Students as Teachers
Much like the previous section on making lessons relevant so as to increase student engagement, arenas must be provided for students to be the experts.“[…] learning must be rooted in the experiences that students come from.” (Fletcher, 2005) Adam Fletcher believes that a student who can draw from his/her own funds of knowledge will engage more often and more genuinely than a student who is not. Evidence of this is seen in heightened awareness and drawing from information that is not taught during normal class hours.
On one occasion, I asked one of my students teach me something he believed I didn’t know. This student is an active learner in the classroom, always asking questions and participating in discussions. He reads a lot and likes having political debates with me. I chose to do this exercise because I wanted to see how he would engage in a discussion where he wasn't approaching me as his "teacher" but as his "student". He was given three days to think of what he wanted to teach me and then execute it. On the third day, he came to me and taught me all about lighting systems in the Ancient Egyptian pyramids. While it was interesting to listen to him teach me this information, the long term effect was much greater. For the next week that followed his teaching, he kept seeking me out after class to tell me more about what he had read. Much like the student in my IB class who sought assistance after class, this student was engaged in the material he was teaching. It was evident by his heightened desire to teach me what else he had learned about the subject matter. While there was physical, observable evidence (seeking me out, excitement, etc) the stronger evidence was his desire to keep teaching and keep the conversation open. This evidence of engagement this student showed can be seen as a combination of both physical and non-physical evidence. It is physical because the observable evidence (positive body language, active engagement, etc) was definitely present as well as the non-physical evidence as seen through continuing to research the topic of Egyptian Lighting Systems and seeking me out to share it.
As explained and expanded upon in the previous section on The Role of Relevance, it is important that an educator reflect on ways to create spaces for students to become partners in the education process, not just recipients of knowledge. When students are afforded the opportunity to co-construct the information, or in the case of this student-as-teacher exercise, construct the knowledge alone and then teach it, students become much more engaged in the schooling process. In this student-as-teacher case, the evidence, as explained above, was both physical and non-physical.
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On one occasion, I asked one of my students teach me something he believed I didn’t know. This student is an active learner in the classroom, always asking questions and participating in discussions. He reads a lot and likes having political debates with me. I chose to do this exercise because I wanted to see how he would engage in a discussion where he wasn't approaching me as his "teacher" but as his "student". He was given three days to think of what he wanted to teach me and then execute it. On the third day, he came to me and taught me all about lighting systems in the Ancient Egyptian pyramids. While it was interesting to listen to him teach me this information, the long term effect was much greater. For the next week that followed his teaching, he kept seeking me out after class to tell me more about what he had read. Much like the student in my IB class who sought assistance after class, this student was engaged in the material he was teaching. It was evident by his heightened desire to teach me what else he had learned about the subject matter. While there was physical, observable evidence (seeking me out, excitement, etc) the stronger evidence was his desire to keep teaching and keep the conversation open. This evidence of engagement this student showed can be seen as a combination of both physical and non-physical evidence. It is physical because the observable evidence (positive body language, active engagement, etc) was definitely present as well as the non-physical evidence as seen through continuing to research the topic of Egyptian Lighting Systems and seeking me out to share it.
As explained and expanded upon in the previous section on The Role of Relevance, it is important that an educator reflect on ways to create spaces for students to become partners in the education process, not just recipients of knowledge. When students are afforded the opportunity to co-construct the information, or in the case of this student-as-teacher exercise, construct the knowledge alone and then teach it, students become much more engaged in the schooling process. In this student-as-teacher case, the evidence, as explained above, was both physical and non-physical.
NEXT