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.

Agree. As we can imagine how tough work the professors face if they plan to add the interactive part during the class. Design a game for a specific area is cooperation teamwork. For an instant, in the team, basically need a graphic designer, 3-D designer, coding people, professor in the class. The need group students to do the testing. Conservatively, it should be organised 1 year advanced before the class starting. The schedule is the biggest challenge for the team member. Also, we need to think about sponser. It is a challenge, also, it is a future.

that sounds like an idea worth exploring, have a blog in the class for students/professor to interact on the “whys” and other questions not covered in class…might steal your idea for next semester

you got me curious now Jyotsana, the Mindful Learning…

that is why I am in favor of the “Socratic Method” or “Socratic Teaching” http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/socratic-teaching/606 answer a question with another question, of course without creating an endless loop

Agree on the last part, however sometimes the material needs to be cover one way or the other…so probably integrating the questioning within the lecture style carefully so that all the material can still be covered…after all need to keep a balance in everything

Hi Bethany, thanks for your comment. I think starting a class with a question period could be a very good strategy to engage more students and “promote” the thinking process rather than just attending lecture…I am curious thought, in the remaining 40 minutes of the class you still got questions from the students while giving the lecture? and therefore the first 10 minutes are more directed to questions that develop out of class?

It is a shame that student perceptions of educational material are largely ignored or completely misconstrued. I agree that the unit of information packets needs careful consideration so as not to overwhelm students with TMI. In England there is actually an online study-tool called BiteSize (I assume it still exists) that tries to break up material into easily digestible chunks. It was more of a revision tool that a classroom tool, but at least someone is thinking about these things!