After I read John Kreiss’s posting on Why I want to be a teacher, I started thinking of what he said about MBA classes being engaging. I’m getting my MBA right now (will be done in August, thank goodness), and the classes are engaging because they are discussion-style. There is some lecturing in there, but there is usually a case students have to read beforehand and discuss with the rest of the class.
Would this approach work with middle school or high school kids? I don’t think I would be able to capture their attention for a whole hour without stopping… I thought that maybe I could do something like that: assign a reading and have them discuss it. If they didn’t read it, send them out to the office. That seems to do the trick for them to catch on that they have to do the reading. I could assign 1-pagers, so that they can even read it on the way to school (nothing like what we get in business school which can take multiple hours of reading). But I like this idea.
If I end up teaching math, there isn’t much discussion, right? … still, I don’t think I could just lecture. I’d probably assign exercises and have them come up to the board to resolve. If they didn’t do the homework, you guessed it, they’ll be going to the office.
I don’t know if I’m allowed to use that technique… I just think it’s important to set the boundaries from the start, so they know what is OK and what is not OK. If they don’t do the exercises they will not learn. If they do not learn, they will not get a good grade and I will not have done my job.
Good luck to my kids in advance 😉
ina