Ten obvious truths that we shouldn't be ignoring.

Recently Alfie Kohn wrote “Ten obvious truths that we shouldn’t be ignoring”  He asks

If we all agree that a given principle is true, then why in the world do our schools still function as if it weren’t?

Here are the 10 truths, with a little blurb about the meaning of the truth.

1)      Much of the material students are required to memorize is soon forgotten.

The more closely we inspect this model of teaching and testing, the more problematic it reveals itself to be. First, there’s the question of what students are made to learn, which often is more oriented to factual material than to a deep understanding of ideas. (See item 2, below.) Second, there’s the question of how students are taught, with a focus on passive absorption: listening to lectures, reading summaries in textbooks, and rehearsing material immediately before being required to cough it back up. Third, there’s the question of why a student has learned something: Knowledge is less likely to be retained if it has been acquired so that one will perform well on a test, as opposed to learning in the context of pursuing projects and solving problems that are personally meaningful.

2)      Just knowing a lot of facts doesn’t mean you’re smart!

Even students who do manage to remember some of the material they were taught are not necessarily able to make sense of those bits of knowledge, to understand connections among them, or to apply them in inventive and persuasive ways to real-life problems.

3)      Students are more likely to learn what they find interesting.

A group of researchers found that children’s level of interest in a passage they were reading was 30 times more useful than its difficulty level for predicting how much of it they would later remember.

4)      Students are less interested in whatever they’re forced to do and more enthusiastic when they have some say.

If choice is related to interest, and interest is related to achievement, then it’s not much of a stretch to suggest that the learning environments in which kids get to make decisions about what they’re doing are likely to be the most effective, all else being equal.

5)      Just because doing x raises standardized test scores doesn’t mean x should be done.

If a test result can’t be convincingly shown to be both valid and meaningful, then whatever we did to achieve that result -- say, a new curriculum or instructional strategy -- may well have no merit whatsoever. It may even prove to be destructive when assessed by better criteria. Indeed, a school or district might be getting worse even as its test scores rise.

6)      Students are more likely to succeed in a place where they feel known and cared about.

As one group of researchers put it, “In order to promote students’ academic performance in the classroom, educators should also promote their social and emotional adjustment.” And yet, broadly speaking, we don’t. Teachers and schools are evaluated almost exclusively on academic achievement measures (which, to make matters worse, mostly consist of standardized test scores).

7)      We want children to develop in many ways, not just academically.

If we acknowledge that academics is just one facet of a good education, why do so few conversations about improving our schools deal with -- and why are so few resources devoted to -- non-academic issues? And why do we assign children still more academic tasks after the school day is over, even when those tasks cut into the time children have to pursue interests that will help them develop in other ways?

8)      Just because a lesson (or book, or class, or text) is harder doesn’t mean it’s better.

If it’s pointless to give students things to do that are too easy, it’s also counterproductive to give them things that they experience as too hard.

9)      Kids aren’t short adults.

More generally, premature exposure to sit-still-and-listen instruction, homework, grades, tests, and competition -- practices that are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age -- is rationalized by invoking a notion I’ve called BGUTI: Better Get Used To It. The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later . . . by doing them to you now. When articulated explicitly, that principle sounds exactly as ridiculous as it is. Nevertheless, it’s the engine that continues to drive an awful lot of nonsense

10)   Substance matters more than labels.

A skunk cabbage by any other name would smell just as putrid. But in education, as in other domains, we’re often seduced by appealing names when we should be demanding to know exactly what lies behind them. Most of us, for example, favor a sense of community, prefer that a job be done by professionals, and want to promote learning. So should we sign on to the work being done in the name of “Professional Learning Communities”? Not if it turns out that PLCs have less to do with helping children to think deeply about questions that matter than with boosting standardized test scores.

Why are we being told what to think?

Many educators have asked the following question, and now I will as well; how did we ever come to believe that the bureaucrats, in a government office, should tell our children what to think?

To challenge this belief, educators will have to become innovators and show students that there is more knowledge than just what is required to know for a test. 

We need to realize that students can teach themselves far more superior than any teacher ever could.  For most tasks, it much more important that the students “discover” the knowledge rather than being told of meaningless facts or algorithms.  When we push or force certain ideas onto students we might be actually teaching them to hate the intended outcomes instead of learning it.  For example, we can’t teach students to be creative but we sure can destroy creativity.

In its current paradigm, schools are producing compliant citizens who will have anticipated and controlled thoughts.  Students who stand up and ask “why” are labelled as insubordinates or trouble makers, and most likely are put in an alternate learning environment.  Those who follow all the rules given to them, complete school with the highest marks, and never question authority are not the learners we want in a country.  When a practical problem presents itself, to these students, they will seem lost and confused. 

“I’m 25 years old and have two college degrees.  I don’t know how to do anything.  I don’t know how to do anything at all.  If the fan belt of my car broke in a snowstorm out in country I’d freeze to death reciting the goddamn Pythagorean theorem” – Student who spoke up at a John Gatto speech.

The reason this is happening is due largely to the fact that the student, who has the highest marks, is usually learning information that another person deems necessary.  This information does not come in small controllable chunks but actually in large (sometimes in the 1000s) specific outcomes a teacher must cover.  To assure students achieve success, we must also assign work to be completed outside of school, so that these high end students don’t have a minute to explore anything they may have a passion or interest for. 

Students are leaving our schools with their curiosity destroyed.  Anytime they wanted to explore an idea further, they are reminded, by the leader of the class, that this is neither the time nor place to do so.  Also, don’t forget the mass amounts of work to be completed outside of school; we should be asking “When is the appropriate time and place?”

We need to start realizing that our focus should be on passions, interests, creativity, and curiosity; if there is time after…..then we can focus on the mandated outcomes.

The art of wait time

I have blogged about the importance of questioning here:

Just as asking a certain type of question is important, we must also allow for sufficient wait time to occur to give a student a chance to think and answer the question.

When I first started asking higher level questions in my class, my students appeared as if I had I just delivered them a dose of shock therapy.  I never realized that it was going to take some time for my students to adjust from answer YES/NO to giving me more in depth solutions.  Once the class had adjusted (which took weeks, not days), I still had to wait on my “Wait-time I” and “wait-time II”.

Wait-time I: the time that teachers wait after having asked a question to receive an answer… three seconds here, feels like an hour!

Wait time II: the time that a teacher waits after a student has answered a question.

When you increase both of these times, with wait-time I being at least 3 seconds, the research (Rowe, 1974a, 1974b, Rowe, 1986) states you will witness the following outcomes:

·         The length of student responses increases by 700%

·         The number of unsolicited, but appropriate, student response increases;

·         Failures of students to respond decreases;

·         Students’ confidence, as reflected in decrease of inflected responses, increases;

·         The incidence of speculative student responses increases;

·         More students inferences are supported by evidence and logical argument;

·         The incidence of student-student comparisons of data increases;

·         The number of student questions and proposed experiments increases; and

·         The incidence of responses from students rated by teachers as relatively slow increases.

It is troublesome for some teachers to wait for 3 seconds, but I encourage you to try it!

If you have ever waited 3 seconds after asking a question, before receiving an answer, you will understand how long this feels.  However, the price we pay for waiting 3 seconds is more valuable to learning than you answering your own questions for an hour.

The art of questioning.

Have you taken the “Questions Only” Challenge?

Here is more on the Art of Questioning:

Our students want to be engaged, challenged and intrigued!  If you disagree, try lecturing to your students for an entire class, and then ask them about how much information they have retained or even bothered listening to.

I believe true engagement and challenge comes from the way we pose our questions towards students.  Teachers need to realize that not only do the tasks or assignments we provide to students determine the outcome of the lesson, but how a teacher addresses the challenges the students may have with these tasks also contributes to the quality of learning the student receives.  Looking back at my previous years, I have given higher level thinking tasks to students, but when a student required assistance my questioning techniques destroyed any critical thinking that had occurred

In 2003, Weiss et al. wrote “effective questioning is relatively rare in mathematics and science classes”, and Redfield and Rousseau in 1981 wrote “asking higher level questions has been shown to facilitate learning”. 

Educators need to stop asking questions where the answer can be a simple Yes/No, and start asking questions that requires responses with deeper thought.  Easy analogy: The deeper of understanding required to answer a question means the deeper level of learning that has occurred.

This does not imply that we should only be asking higher level thinking questions, but instead we could start asking initiating questions of a reasonable difficulty and then scaffold to more challenging contexts.  Most teachers are aware of the taxonomy introduced by Bloom, et al. in 1956, but another strategy was created in 1996 by Penick et al, which can be used in math and science classes.  Penick suggests asking questions that build on the students’ history, relationships, application, speculation and explanation.  Here is how Penick describes questions of these categories:

History – questions that relate to students’ experience:

·         What did you do….?

·         What happened when you….?

·         What happened next….?

Relationships – questions that engage students in comparing ideas, activities, data, etc:

·         How does this compare….?

·         What else does this relate to…..?

·         What do all these procedures have in common?

Application – questions that require students to use knowledge in new contexts:

·         How could this idea be used in design….?

·         What recognized safety issues could this solution solve?

·         What evidence do we have that supports…..?

Speculation – questions that require thinking beyond given information:

·         What would happen if you changed…..?

·         What might the next appropriate step be?

·         What potential problems may result from….?

Explanation – questions that get at underlying reasons, processes, and mechanisms:

·         How does that work?

·         How can we account for…”

·         What justification could be provided for….?

Questions should promote students learning outcomes using their own thought processes.  As teachers should not take the pencil/pen from the student and complete their work, they should also not be taking their learning and thinking away from them either.  To illustrate, how effective questioning appears in a math class I remember when a student was squaring negative numbers and keeping the product negative.

Student: If I square negative 3 the answer is negative 9.

ME: Why is the answer 9?

Student: Because in my calc, -3 squared is – 9.

ME: Forget your calculator, what does it mean to square a number?

Student: (Pause) To multiply by itself

Me: What happens if you multiply a negative number by another negative number?

Student: I am not dumb, I know a negative by a negative is a positive, but when you square…. Oh wait…. -3 times -3 is ….. stupid calculator!

From the outside some would say I taught the student how to square a negative number, but to the student he taught himself.  This is a powerful idea to the individual student.  Our goal, through questioning, is teach our students how to critically solve problems without asking any questions at all.

the true goal of a teacher is to put themselves out of a job, by having students solve problems without their help.

I fear that a common questioning technique by teachers, to students, is to ask "What do you think?"  Here is a take on that by this site:

Everyone asks questions (especially my four-year old granddaughter). It’s how we learn, understand issues, solve problems, and even socialize. But of all the questions you can ask, there is one that invariably leads to confusion, especially between men and women: What do you think?

It’s innocuous enough, and everyone uses it, but it can cause big trouble. Here are just a few examples:

A female employee just finished a project she had spent several weeks perfecting and brought it to her male boss expecting to receive lavish praise. She asked, “What do you think?” and he found a small criticism. She was devastated.

A female employee brought to her male boss an issue about which she wanted to gain some more insight, and asked “What do you think?” He told her what to do, and she felt that she now had to do the wrong thing.

A male employee asked his female boss for advice on a problem and asked, “What do you think?” She started a discussion about the topic when all he was looking for was confirmation that his approach made sense. He left frustrated and disillusioned.

A female marketer had her sale “wrapped up”, everyone loved her product, and they were ready to sign on the bottom line. She asked, “What do you think?” One person raised a minor issue that ended up taking a long time to resolve and almost cost her the sale.

My friend went to buy a dishwasher and had a specific brand in mind. She wanted to “involve” her husband so she insisted he come shopping with her. She asked, “What do you think?” Her husband answered, “I think we should get the GE”. Unfortunately she didn’t want that brand and now had to convince her husband otherwise.

A woman tried on a new outfit and asked her significant other, “What do you think?” He said, “It’s OK”, and she was deflated because she loved how it looked.

What do you think? is a question that really doesn’t ask anything so it can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. There are much better ways to get opinions and information.

Support from Jon Stewart

It is nice to know that teachers do have the support from some, and one of these people is Jon Stewart!

If you are interested I am quoting his February 28^th show and the link by clicking here.

Jon Stewart asked where the money is going to come from in Wisconsin.  Here are the quotes from other news anchors:

“Teachers know that kids are going to be in the seats and the taxpayers will just be sending in the money no matter how poorly they do, so they have no incentive to do a good job”

“The average salary of a teacher in Wisconsin is $51 000 the benefits of that package are $25 000 we are talking an average of $76 000 a year”

Jon then replies with “Average…..#$%%#”

Other news anchors claim that our job is part-time, and one news anchor even remembers going shopping with his mom, who supposedly was a teacher, every day at 3:00.

Jon’s response “Maybe your mom was a $#%#$ teacher”

I truly can say that teaching is the most rewarding job in the world.  The money, vacations, prep time, lunch hours, are not what motivates me to teach but the look on a student’s face when they have truly learned a new idea.  For those who have children of their own can relate to this, remember the first look on your child’s face when they took their first step.  The cheers that must have up roared in your house when your child did not fall back down must have been amazing.

This is my reality, but on a daily basis!  I cheer, applaud, and congratulate students daily on their first steps into concepts they never thought about.

Most don’t teach because of the rewards the public sees, but because of the rewards that only the ones in the classroom get to experience.

The public, sometimes, forgets how special it felt to them when they discovered something in a classroom that they could truly call their own.

What kind of teacher are you?

Resignation from teaching

I Resign From Teaching

Josh Stumpenhorst wrote an amazing letter.  Made me reflect on my own classes....After reading this I have decided I am also resigning from teaching in the tradtional sense.  Maybe it is time for more of us resign from teaching.

To Whom It May Concern:

Consider this my letter of resignation from teaching. After much deliberation and intense research, I now see the futility of teaching my students. I have found that telling my students what to do does not make them learn. I discovered that when I told them what projects to do, they didn’t produce high quality work. I now see that when I give them a test they might do well but can’t talk to me about what they learned. It has also come to my attention that when I tell them something will impact their grade and they need to do it, it doesn’t motivate them. So, I am giving it all up. I am done teaching my students. I will no longer give pencil and paper tests. I refuse to tell my students what projects to do. It has become increasingly clear to me that the less I teach, the more my students are actually learning. Clearly that means I should give up teaching…although this is a painful decision for me.

Now, even though I am resigning from teaching, you will still see me in my classroom. If you look in my open door you will see me at my desk with my feet up more than likely. My students will not be quiet and certainly will not be doing the same thing. Some of them might not even be sitting in chairs and none of them will be sitting in rows. It will be chaotic and kids will be all over the place. But I ask you to take a closer look.

As I am sitting at my desk I am no longer teaching but guiding. I have carefully constructed learning questions and activities for each student. The students are working collaboratively with each other on differentiated learning activities and producing a variety of evidence. They don’t look to me to tell them how to show they are learning but choose how to learn and how best to show me they are learning. They no longer seek me for the answers but look to the array of resources I have provided for them. I am no longer the source of knowledge but merely another learner in the room. Soon I will become invisible and the students will take complete control over their learning. My life as a teacher will cease to exist and a whole new one will replace it.

Please respectfully accept my resignation from teaching. However, I will stay on board to be a guide, a provider, a supervisor, a friend and a learner.

Respectfully Submitted,

Josh Stumpenhorst

The do(s) and don’t(s) for putting your feet up in the classroom:

Do:

• Construct meaningful work for students to be doing; boredom and disinterest leads to disengagement and behavior issues.
• Allow students to choose how they show their learning. Don’t use a cookie cutter approach to activities or assessments.
• Let kids work in groups to collaborate and share ideas. Two heads are better than one and four heads are really good.
• Have a comfortable chair! :)

Don’t:

• Assume kids can do this without some level of modeling and preparation.
• Close your door and hide what you are doing. Be proud of work student’s work and share it with others even if they are not ready themselves.
• Grade everything your students are doing. Grades do not motivate students so don’t use it as your motivator. Students will be motivated by learning if the activities are relevant, active, and collaborative.
• Think that you can always put your feet up. There will be a time when direct instruction will be needed.
• Think you can actually put your feet up! :)

BEDMAS last along with Lottery Winners.

I would like to address a convention in mathematics that needs to change; BEDMAS.  For those who are unfamiliar with this it stands for: Brackets, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction.  This is how I was taught order of operations.  However, division and multiplication actually are completed from left to right, and the same goes for addition and subtraction.  Therefore, we really need students to memorize also BEDMAS, BEMDAS, BEDMSA, depending on the order of the operations.

Also there could be operations inside brackets, so in actuality all that must be memorized is B(BEDMAS)EDMAS, B(BEMDAS)EDMAS, B(BEDMSA)EDMAS, …

I hope we are all confused as I am.

I have had a conversation recently where I was told, “If we don’t focus on order of operations then 3 + 2 * 10 could be 23 or 50, and there can only be one right answer”.   Now without a context 3+2*10 is 23.  However, students need to know WHY to put brackets, and when to add sometimes before we multiply. As for 2 examples:

If you are taking a cab which has a base charge of $3, and $2/km, then it would cost you $23 to take the cab 10 km.

If you are planning a party for 10 people and want to supply cookies, which costs $2/person, and cake, which costs $3/person, the total cost would be $50.

I understand that we need a procedure to solve questions that have no meaning, but for students who are just learning a new concept there should always be meaning in their learning.

This idea of memorization through acronyms can been in many subjects:

HOMES – Great Lakes

Mrs. Vasquez Eats Many Juniper Seeds Until Nurished – Planets.

I could go on and on.  I am not saying knowing the order of things is unimportant but should not be more important than the meaning and application of the knowledge memorized.  For my own students, I would rather they understand why the order of the planets are important for the equilibrium of our solar system than just the order of the planets.The sad truth is that the only time students are going to see a question, as 3+2*10, is when they need to answer a skill testing question for a prize.  Are we teaching critical thinkers, or lottery winners?

Outcome based assessment first, high stakes second.

Today I asking for any opinion of what I am trying to implement as my new assessment and teaching strategy.  First, I will talk about how I am assessing currently and problems I see, then I will introduce my policy.  I will be bringing this forward to my administration, but I would like some input before I do that.  The course I will be implementing this in is “Math 30 Applied”, where there is a standardized exam at the end the course worth 50%.

Currently, my marks have been based on the picture to the right.  Students are also given the chance to write a replacement exam, once at the midterm and once at the end of course.  If students achieve better than their lowest mark they can replace this mark with the mark they achieved on the replacement exam.  As you can see 95% of their mark is based on how they achieve on exams. 

3 large problems:

I am assessing student achievement and not student learning. 

I am promoting the idea of memorization for an exam, regurgitate then forget the learning.

I am forcing students to learn outcomes on my strict schedule.

I am tired of grades being sticks and carrots for students.  Students are scared of writing high stakes exams where they have to demonstrate their learning in this one “snapshot”, and if they don’t demonstrate learning this bad mark will haunt them for the remainder of the course [a stick].  I am also tired of students completing assignments only for marks.  [a carrot]

The new strategy: based on here

Students, at the beginning of the term, will receive a list of the 25 learner outcomes required by the course.  The list will also have one illustrated example of what a student should be able to do to demonstrate an acceptable standard of understanding.  I have supplied a picture of the first couple of outcomes.  This list is based on the mandated outcomes from my provincial government.  I will be teaching at the same pace and will still be teaching through discovery learning.  The assessment, however, will not be the same.

On Thursdays, students will be given a set of questions based on 4 outcomes.  3 of these outcomes will be chosen by the students, where the 4^th outcome will be one chosen by me.  This 4^th outcome will be one that has already been demonstrated by the student.  Each student will receive their own personalized assessment.

I am giving one mandatory demonstration a week; however I am allowing my students unlimited demonstrations of any concept. They can demonstrate their learning at lunch, before or after school, or during their prep.  Also keep in mind, when they want to demonstrate an outcome of their choosing, there will also be an outcome of my choosing.

The questions will not be marked in the traditional sense.  Using a holistic approach, on each question, I will assess the student on the outcome out of 4. 

Mark 4 - Student has shown full understanding of the concept with support of reasoning.

Mark 3 – firm grasp of the concept.  Demonstration of some of the concept, with your reasoning not shown to its full extent. 

Mark 2 – Some grasp of the concept.  Did not completely answer the question, and used some inconsistent notation or reasoning.

Mark 1 – Weak of very little understanding of the concept. Confusing reasoning, with very little support algebraically.

Mark 0 – Not at an acceptable level of understanding.

If I was to compare my marks with how our traditional percentages are, mark 1 would be a 50%. 

The mark that goes on student’s rubric will always be the LAST demonstration of the outcome a student completed.

For example, in the second week Sally chooses outcomes 5, 6 and 7.  After assessing, Sally receives a mark of 4 for outcomes 5 and 6, and a 2 for outcome 7.  Three weeks go by and Sally wants another chance for outcome 7.  She chooses outcomes 7, 12 and 13.  As my outcome, I also put outcome 5 on the assignment.  If Sally can’t demonstrate outcome 5 again at a level of full understanding, her rubric will be go from a 4 on outcome 5, to the level of understanding she is currently at.

I am trying to promote the idea of truly understanding a concept, not just memorize, spit it out and forget about it.

Also, at any time during the course a student can create their own project, question, assignment on any outcome.  They can bring the completed item to me, and after a discussion with the student, I will assess their understanding based on the discussion with the student according to the rubric above.  Students can be responsible for their own learning.

This is truly at a beginning level of planning as I have not executed any of this, so please post any comments or problems you may see arise.

Learning first, marks second

"what mark do I need on the final so I end up with an XX%?" This was a common question in my classes over the past week. As finals come closer and closer students become more and more concerned with their final marks. This saddens me greatly. 

Educators need to stop the perpetuation of marks being the gate keepers of a course. Students should not be concerned with their marks but actually their learning.  As we change the focus from marks to learning I hope the question will turn into "what learning should occur so I am successful in this course?". 

To illustrate my point greater inform your students that the failing mark in your class is 0. I guarantee, most students will cheer. Now if you informed your students they will learn nothing this year, most will be confused. 

Students crave knowledge but teachers give marks. There is a great disconnect. Next year, i am trying to test drive a new "no-mark" system in my high school math course. This should demonstrate that learning outcomes are the priority and not the mark or grade you receive in a course. 

Actual learning first, class average second

Recently I have had a conversation about class averages on a standardized exam.  The conversation made me remember a story I once read:

John was interviewed for job at a factory were the management consisted of Dave, his brother, and 6 relatives. The workforce consisted of 5 foremen, and 10 workers. Dave informed John that the pay was well here, with an average salary of $600 per week. After one week of work, John was upset as he only was paid $200. John stormed into Daves office, and accused Dave of lying. Dave, the magical mathematician, explained "Every week I get $4800, my brother gets $2000, my six relatives make $500, each foreman gets $400, and the ten workers get $200. Averaging to a salary of $600 per week."

Unless, we talk about mean, median, and mode, the AVERAGE, can be meaningless.

Also, what should be more important, the learning in the class or the class average?  When we start worrying about the marks students receive on an exam or diploma we lose sight of our actual goal.  Teaching to the test, inflating grades, or manipulating assessment practices is what teachers start to do, while changing pedagogy should be the answer.  The bottom line, however, class average should not be a concern to a teacher, where actual learning should be the first priority. 

Failure first, shame second.

We crawl before we walk, and usually our first attempt to walk is not when our first step occurs.  I recently watched a child try to take their first step.  She tried and fell.  The parents congratulated her and started to cheer.  This made me question my own values when it comes to failure in my class.

Many times I have heard “Failure is not an option”.  We need to, as a society, realize that failure is not a derogatory word.  The English thesaurus claims that synonyms to failure are, “Breakdown”, “Disappointment”, and “closure”, while “success” is the antonym. 

This disappointments me greatly.  If you are scared of failure then you will NEVER try anything new.  We need to embrace failure and realize that if you are unsuccessful at something true learning can occur.  To believe that everyone will succeed at every game, task, or job they try is ludicrous.

Most conventional teaching methods empower failure by deducting marks, lower grades, and teaching students that when success is not met you will be judged accordingly.  In my classes, I empower students by allowing them take chances, to fail, and then reason as to why their method was not correct. 

So why does society treat failure with such disgust?  I believe the root is “shame”.  In my career, I have seen students who are scared to take chances, due to the possibility of embarrassment.  If you administer exams in you class, watch the face of the student when you hand back an exam that is a failing grade.  Almost every time this student will lower his/her head and either crumple the exam up or hide it immediately.  Is learning from failure really occurring? I think not.  This perpetuation must stop!

Classes should be a safe environment where students are allowed to be vulnerable, where shame is left at the door and failure is a learning word not a derogatory one.   

Real teaching first, real learning second

I was asked what is real teaching?

Here is my response:

Real teaching is allowing students to discover and create their own ideas in a classroom. It is no longer being told, provided or informed of information, but actually having students takes risks and venture down new "educational" roads towards a product they can call their own. Teachers should no longer be heralds of facts, but actually facilitators of learning.