Sharing is the New Teaching, Works both at School and Workplace

Image Credit: dynamicbusiness

Posted by: Albert Weng

How do you like "learning"?

In the past, students learned and accessed most of the advanced info and knowledge from getting into a good school and learn from a resourceful teacher. Nowadays, thanks to the social era by Internet that brings almost all info, relatively and equally open for everyone than any given period of time the access, and moreover, the ability to use and share, and more importantly, at almost no cost.

Then the question comes to, if in the past, students went to school for such info or knowledge that they have no access, but now the access is available, at all time, why students need to go to the school (if they can learn by themselves by the access)? Or to be more specific, what can students gain more than just info and knowledge transferring by the teacher, and in what new approach or model shall the school education also been transformed to adapt this new era. In addition, what may be useful in the workplace given the same impact?

Rethink the Teaching and Learning (from Respective Side's Point of View)

Teachers normally think they know much better than the students on the course (yes, very likely this is the case), therefore, they tend to prepare everything (scope) to teach from A to Z of a course. On the other end, students normally think they know nothing about the course they are attending to, therefore, they're kind of passively wait to be fed during the course.

This is so-called teaching and learning scenarios at school, do you agree? There's one fundamental assumption which is totally wrongly put in the present educational place. "Education is to inspire for better, not making a copy of a similar work/ output."

Examples of How it is Today, and What shall it be Tomorrow

When people talk and think about teaching, normally the following steps will be involved:

Teaching = Scope, Lecturing, Reading, Summarization, Test, Grade
(First two steps by teacher, last three by student)

The teacher has identified the scope of a course and to give a lecture on it, then student got to read and make summary (if any) from the above sessions, took a test and got a grade to determine the learning result of that course. But the fact is, the student doesn't really learn that subject thoroughly from such process. Does it? Apparently, we need a better new way.

As believed, in the new era, there's one model that's shaping the education by the buzzword of "sharing", here's the example of its new process.

Sharing = Topic, Discovering, Touring, Unboxing, Insight
(First three by teacher, latter one by student, and last one by teacher)

The teacher briefs the topic (right, no precise scope anymore, which is more close to the reality, isn't it), and to discover the possibilities and interests of the present group of students, which aim to create the many meaningful connections to the topic and its implication to the students (the more the better, anchor effect).

After this association then built-up, then the teacher gives a tour like a tour guide from storytelling and give useful references for those students who intend to further their result gained. During the course, give a proper chance to make the students an unboxing moment (similar to an essay question, but "unbox" is more friendly use nowadays, and more fun to adopt though), encourage students for more idea with sound supporting facts from the references.

Last but not least, the teacher gives insight from what has discovered from the progress of each student and advices in order to advance to the next. This process is more complicated, but, is more human centered, and inspirational, considering we're dealing with a human being for better, not a machine for the same.

Sharing? Or Teaching?

Did I say that sharing is the new teaching, instead of a replacement for teaching? Yes, as the title. Sharing is more acceptable for everyone now and if you share, people appreciate and are interested in learning more, since less pressure from this friendly session of sharing, instead of classroom type experience of teaching and learning.

When a student is ready (to learn), the teacher then will appear (to guide and inspire), and it doesn't matter if it is by teaching or sharing, but just to make a better tomorrow from making others better.

"Sharing is the new teaching, do you agree?"

---Note:
MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is on its rapid growth that leads the trend to openly share on the purpose of teaching (as defined in the old-school way, whatever). Here're some profound ones:

1) Udacity (Stanford, etc.)
2) Coursera (Stanford, Duke, Princeton, etc.)
3) edx (MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Cornell, Boston, etc.)