{"id":360,"date":"2019-03-10T21:51:58","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T21:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/?p=360"},"modified":"2019-03-10T21:51:58","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T21:51:58","slug":"having-students-teach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/uncategorized\/having-students-teach\/","title":{"rendered":"Having Students Teach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s an old adage that to know something really well you have to teach it, an adage that\u2019s backed up by countless studies about the concept<\/a> of retrieval practice<\/a>.\u00a0 Retrieval practice is the act of having students pull information from memory \u2013 ideas they\u2019ve studied on their own, things they\u2019ve read, something they heard, or data they learned in a previous class session, for example, and applying that information in a new way.\u00a0 By remembering information \u2013 by retrieving it \u2013 students reinforce their memory of a concept, a term, a theory, or an event, and by using it inventively, they strengthen their understanding of whatever\u2019s in question.\u00a0 It\u2019s what places like the Learning Center at the University of North Carolina call \u201chigher order thinking<\/a>,\u201d and the use of recall to teach someone else is often thought of as the apex of learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As teachers, we know that teaching isn\u2019t easy.\u00a0 We understand that teaching requires the repackaging of information in often complex and subtle ways. So what does it mean to have students teach other students?\u00a0 How do we ensure that students do a good job?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"colored<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I asked my students to teach each other in three different ways this term.\u00a0 Each time was a little different from the last, but the effect was the same \u2013 the students had to apply their knowledge in creative ways, and they came away with a deeper appreciation for the material by the end of class than they’d had when we began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Teach Me!<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    My institution works on\ntrimesters, not semesters (so we\u2019re now in the break between winter and spring\nsessions).  Early last term I walked into\nmy modern Native history class and said \u201cI didn\u2019t do the reading.  I\u2019m going to need you to teach me what was\nimportant in the texts assigned for today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I had, in fact, done the reading.\u00a0 But my goal was to have students think about how to convey the essence of the texts they\u2019d read, identify argument, and show me evidence to support that argument.\u00a0 I brought white-board markers, paper, sharpies, and Legos into the classroom to demonstrate that they could do anything they wanted as long as it taught me what they knew.\u00a0 I left them alone for twenty minutes and came back to see what they\u2019d come up with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"students<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    First, they needed more\ntime.  They were so deeply into figuring\nout the most important points of the readings and how to convey them\neconomically that they\u2019d used up the time I allotted without realizing it.  So I gave them more time, and circulated\naround the room to ask what they were doing. \nEach group had committed to some kind of timeline, but the items on the\ntimeline, and the start and end dates, changed between groups.  The readings that day had been about Hawaii\nin the 1890s.  One group started their\ntimeline with Captain Cook\u2019s intrusion into the islands.  Others started in 1890 with the closing of\nthe frontier on the American mainland. \nOthers identified the overthrow of the Hawaiian royal family as the\nstart of what I needed to know.  Once\nthey were done we got into a discussion of these differences, and the previous\nknowledge and attention to key concepts (like sovereignty) they were bringing\nto bear on the activity.  It reinforced\nboth what they had previously learned in class as well as what they\u2019d read for\nhomework, and made for lively conversation between groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n