What do you want from a teacher?

[pmb]

Nowadays, there is so much information available at everyone's fingertips that teachers giving students facts is a dead and dying model of education. I'm pretty sure that having a teacher is essential to the learning process, but the contents of a lecture/class/lab/whatever now have to be ... what? Certainly different in some way - slowly dealing out facts in dribs and drabs is old school (hah!) and boring, ignoring those facts and zooming in to discuss implications and intuition is nice, but lends itself too readily to surface-level-only understanding.

The middle path seems like a nice compromise, with facts dashed across the board quickly and then intuition discussed aloud followed by homework assignments that require a solid understanding of the facts, but my own intuition is screaming at me that I am looking at things on the wrong axis somehow. Like I have divided everything into left/right and ignored some crucial up/down aspect that will simplify the whole matter.

What's the missing axis? What do you want from a class? Facts? Intuition? A bit of both? A check mark on your transcript? Are online classes consisting of prerecorded lectures a good idea? Would you go to school via podcast? Why or why not? What would the podcast be missing that more traditional schooling provides?

Answers that include how class should change in light of emerging technologies and trends like MIT's Open Courseware initiative will be given double bonus extra credit.

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Get your letters today! Many are still unclaimed! I may forgotten to link to someone who already did it; if so, please let me know. This is taking a while, so I think I will start stealing the answers that others have already provided...

Comments

[auranja.livejournal.com]

This is the model I've been working in (and loving) lately, although it's maybe not applicable to your field.

I make up a performance, and show it to one of my advisers - either my choreography adviser, or my director, or my weekly rehearsal mates.

They respond to what I do thusly: What you're doing reminds me of this and this and this. It also raises this question and this question and this question. It makes me want to see this and this and this.

Then I go work on my own to revise and refine what I've done, or to make something else completely new.

I go back to show them, and after a while, they begin to respond this way: I'm beginning to see this and this and this pattern in what you're doing.

Then I go work on my own and decide how much of those patterns I actually want to keep in my finished product.

So the learning is self directed, and I get lots of one-on-one time with different advisers, who are experts in their own diverse fields.

And the "class" is mostly me being active and them observing. They don't prepare the lesson; I do. They're just able to offer insight at the end of the session because of their years of experience.

[auranja.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, within this model, I'll realize that I won't be able to have the performance I want without acquiring some specific skill. So I'll have to search out a teacher who will lead me through the necessary drills to get the skill.

For a lot of years I did drill and assignment-based skill-building, with no sense of how I might put those skills to interesting use.

I do use some of those skills now, and they did help orient me to the fundamentals of my field, but I don't use a lot of those skills now.

I find my current way - letting the bigger project dictate which skill-drills I'll devote myself to - much more satisfying.

I wonder if this would work for most students? It requires having a passion for a project. Maybe that's not a common thing to have.

[freyley.livejournal.com]

a different point of view, often with an eye toward intent and a good knowledge of how structure supports intent, is the defining characteristic of a good editor, and I suspect that the term editor could be widened to include teaching any creative endeavor.

I think teaching is probably very different based on what you're trying to teach, but I think the important generalities are methodological, not subject: teaching someone scientific inquiry is pretty similar regardless of biology, psychology, or physics. Teaching them creative endeavor or mathematics is very different. There are probably other useful areas.