Student-Centred Education
A few years ago, I attended a presentation by an award-winning Western University about the new, student-centred education.
In the old days, the presenter explained, students who preferred the classics had to deconstruct Homer. In Greek. Even in Greece, this is something that is of no use: the Greek shipping magnates have no need to study (let alone deconstruct) a work about a navigator who took 10 years to sail from Turkey back to Greece.
On the other side of campus, science students had to study thermodynamics, which is still being taught. They showed us the before and after versions of the course.
The first video showed the old, teacher-centred style. The professor lectured: ‘Thermodynamics is very important. It applies to the heat diffusion in rockets, so they won’t blow up, and to the design of computers so the heat won’t destroy the chips.’ The professor went on to write the partial differential equations that must be solved in order to calculate heat flows. The class was bored. Some students slept through the lecture, some were sending SMS messages on their mobiles, and some were heckling the professor.
The presenter said, ‘This is wrong. Our students won’t be rocket scientists, and computer manufacture is all outsourced to East Asia. What we need are people to sell the computers. We need people people; we need team players. The last thing students need to know is how to solve partial differential equations.’
She showed us the new, student-centred approach to thermodynamics.
The video started in the classroom. The teacher entered and said, ‘We have a library with lots of texts on thermodynamics. Now, form into teams. Each team will do a project on thermodynamics. Do whatever you want. Look up what you need in the library. If you have any questions at all, you can ask me.’
[Fade. Continue inside the professor’s office.]
‘Professor, we’re stuck,’ said the leader of a team. ‘Please help us.’
‘Have you considered all the parameters?’ the professor asked the team. ‘Wow, professor, you really put your finger on our problem. That’s exactly what we were doing wrong. Now we can finish our project.’ Not only had the professor solved their difficult thermodynamics problem, she had done it without needing to know anything about thermodynamics!
Finally, we saw the project that received the highest mark: the group had taken a five-gallon plastic water bottle, spray-painted it black, and showed how it provided hot water without using any fossil fuels.
Clearly, spray-painting plastic water bottles is a valuable skill in the modern, urban world. Either it sublimates the students’ desire to spray-paint public edifices, or it trains the students to do a better, more artistic job when they do spray-paint those edifices.
The university presenting the lecture on student-centred learning has won many awards. All for having the greatest increase in the percentage of secondary school leavers from their district obtaining a university degree.
In the old days, the presenter explained, students who preferred the classics had to deconstruct Homer. In Greek. Even in Greece, this is something that is of no use: the Greek shipping magnates have no need to study (let alone deconstruct) a work about a navigator who took 10 years to sail from Turkey back to Greece.
On the other side of campus, science students had to study thermodynamics, which is still being taught. They showed us the before and after versions of the course.
The first video showed the old, teacher-centred style. The professor lectured: ‘Thermodynamics is very important. It applies to the heat diffusion in rockets, so they won’t blow up, and to the design of computers so the heat won’t destroy the chips.’ The professor went on to write the partial differential equations that must be solved in order to calculate heat flows. The class was bored. Some students slept through the lecture, some were sending SMS messages on their mobiles, and some were heckling the professor.
The presenter said, ‘This is wrong. Our students won’t be rocket scientists, and computer manufacture is all outsourced to East Asia. What we need are people to sell the computers. We need people people; we need team players. The last thing students need to know is how to solve partial differential equations.’
She showed us the new, student-centred approach to thermodynamics.
The video started in the classroom. The teacher entered and said, ‘We have a library with lots of texts on thermodynamics. Now, form into teams. Each team will do a project on thermodynamics. Do whatever you want. Look up what you need in the library. If you have any questions at all, you can ask me.’
[Fade. Continue inside the professor’s office.]
‘Professor, we’re stuck,’ said the leader of a team. ‘Please help us.’
‘Have you considered all the parameters?’ the professor asked the team. ‘Wow, professor, you really put your finger on our problem. That’s exactly what we were doing wrong. Now we can finish our project.’ Not only had the professor solved their difficult thermodynamics problem, she had done it without needing to know anything about thermodynamics!
Finally, we saw the project that received the highest mark: the group had taken a five-gallon plastic water bottle, spray-painted it black, and showed how it provided hot water without using any fossil fuels.
Clearly, spray-painting plastic water bottles is a valuable skill in the modern, urban world. Either it sublimates the students’ desire to spray-paint public edifices, or it trains the students to do a better, more artistic job when they do spray-paint those edifices.
The university presenting the lecture on student-centred learning has won many awards. All for having the greatest increase in the percentage of secondary school leavers from their district obtaining a university degree.
posted by Dubai@Random at 6:19 pm
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