Education Techniques

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Why do they still teach the same boring way? Even the places I go to that are supposed to be cutting edge, still do a lot of the lecture and read from books scheme. I went to one class that taught that you are supposed to teach interactively, but this class did not use this technique. I immediately and logically thought, well why not teach this way, I would certainly learn it better. It seems many of classes in all levels of education, basically lecture and have you read and do some mundane tasks. If I could learn something well strictly by reading, what would I need to go to class for? I don't mind having homework, but not if is such that I have to so much, that I in effect learn little or nothing from doing it. Homework should be about practising and doing what you learn or are shown or are interactive about in class. This brings up the old apprenticeship method. Not that I think this should come back, or at least not in its raw form, but certainly techniques from this style could be readily applied to modern learning and hence create a more effective educational system.

Not all teachers are young, and none have been born this millenia. (That would make them what, five?!) Not all teachers and professors are willing to, if you'll forgive the cliche, "go with the flow" of technology and innovation. some are stubborn and feel that old school techniques, like repetition and constant lecturing, are far better at pounding ideas and knowledge into ou heads than the use of advanced tech. designed to help us learn things easily. Also, their techniques for teaching us are basically designed to engrave it on our skulls by repetition, etc., while "new millenia" techniques use tech. and the merging of teaching ideas with fun activities, etc. are taught by those teachers who just recently got their degree & job and know how to use tech. I know how you feel, because i've had a mix of both past and next millenia teachers. however, there isn't really much we can do. we can only hope that the past millenia teachers will eventually die out thru the passage of time, and we will all learn a little easier under the wing of next millenia teachers.

Hope this helps.

Archmage

I've had to take some boring classes from some dull teachers too. I'm not sure about the whole 'new ways of teaching' thing though. My tenth year of school, I had an English teacher who was horrible. All year he would assign pages for us to read from our text books, then he would just assign us ten questions to answer about what we read. He taught us nothing that entire year. English is the class where you are supposed to have discussions! What made it even worse was that is was an honours class.

I've also had teachers who like to do these so-called 'fun activities'. Being in high school, I actually think that some of the 'fun activities' can be pretty stupid, and I know most other high school students feel the same way. But if a teacher could make their lectures interesting, or find a way to have an interesting discussion with their students, I think it would be a more effective way of teaching.