Teaching and learning part 3
In this knowledge age, education is very important. However for whatever reason, the rate of college students drop-out has increased significant in the past few years. (1 million dropouts in the U.S per year, 18 million in India, and 35 million in China). Last year, the U.S National Academies warned that: “Today, for the first time in history, our younger generation is less well-educated than its parents.” The data of student drop-out has created many debates, some blamed the economy, some blamed the education system, some blame the teachers, and some blame the students.
In an interview with the newspapers, several drop-out students said that college is so boring so they quit. Few even challenge the value of the four-year education as they saw the number of unemployed graduates. Some complained that they are tired with the “Classic” teaching system where they had to passively sit for hours in class and listen to a long lectures. Many teachers defended their schools by argued that some of these students may not be suitable for college after high schools. Many did not know what to do so they followed their friends to college, they should go to vocational school instead. They may be correct as some students really do not belong in college but I think the lack of participation also has a role in students' learning.
Today students are not the same as several years ago, they are more active so education must be adjusted to fit their learning style. I believe that having student actively engaging in learning is a better way to educate them. As educators, we are responsible to prepare them, not just for the jobs of today, but also for the jobs in the next ten or twenty years. We cannot encourage “lifelong learning” if students do not even want to learn something today. Since technology will be a big part of all jobs in the future, we need to build their knowledge and skills now. To do that, we should use the technology that they already familiar with in their everyday lives. Today, many students have mobile phone, video game device, and laptop. These are devices that they enjoy using and they are the best “learning aid” for promoting technology with the training curriculum.
To encourage active learning, I often ask students to access the internet, find three good articles related to the materials that I will teach in the following week. The team that find the best articles would be given a bonus point. When they bring the articles in class, I would challenging them to prove why their selected articles are better than the others. Each team must defend their positions. When they state the strong points of the articles, I wrote them on the blackboard. At the end of the class, I would summarize these points as the introduction to the topic that I will teach the following week. By doing this, I force students to learn materials before they go to class. They are not just reading the materials but also analyzing them to find the strong points and that is where they learn the analyzing skills. By defending their positions, they learn to negotiate, explanation, presentation, and trade-off which are key soft-skills.
I have a website for each class that I teach. I ask students to create scripts, scenarios related to the topic that they just learned in class and video tape them using their phone camera (each script should not be more than 5 minutes). Students review these short scripts and vote for the best. By having them explaining the concept, student learn how to clarify and verify what they have learned. By limit the problem solving to five minutes video clip, students learn about identify key concept, how to present them where they learn communication, presentation, collaboration and teamwork. The selected scripts will be uploaded on my website as podcasting so I could share with other classes. This type of learning help student learn to plan, to negotiate, and create a mindset of problem solving and promote soft-skills.
Sometime I use a technique called “Who will use this” by asking students to create a one page brochure explaining a problem that is used in the “real world.” They must give an example of the problem and demonstrate how to solve it. It should be bright & colorful like an advertisement so they can posted on my website.
I often encourage input from students so that they have an opportunity to share with me what they want to gain from the class. I want to know how they value (or not) the way I teach and make them work. Based on their inputs, I can identify improvement opportunities. Instead of the tradition of having two exams each semester, I like to give weekly assignment to make sure that students keep up with the class. I like to give a short test at the end of the week, I will grade them over the weekend and provide feedback to students on Monday. I believe this timely feedback is important so the students know where they stand. This helps build knowledge throughout the semester and shows students what they are learning. Of course, some do not like that as they think that my class require too much works but most do enjoy it because they do not have to “cram” for the tests.
During the first week of class, I often ask some of them to tell the class where do they see themselves 5 to 10 years from now. If they do not know, do they see themselves as being a successful developers or managers? I also ask them what are the criteria of a successful developers or managers? What are their skills? What do these people do in their job? I also ask them to visualize they are in those positions and what do they need to success? By explore all the possibilities and career opportunities, I want them to set their career goals, their study goals and set up measurements to track their progress. When students have a clear direction and the roadmap for their career, they often do well in class because they know what they need to study.
When I have larger class, I would divide into smaller groups (3-6 students) to discuss a particular question related to the subject material. A smaller group, where each individual is required to contribute, will often draw out ideas and comments otherwise kept silent in the larger classroom. Small groups often more comfortable for the shy or hesitant students learning from their friends and discovering new things together.
Throughout the class, I often find a real life situation such as a news clip from newspapers to explain how that situation relates to the topic that they are learning. Before starting on a new topic, I ask students to do research on the internet such as read articles from Wikipedia, some technical websites to get some ideas to be discussed in class before asking them to read textbook. By doing that, students know more about implementation before they learn about the theories. This will help students to stay engaged with the topic.
When students are stressed by the lesson, I often share with them how myself (the teacher) also messed up learning the topic when I was at their age. I try to make it funny so we can laugh about it and make them feel comfortable. I often share with my students some of my personal stories as a student, a developer, a manager, a director, and a professor including many of my mistakes, my failures hopefully to motivate them.
By actively engaging students in learning, we can develop the learning habit by making learning less stressful. Few years from now, students may forget what they have learned, they may forget some formulas and equations but they will not forget how they learn them. That learning habit is the foundation for their continuous learning throughout their lives as what lifelong learning should be.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
