Active Teaching and active learning
There is a difference between teaching in the U.S and in Asia. Classrooms in the U.S are mostly lively with questions, discussions in contrast with classrooms in Asia that are often quiet as students focus on listening and taking notes. When I ask questions, few students would volunteer to answer. Even when someone answers, I ask the class for opinions to get a discussion going but few would provide feedback. I understand that in traditional classroom, teachers lecture and students listen. Students are not encouraged to ask questions because some teachers believe too many questions may distract the class away from the lecture and wasting class time.
Traditional lecture is good for the theoretical learning where memorization is the key learning and tests are based on how much students can memorize. Unfortunately this method is not suitable to develop students’ critical thinking skills which are required for the scientific learning. Class discussion asks students to process information they have studied in new ways such as understanding it, evaluating it, applying it, and then comparing their understanding of it with that of others. Class discussions between the professor and the students or between the students themselves will improve students’ ability to learn and retain information better.
For this type of learning to take place, classroom should be a place where students feel comfortable. They should not be afraid to ask question or worry about expressing their opinions. Professors should encourage students to ask questions and explain them thoroughly to make sure students understand the concept. Professors must make everybody feel like they are important regardless of what question they ask. When students feel comfortable, they are willing to focus their attention for further learning.
One way to encourage students to participate in class is to ask questions. I often ask questions to keep students’ attention, such as "Why this technique do not work in this situation?” What are other techniques that may work here?” In asking this kind of question, I would wait until some students respond. If not then I would appoint someone to answer such as: “Bob, what do you think?” then when Bob give the answer, I would ask another: “Bill, what do you think about Bob's answer?” By continue to ask questions, I would get the class to participate then eventually I will get a whole class discussion on going. The class would be more lively with more student participate. Sometime I would get students' involvement by asking them to raise their hands on a subject or issue. I ask, "How many of you agree with Bob's answer?" or "How many feel that Bill's answer is better?” then “How many of you do not agree with both Bob and Bill's answer and have different answer?” This always led to another commentary or discussion.
When I teach in Asia, a Professor commented: “It seems that you do not teach much but let students discuss among themselves. Have you prepared a lecture? How do you teach when students are doing all the talking? I explained: “My students must do all readings before the class. When they come to class, they do not need to listen to a lecture or watch a slide presentation. I pose questions or problems and students answer by discussing them among themselves. I do not like to give answers, even after the discussing I often ask them if they can think of other alternative solutions. I also ask students to summarize the main point of the materials. Sometime I divide the class into several groups of students where they must discuss among themselves and answer questions that I ask. The idea is to represent different viewpoints of topics by having a several answers. Sometime, I would ask them to play different roles to clarify a real case. For example, in a discussion about software project, students could take the roles of a customer, a project manager, a designer, a programmer, a quality assurance, etc. Students in class who do not have a role act as the audience and ask questions. I act as moderator and prepare several questions that will provoke different points of view to get the discussion starts. I found that by having this type of discussion, students can learn more about critical thinking and problem solving than just passively listen to a lecture.
I told the professor: “It seems that I do not lecture much, only facilitate the discussion but actually it requires more preparation than develop a lecture. In this type of active teaching, I create a new learning process where students are actively learning and that is the essence of the new teaching method. In the beginning, students are reluctant and hesitate to participate because they do not know much about this new method but after few weeks; they all told me that they enjoy it more. It forces them to come to class prepared and ready to participate in discussion and they learn more. Especially by the time I left, most told me that they like the “Learning by Doing” method than the classic listening to lectures, even they have to work harder and spend more time before the class.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
