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The author presents a model of learning where the teacher dominates the physical classroom (and, by implication, the students are submissive): he says this expl
by learnstats2 6y ago
The author presents a model of learning where the teacher dominates the physical classroom (and, by implication, the students are submissive): he says this explicitly when talking about a "dominating professor".
Online learning doesn't allow for that in the same way, so a teacher dependent on this style of teaching is likely to experience significant discomfort.
Is this really a "Greatest Teaching Technique" though, as the headline suggests? I am highly doubtful. This is more about having control of a classroom, than enabling learning. I find it hard to call this a teaching technique at all.
If you say "Greatest Teaching Technique" to me, I immediately think of the Socratic method. With the understanding that it is more difficult to read body language and physical cues, that still works perfectly great over Zoom.
- pavel_lishin 6y agoI don't think the Socratic Method is universally applicable. I'm not sure how one would use it to effectively teach Spanish, or history, or geometry.
- learnstats2 6y agoI disagree. But, my point is that the article describes teaching more as controlling student behaviour, rather than teaching as communicating knowledge and understanding.
- jbullock35 6y ago> I don't think the Socratic Method is universally applicable. I'm not sure how one would use it to effectively teach Spanish, or history, or geometry. Doesn't seem hard. Socrates himself used the method to teach geometry: http://www.socraticmethod.net/essays/meno_geometry/meno_geometry.html http://www.socraticmethod.net/essays/meno_geometry/meno_geom....
- marcosdumay 6y agoIt is very obviously a great fit for any kind of mathematics. Is students have the means to verify that they arrived at the correct answer, and the problems are easy to communicate, all that a teacher really needs to do is to guide the students search, and questions are a great way to do that. But yeah, the Socratic Method isn't good at all for learning a language. You learn those by speaking, reading, and writing. Not by exploring ideas. For history it's an interesting thing. A lot of teaching an empirical science is teaching how to ask questions.
- lioeters 6y agoFrom the article, I didn't get a clear sense of what the author means by the "greatest teaching techniques". These are the points that form the narrative structure: - Physical presence - Reading the room, seeing their faces - Physical space - Less distactions - Humor - Diversity and inclusion These aren't techniques, they're characteristics of the teaching environment, modes of interaction, demographics. The first two points seem relevant, that certain techniques of interaction that a teacher develops over a career may be dependent on shared physical space, social dynamics, and personal communication, that are unsuitable for (or impossible with) online teaching. If we take the Socratic method to mean a general approach of "leading students, through questions, to do their own thinking about a specific objective" - I'd agree that there's little to no limitations imposed by the technologies used for online teaching/learning. The take-away for me is that educators are learning to adapt and perhaps invent teaching techniques that are effective in this new environment of online/virtual shared presence and space.
- learnstats2 6y agoI'd say the author's point about "Diversity and inclusion" is only that white men can in general dominate a physical classroom with less effort. He doesn't even attempt to say what this might mean about online teaching, other than making clear his assumption that teaching is mostly about dominating the space.