Sugata Mitra Hole in the Wall TED Talk

I recently watched Sugata Mitra's TED Talk on his ideas about the future of learning and his hole in the wall experiments.  If you have not seen this video I strongly urge you to watch it.

.

In his award winning talk, Sugata describes his hole in the wall experiments where he gave computers to non-English speaking students in rural parts of India with no instruction or explanation of how they work.  And what happened was pretty unbelievable... they taught themselves not only how to work the computers but other things such as computer programming and the biotechnology of DNA replication!

So what does this mean?  How can this change the current and future classrooms that we are teaching in?  If the children in rural India could teach themselves, do we even need teachers?

I think the main point of Sugatra's talk is that our goal as teachers is not to MAKE learning happen but to LET learning happen and encourage students as it happens.  Sugatra talks about the use of Grannies in his experiments.  Grannies are your stereotypical grandmother that is extremely patient and willing to sit with you while you figure something out for nearly ever.  He used volunteers to skype with struggling students to offer encouragement and admiration.  And guess what, this helped!  Giving students a question, letting them figure it out on their own and offering encouragement and admiration proved to be a successful method for getting students to learn.

After watching this video I felt inspired to rethink how a typical classroom works.  Instead of lecturing for hours while students quietly take down notes, why not ask students the big question and let them do the work of figuring it out.  This makes students more invested and interested in what they are learning and allows the teacher more time to offer help and encouragement to those students who need it.

Class Web Site!

I've got a class website!  It is definitely a work in progress (seeing as how I don't actually have a class yet) but I am really excited to use this as a tool for my future students and their parents.  I think class websites are a great way to keep your class organized and a great resource for students in case they missed something or need clarification on a assignment.

Check it out!
http://mrspsmathclass.weebly.com/

Flipped Learning

As I learn about new classroom methods and models, I like to think about how they could fit into my future classroom.  One method that I have been particularly interested in is the flipped classroom.  For those of you who do not know, the flipped classroom is where what is traditionally done in the classroom and what is traditionally done as homework is flipped or switched.  

For example, students watch lectures outside of class either for homework or during the day if they have free time.  This work prepares them for the next days class where the teacher addresses any questions about the topic students have and goes over practice with the students.

As a math teacher, I think the flipped classroom would really work for the subject area and would help students who struggle with math progress and expand their learning capabilities.  When I was in high school I struggled with math.  Often times I would need to look over my notes again and again and would run into questions while doing my homework.  In a flipped classroom, the lectures are all prerecorded so students can watch them as many times as needed.  They can pause the video while taking notes or rewind and re-watch if they miss something.  Doing what is traditionally homework in the classroom with the teacher allows students to get real time feedback on their work.  If they run into a question, the teacher is there to help and offer encouragement which would prevent students from giving up or forgetting their question the next day,

I am excited to learn more about the flipped classroom model and see more examples of how this is being used in classrooms today to transform student learning.