There’s nothing like teaching something to a) make you learn the topic deeply and b) try to anticipate how learners will understand your lesson.
As teachers and professional developers, we understand this and live it daily. We do it for a living. We have degrees in our subject area. We went to Teachers’ College for that additional degree and experience to learn how to be an educator. We still plan and prep and worry. It’s part of what we do for a living. Then, we go face to face to do the actual teaching. There are nerves and fumbles but that’s part and parcel of the package.
Can you imagine doing this as an elementary school student? Online? In front of a world stage? In front of other teachers?
A student from the Lambton-Kent District School Board does every Tuesday evening from 7-8pm. He goes online and leads a Twitter chat titled #csforstudents. Recently, he’s taken the concept of a Twitter chat to a new level. He conducts a one hour technology tutorial for those who care to join him. As I write this post, I have remembrance of his Scratch lesson from last evening. Last week, he took us on a quick tour of HTML and taught us how to build a simple webpage.
Edit your “Set answer to” command, make it “Set answer to numerator / denominator * 100” – #csforstudentspic.twitter.com/v7NcoYiiOF
— Austin Gagnier (@Austin_Gagnier8) January 28, 2015
It’s a pretty brave move. Some of us in the chat were computer science teachers. It was interesting to see the interactions as the student becomes the teacher.
I captured the online discussion in this Storify document. Check it out to see what happens when a student becomes a leader.
He even has a philosophy about teaching and has his own personal mission statement.
If you’re a teacher and have students interested in the computer science connection, encourage them to drop into one of the chats and participate.
Further though, is this a model for learning in the future? Student-led concept and topic teaching? Homework helping led by students? Learning on their time and conditions?
It’s an interesting concept. Your thoughts?
doug --- off the record 