Lead, Don't Lecture: A New Approach to Teaching

The premise of this article is that you learn best when you make sense and make your own meaning. Of course, this adage has been around in education for many years. This article has five teachers' descriptions of how they coach rather than teach. The first teacher told of her student from Puerto Rico who spoke only a few words of English. The students were testing a hypothesis about mass and aerodynamics. The students design and throw the airplanes, measure and collect data, and plot it on graphs. They also perform various mathematical calculations like mean, median, etc. Her philosophy of teaching is about coaching, which includes teaching to the whole group and coaching one-on-one.

Another teacher uses the internet to coach students on how to be web literate. The students also discuss important issue by blogging back and forth. Another thing I really liked about this teacher was the fact that sometimes she joined her students and became part of a team doing the activity.

The third teacher pointed out that while you are doing one-on-one, you have to be able to count on the other kids to be productive independently while you are busy. That is a problem I also face in my classes. I usually spend most of the time with the struggling students and then do a quick check with the others to see if they need anything or want to discuss something. Usually, they are happy just working ahead and getting things completed. And they do a fairly good job of that. Sometimes it is necessary to revisit a concept or idea that didn't seem to be understood correctly.

Another problem mentioned is all of the test preparation teacher's are responsible for. That often leaves little time for students to do the types of deep critical thinking that is necessary in real life situations. Kids know when teachers care about them and will go the extra mile to please "the coach."