First, the Roller Coaster Physics. Watching the video, it is clear that Donna Migdol holds very high expectations for her students by both academic and behavioral standards. She treats the students like adults, essentially, not talking down to them or repeating information ad nauseam when they understand it the first time. And this is important for what she is expecting of her students. They are to build a roller coaster for their marble, getting it to the end safely without rushing off the track, and they have a 'budget' they can use to get all of the materials they need. Each student has their role, and you can tell from the way they talk to the camera that they are taking their roles quite seriously.
For this class, procedures and norms are everything. They have to work and communicate as a group, they have to be sure on their decisions when 'buying' materials (as there's no refunds, and they're quite expensive) and everyone has to be on top of their part of the design. As a result of holding the students to such a high level, you see them respond in kind, being quite professional and able to talk and plan with each other, all coming together to make and adjust their group roller coaster without stepping on anyone's toes.
This is a fantastic model for teaching STEM, particularly since it lets you get hands-on immediately, giving the students something real to connect their ideas to. I may have my issues with STEM focus (being a large proponent of the arts myself) but when they work, they do work wonders.
The second group I'll cover is the Chinese math class. As the video shows, there is a large focus on drilling and running the numbers with rhymes and songs as a group. This repetition does wonders to lock the idea in the student's mind, and has been a plan people and governments have used for ages to get people to quickly learn a new language. One could argue that math is the language of the universe, or of numbers, so I think that argument can be applied here too.
The class seems engaged with the teacher, and they all are working well at answering the questions, with clear norms and procedures to answer questions when called on, to repeat after the teacher, and to work as a group, but it's a bit harder to tell what the expectations are. Parents in China have very high expectations of their students, both behaviorally and educationally, but some from other countries might see those same expectations as restrictive to personality. Between the article I linked and many people I know who have talked of teaching in China, interaction between students and between the student and the teacher is very low, favoring drilling and testing over giving practical applications or help to individual students. This means that the students are very good at what they're doing, but lose out on some of the practical applications and social aspects of life. It is impossible to argue with the effectiveness of this teaching strategy, but a human side seems to be lost if one isn't careful.
The third learning strategy to cover is Whole Brain Teaching. The video for this one feels chaotic, and the website explaining it... well, didn't do a good job of explaining it to me, but I understand the theory. Students learn in multiple ways... some are visual, some are auditory, some are kinetic, and this method reaches out to all of them. The motions, sounds, and visuals all combine to teach the same thing, letting students acquire the knowledge in the way that best works for them.
There are clear procedures when it comes to following the teacher, repeating after them, and how groups work together depending on how the assignment continues, and those seem to be followed strictly and with little teacher intervention, suggesting the teacher thinks highly of the students' abilities when it comes to following instructions. However, one could argue that this entire method thinks a little less of the students than some other methods, as it hold their hand all the way through, with the teacher watching like a hawk for mistakes or non-comprehension and little freedom on the part of the student. On top of this, the actions are functional in this setting, but not all information is going to be given to you in this way in the real world, and adding motions on your own might cause a whole new set of issues when it comes to appearances for social sanity. Therefore, it's hard to determine whether the expectations for education are truly high, or just the expectations that students will follow the rules are high.
The final classroom we will be covering is my own. Now, I intend to teach English, Theater, and/or English as a Second Language to students in secondary school. I do not know my class level yet, but for the sake of this piece, let's pick Sophomores (10th Grade). The first teaching method would be the one I would want to follow as much as possible. Having students in groups builds their communication, large projects with the freedom to tackle it however you want, but expectations of a quality result, place high expectations on the students while also trusting them with the freedom to do it however they want, and as long as the base rules are well defined, I can imagine a quite composed classroom coming from this. Now, these ideas are a little harder to tie to real-world projects in English than they are in STEM subjects, and it would involve a lot more creativity, but if I set the bar, I know that the students will be able to reach it.
If I am teaching ESL, or if I need to cover remedial parts of grammar quickly, I will probably use the method in the second video at least a few times. It is one of the fastest way to drill basic concepts into students, and once they have the basics, it is much easier to give them the freedom to be more creative and tackle more complicated things. It is not quite as effective for languages outside of formulas, as language tends to be much more nuanced than numbers do, but it's still a very useful tool.
If I find I have a lot of trouble students, or ones that learn differently than my main teaching methods, I might employ Whole Brain Teaching. It can be useful both for foreign language students, as the motions give an anchor from which further understanding can bloom, and for students labeled as "trouble students" because they just don't learn the same way everyone else does. I would need to do a lot more study on the method to truly feel comfortable with it, but even from a cultural standpoint, with Hawaii's emphasis on hula and chants - storytelling through means other than words - applying more motions and vocalization to the class might not hurt.
No matter what strategy I end up going with, or even if I blend all of them, strictly defining and enforcing the rules is a must. In all ways, we should do our best to treat the students as human beings, giving them real responsibility so they can rise to the challenge. The contexts around that principle may change, but those rules should always be held in the highest of regards.
Resources:
Chen, C. (2011, June 13). 3rd grade Chinese--math class.avi. Retrieved April 24, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7LseF6Db5g
Kan Wei Associate Professor, Beijing Normal University. (2014, March 25). Explainer: what makes Chinese maths lessons so good? Retrieved April 24, 2017, from http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-makes-chinese-maths-lessons-so-good-24380
Teaching Channel. (2012, October 11). Roller Coaster Physics: STEM in Action. Retrieved April 24, 2017, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-stem-strategies
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