Welcome to a special Wednesday edition of Tuesdays. Our district closed yesterday due to snow & ice, making two snow days since my last post (which was about technology enabling learning to continue despite the weather...).
I also spent three days running a ski trip to Vermont with more than 50 high school students. They were an excellent group, and the conditions were perfect, but I did get my topic for this week's entry from the students on the trip.
I noticed close to 100 times in three days that while chaperones would describe their recent runs down the mountain and other skiing-related tales by specifically naming the trail they were on, the students did not, and when asked what trail they were on, they did not know. They didn't look. When I asked why they didn't know the name of the trails they took to get down the mountain, nine times out of ten, their response was, "We just go down the mountain; we don't plan it out."
Similarly, when on the bus with the students, the chaperones are asked countless questions that students could answer themselves. An all-too-common example: "How much farther?"
My reply: "You can figure that out. Look at the mile markers on the highway. Figure our average speed. Use your phone or your friend's phone to look up our end destination, if you do not already know it. Figure it out."
Many teachers recognize this type of question from the classroom. As content experts, it is tempting to reply to these questions with the answers, particularly to the easiest ones that we feel should be common knowledge.
My challenge to you is to stop answering your students' questions.
Give them the tools, point them in the right direction, but let them have the privilege of finding the answers for themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment