Thanks for another thoughtful post, Faith. I feel like I’m becoming a bit of a groupie. I think you hit on something I never really made it around to saying in my post: that improvement of our processes and think is not really a wholesale change, although some sure act as if it is.

I feel like we may actually be *swinging back* toward the type of learning that seemed to occur in the 1930’s and ’40’s (albeit limited to certain people who had access to the appropriate resources) in the trying-failing-re-trying mindset (what is now referred to as a ‘growth mindset’) and in the tinkering/making culture that is reemerging (now that many kids/parents don’t have access to a garage full of tools). I don’t mean going backward, but often I am engaged in conversations with educators who talk about the pendulum on teaching methods/fads/thinking swinging back after a swing forward when a new way/method/fad has faded from view.

I think your students are lucky to have you. It is wonderful to meet a thoughtful, willing Educator who is open to the possibilities that change can bring.

I must be a terrible drinker, I could only afford 8 beers…
I agree that you need some understanding of a system before your creativity can make any reasonable imaginings. NASA are not going to be interested in my ‘novel’ idea of walking to the moon.
However, I do think the converse is just as counterproductive. People who are so ingrained in their field that they cant (or wont) look at things from different perspectives. A Goldilocks situation exists; perhaps this is the real reason why most important contributions to mathematics (or any of the sciences) come from people in their 20s. Older than that, your brain still works, you are just too set in your ways to do anything truly novel.

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I have had a post-doc in my research group flip an informal scientific writing class he offered over the summer. He took the time and effort to flip the classroom and post videos of basic tips to use excel and R studio (a statistical analysis software) and those were really helpful in terms of learning shortcuts to cumbersome repetitive tasks. It was an interesting concept and it worked really well. I am definitely planning to do it when I teach.

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I never thought of peer-review as a means to learn in a classroom setting! Thanks for your post. You literally set my “mind on fire” ?

I am glad you were able to motivate students to pay attention in class. I never paid attention in most of my classes up until graduate school, because classroom instruction was a repetition of what could easily be learnt from the book. There was rarely any participation or discussion, and I was forced to attend classes due to strict attendance policies. I would frequently get out of sitting through classes by doing things like sleeping in the front bench and be asked to leave.

What changed when I got to graduate school? I had the choice to pick the classes I took and was either really interested in the subject or the professor. Either way, classroom discussion was not something I would find in a book (as there were no prescribed texts for most of the courses), and I was self-motivated to pay attention.

I somewhat agree with you, but wonder if this argument can be applied in the other fields such as fine art or music, like a case of a genius teenage musician?

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Since I cannot tell who you are (by name), I am going to refer to you as Minister herein. First and foremost, thank you for such a profoundly well-written and thoughtful blog post in reflection of your reading of ‘A New Culture of Learning’. I appreciate the angst you express over the “how” of being an effective Educator. It is truly a frustrating endeavor. And these are particularly frustrating times to learn how. I’m trying to keep my comments brief, so I want to focus on two points here:

1. A learning based approach = student centered learning

I addressed this in one of my posts for this week. The shift is a cultural one to make: adults must not only be aware of the difference, but must establish learning environments where student success is the objective. I want to say that it is up to Educators, but I think the philosophical shift must come from a collection of administrators, parents, community leaders, etc.

2. In response to one of your thoughts:
“focusing on classes that inspire students, is dangerously close to classes that entertain students”

I suggest that inspiring students is not the same as entertaining them, but if learning can be entertaining and inspiring, then why not? Of course class objectives should not include entertaining students (humoring them, per se) but what is the downside to finding analogous humor in the learning that is to be had? Why does it need to be dry and serious? Is that the way the best minds in society think? I argue they don’t (Richard Feinman is my favorite scientists with a famous sense of humor). If more inner city kids in the 1950’s, ’60’s, 70’s were ‘inspired’ in their learning would the social structures of inner cities today be as impoverished as they are? If students were excited about their learning opportunities in math and science courses would we have the perplexing problems we do today with not enough students pursuing studies in STEM fields through college?

I’m gonna’ stop there because I feel like I’m getting on a roll.
And, if you’re interested, I’d love to take this up as an in-person conversation at some point.

The first photo is the School-Trip at Taubman Museum. I join the summer internship 2016, it memorized the director of Education department to guide the students wandering in the museum. It is different than the expreince learning in classroom, appreciate the artworks and know the story and history at the back.

Some of the more inspired moments I have had in my education were related to the course material and not the instruction or the class itself. I remember having a huge ah-ha moment in 10th-grade history when the teacher mentioned the reason behind why the British empire clung to India for so long (until 1947) when civil unrest had become widespread starting in the early 1900s. It was because of the two World Wars. That prompted me to dig deeper into modern history related to India and the World Wars, something I read about to this day.

Although my mind was “set on fire” after this, most of my classmates were not present mentally at the same time, so maybe setting students’ mind on fire is more at an individual scale rather than a classroom.