How can the traditional classroom enable students to learn successfully?

Use question and answer.

I’m not a teacher, but for various complex reasons I was invited to tell a class of 10-year-olds in an American school about Christmas in Cyprus, where I live for part of the year. I could have stood up and told them.

But I wanted them to make a connection between what they knew and Cyprus.

The school is in a rural area, 7,000 miles from Cyprus. It so happened that the school’s mascot is a cheetah. So I decided that I would travel with them from their school to Cyprus via Kenya. I asked them where cheetahs come from. We quickly got as far as “Africa.” So where is Africa? Not much response. So I’d already planned to use a Google map that started tightly zoomed in on their school, something they’d recognise. I zoomed out to show the state, zoomed out again to show the borders with Canada and Mexico and asked “Does the USA go on for ever?” “No.” “OK, so what are the countries to the north and south?” A few knew, good. “So – how many countries are there in the world?” No hands up. “Anyone want to guess?” Some guesses, wildly wrong. But the children were THINKING. I told them – and an hour later they had remembered. So I moved the map to show the Atlantic and asked “What is this ocean called?”

And so on and so on.

When we got to Cyprus I showed them a picture of Cypriot schoolchildren – another connection. I introduced them to the Greek language (spoken in Cyprus) by showing a picture of Harry Potter (at which many of the girls swooned!) Why Harry Potter? The first novel is “The Philosopher’s Stone”, and the word “philosopher” comes directly from two Greek words – “philo”, (friend, love) and “sophia” – wisdom. Another connection made.

The children’s teacher was delighted with the results. I had led the children to discover what I wanted them to know, or at least make connections on which I could build.

So from my one classroom experience I am convinced that leading students to new knowledge by question is far better than just giving it to them. And the more connections that can be made the more chance there is of at least one connection being retained.

An excellent article about this is here:

http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/resources/teaching-methods/participation/asking-questions-to-improve-learning/

I have posted an answer to the question “Why educate in questions and answers?”. That answer describes my career experience in on-the-job training by question and answer.