I had the privilege of listening to Gary Stager online at the TEDX NY this weekend. He is an engaging speaker and he finished his talk with four words: Less Us, More Them.
Profound words: Words we educators need to heed. Too often we as educators spend too much time “teaching” and don’t allow enough time in our classes for LEARNINING. Our students need t ime,support and coaches, not lecturers, expositors, and experts. In this globally connected world, students need to see us guiding their learning, but not scripting everything in their lives.
In our upcoming book on the Flipped Classroom, Aaron Sams and I talk about how we had to give up the control of the learning to our students. This was hard for us, but when students are in charge of their own learning, they actually learn. We even went as far as telling our readers (we shall see if this makes it into the book once the editors get at it) that control freaks need not apply. What we meant is that the Flipped Classroom by its very nature is chaotic and those teachers who want total control of their classes won’t be very successful. We argue however, students WILL, and DO learn better when they are given the control.
Thanks again Gary for your sage words. You said in four words what I believe about education.
Awesome work on the Flipped Classroom Model! Thanks for your excellent articles. I have created an overview page in my blog about your model. http://blog.lakesidelatte.org/2011/03/12/the-flipped-classroom-model/
Cheers
Shan
Agree with you Shan… Really work is awesome…
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