Wednesday, September 08, 2010

The Role of the Instructor

"It's not what you know but how you organize your classroom."
The days of lecture are over. 

That has been painfully clear to me for some time now.  And it is not a realization that I can say I came to in some brilliant flash of visionary prowess.  It had to be repeated to me over and over like a memory challenged goldfish.  I am not proud of that fact.

But I did learn it, thanks to the Generation X and Y -ers that I interact with every day.  These are people that have little tolerance for being lectured to.  Lecturing was for the "stupid kids" who couldn't pick it up on their own.  Give them a few pointers and let them go.  They will ask you when they don't know something.

And that's how we should organize our classrooms.  Instead of the lecturer on the stage in the spotlight, we should be the director in the wings, ready to prompt them for a forgotten line or missed queue.

We should get out of the way and let our students learn.

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