while, we begin to see common themes in the area of helping students to learn:

• Engagement - Students who actively participate in their learning find it enjoyable and are better able to retain the information.
• Movement - Learning can certainly take place while sitting, but less so if you're forced to stay seated for a long time.  (see The Power of Movement in Teaching and Learning)
• Challenge - We learn best when we are forced to think and try and fail and try again.  Also, when we are forced to recall past learning and use that information to understand the current learning.
• Growth Mindset - If we believe that effort yields results then we are more likely to do our best to preserve in the face of any struggles that may occur as we learn new material.

       Still, teaching is certainly a combination of Art and Science.  Teaching requires building positive relationships so that we can understand our students and construct our lessons in a way that meets their learning needs.  Teaching requires the ability to motivate students and to spark their interest in learning.  Teachers need to challenge students enough to keep it interesting, but not too much so that it becomes too overwhelming.

       The challenge of teaching is the challenge of learning how students learn.  We're getting better at this, but we still have a lot to learn [!].