Supportive Learning

I've been thinking a lot about what Old Diver said about the need to switch out both the "entertainer" version of teaching and the "banker" model of teaching for a model of teaching that inspires students to actively engage in the material. What can instructors do to make this happen? Many of my teachers practiced two of the key techniques that can engage students in the learning process: validating the student's contributions to class and providing a supportive classroom environment.

Validation

Students need to be reminded that they can and do positively contribute to the class. Some of the best discussions I've had have come out of student driven responses and questions. Why? Because people engage with things they are interested in. By positively acknowledging a student's good question and allowing that to lead a class discussion the instructor lets the student know that their line of critical questioning is valid. By acknowledging a student's response in a discussion also validates a student's critical thinking process. The teacher is not the be all and end all in the classroom. The students have something to say and (many times) it is valuable).

Supportive Class Environment

As an undergrad, I lived in perpetual fear of being called upon in class. What if I didn't have the right answer? Actually, I think the phrase was "what if I'm WRONG in front of everyone?" Yes, wrong would be in all-caps. It took a couple years of entering "real world"-like jobs, going on random adventures, and journeying through a semester of graduate school to figure out that being wrong isn't so bad. In fact, the best place to hear you're wrong is not after you receive the grade for your paper but while you're in a non-assessment environment.

The key here, is that the classroom environment, at least for me, needed to be pressure-free (or at least pressure reduced). I had to feel like I could say something, be wrong, and that it would be okay to be wrong as long as I learned how to be right. In fact, being wrong should be an acknowledged part of the learning process.

To students reading this, I hope you have a teacher that tells you something along the lines of this:

Dear students,

Your opinion in the classroom is valuable. In fact, you have a lot of interesting things to say. You know how you have experienced the texts, the subject matter, the lecture material. What you think can inspire the instructor to think differently about the material as well. What you have to say is important. You can make discussions happen, open the eyes of other students, open your own eyes, and turn a passive learning experience into an engaged learning environment. The classroom is a space for you to learn and develop without fear of judgement or assessment (outside of the graded assignment, and even then the formative comments should provide a sense of support and guidance).