How to learn? From mistakes
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0:00 - 0:03I have been teaching for a long time,
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0:03 - 0:05and in doing so
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0:05 - 0:08have acquired a body of knowledge about kids and learning
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0:08 - 0:11that I really wish more people would understand
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0:11 - 0:14about the potential of students.
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0:14 - 0:16In 1931, my grandmother --
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0:16 - 0:18bottom left for you guys over here --
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0:18 - 0:20graduated from the eighth grade.
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0:20 - 0:22She went to school to get the information
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0:22 - 0:24because that's where the information lived.
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0:24 - 0:26It was in the books; it was inside the teacher's head;
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0:26 - 0:29and she needed to go there to get the information,
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0:29 - 0:31because that's how you learned.
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0:31 - 0:33Fast-forward a generation:
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0:33 - 0:35this is the one-room schoolhouse, Oak Grove,
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0:35 - 0:37where my father went to a one-room schoolhouse.
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0:37 - 0:39And he again had to travel to the school
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0:39 - 0:41to get the information from the teacher,
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0:41 - 0:44stored it in the only portable memory he has, which is inside his own head,
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0:44 - 0:46and take it with him,
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0:46 - 0:49because that is how information was being transported
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0:49 - 0:52from teacher to student and then used in the world.
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0:52 - 0:54When I was a kid,
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0:54 - 0:56we had a set of encyclopedias at my house.
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0:56 - 0:58It was purchased the year I was born,
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0:58 - 1:00and it was extraordinary,
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1:00 - 1:03because I did not have to wait to go to the library to get to the information.
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1:03 - 1:05The information was inside my house
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1:05 - 1:07and it was awesome.
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1:07 - 1:09This was different
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1:09 - 1:11than either generation had experienced before,
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1:11 - 1:13and it changed the way I interacted with information
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1:13 - 1:15even at just a small level.
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1:15 - 1:17But the information was closer to me.
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1:17 - 1:19I could get access to it.
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1:19 - 1:21In the time that passes
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1:21 - 1:23between when I was a kid in high school
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1:23 - 1:25and when I started teaching,
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1:25 - 1:27we really see the advent of the Internet.
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1:27 - 1:29Right about the time that the Internet gets going
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1:29 - 1:31as an educational tool,
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1:31 - 1:33I take off from Wisconsin
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1:33 - 1:35and move to Kansas, small town Kansas,
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1:35 - 1:37where I had an opportunity to teach
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1:37 - 1:39in a lovely, small-town,
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1:39 - 1:41rural Kansas school district,
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1:41 - 1:43where I was teaching my favorite subject,
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1:43 - 1:45American government.
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1:45 - 1:48My first year -- super gung-ho -- going to teach American government,
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1:48 - 1:50loved the political system.
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1:50 - 1:52Kids in the 12th grade:
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1:52 - 1:54not exactly all that enthusiastic
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1:54 - 1:56about the American government system.
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1:56 - 1:59Year two: learned a few things -- had to change my tactic.
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1:59 - 2:01And I put in front of them an authentic experience
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2:01 - 2:04that allowed them to learn for themselves.
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2:04 - 2:06I didn't tell them what to do or how to do it.
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2:06 - 2:08I posed a problem in front of them,
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2:08 - 2:11which was to put on an election forum for their own community.
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2:12 - 2:14They produced flyers. They called offices.
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2:14 - 2:16They checked schedules. They were meeting with secretaries.
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2:16 - 2:18They produced an election forum booklet
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2:18 - 2:20for the entire town to learn more about their candidates.
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2:20 - 2:22They invited everyone into the school
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2:22 - 2:24for an evening of conversation
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2:24 - 2:26about government and politics
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2:26 - 2:28and whether or not the streets were done well,
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2:28 - 2:31and really had this robust experiential learning.
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2:31 - 2:33The older teachers -- more experienced --
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2:33 - 2:35looked at me and went,
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2:35 - 2:38"Oh, there she is. That's so cute. She's trying to get that done."
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2:38 - 2:40(Laughter)
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2:40 - 2:42"She doesn't know what she's in for."
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2:42 - 2:44But I knew that the kids would show up,
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2:44 - 2:46and I believed it,
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2:46 - 2:49and I told them every week what I expected out of them.
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2:49 - 2:51And that night, all 90 kids --
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2:51 - 2:54dressed appropriately, doing their job, owning it.
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2:54 - 2:56I had to just sit and watch.
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2:56 - 2:58It was theirs. It was experiential. It was authentic.
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2:58 - 3:00It meant something to them.
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3:00 - 3:02And they will step up.
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3:02 - 3:05From Kansas, I moved on to lovely Arizona,
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3:05 - 3:08where I taught in Flagstaff for a number of years,
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3:08 - 3:10this time with middle school students.
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3:10 - 3:12Luckily, I didn't have to teach them American government.
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3:12 - 3:15Could teach them the more exciting topic of geography.
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3:15 - 3:18Again, "thrilled" to learn.
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3:19 - 3:21But what was interesting
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3:21 - 3:24about this position I found myself in in Arizona,
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3:24 - 3:26was I had this really
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3:26 - 3:28extraordinarily eclectic group of kids to work with
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3:28 - 3:30in a truly public school,
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3:30 - 3:33and we got to have these moments where we would get these opportunities.
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3:33 - 3:35And one opportunity
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3:35 - 3:38was we got to go and meet Paul Rusesabagina,
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3:38 - 3:40which is the gentleman
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3:40 - 3:42that the movie "Hotel Rwanda" is based after.
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3:42 - 3:44And he was going to speak at the high school next door to us.
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3:44 - 3:46We could walk there. We didn't even have to pay for the buses.
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3:46 - 3:49There was no expense cost. Perfect field trip.
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3:49 - 3:51The problem then becomes
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3:51 - 3:53how do you take seventh- and eighth-graders to a talk about genocide
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3:53 - 3:55and deal with the subject in a way
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3:55 - 3:57that is responsible and respectful,
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3:57 - 3:59and they know what to do with it.
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3:59 - 4:01And so we chose to look at Paul Rusesabagina
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4:01 - 4:03as an example of a gentleman
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4:03 - 4:07who singularly used his life to do something positive.
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4:07 - 4:09I then challenged the kids to identify
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4:09 - 4:12someone in their own life, or in their own story, or in their own world,
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4:12 - 4:14that they could identify that had done a similar thing.
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4:14 - 4:16I asked them to produce a little movie about it.
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4:16 - 4:18It's the first time we'd done this.
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4:18 - 4:20Nobody really knew how to make these little movies on the computer,
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4:20 - 4:23but they were into it. And I asked them to put their own voice over it.
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4:24 - 4:29It was the most awesome moment of revelation
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4:29 - 4:32that when you ask kids to use their own voice
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4:32 - 4:34and ask them to speak for themselves,
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4:34 - 4:36what they're willing to share.
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4:36 - 4:38The last question of the assignment is:
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4:38 - 4:40how do you plan to use your life
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4:40 - 4:42to positively impact other people?
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4:42 - 4:44The things that kids will say
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4:44 - 4:47when you ask them and take the time to listen
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4:47 - 4:50is extraordinary.
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4:50 - 4:53Fast-forward to Pennsylvania, where I find myself today.
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4:53 - 4:55I teach at the Science Leadership Academy,
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4:55 - 4:58which is a partnership school between the Franklin Institute
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4:58 - 5:00and the school district of Philadelphia.
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5:00 - 5:03We are a nine through 12 public school,
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5:03 - 5:06but we do school quite differently.
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5:06 - 5:08I moved there primarily
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5:08 - 5:10to be part of a learning environment
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5:10 - 5:12that validated the way that I knew that kids learned,
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5:12 - 5:14and that really wanted to investigate
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5:14 - 5:16what was possible
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5:16 - 5:18when you are willing to let go
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5:18 - 5:20of some of the paradigms of the past,
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5:20 - 5:23of information scarcity when my grandmother was in school
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5:23 - 5:26and when my father was in school and even when I was in school,
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5:26 - 5:28and to a moment when we have information surplus.
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5:28 - 5:31So what do you do when the information is all around you?
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5:31 - 5:33Why do you have kids come to school
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5:33 - 5:36if they no longer have to come there to get the information?
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5:36 - 5:39In Philadelphia we have a one-to-one laptop program,
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5:39 - 5:42so the kids are bringing in laptops with them everyday,
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5:42 - 5:45taking them home, getting access to information.
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5:45 - 5:48And here's the thing that you need to get comfortable with
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5:48 - 5:50when you've given the tool
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5:50 - 5:52to acquire information to students,
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5:52 - 5:54is that you have to be comfortable with this idea
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5:54 - 5:56of allowing kids to fail
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5:56 - 5:59as part of the learning process.
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5:59 - 6:01We deal right now in the educational landscape
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6:01 - 6:03with an infatuation
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6:03 - 6:05with the culture of one right answer
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6:05 - 6:08that can be properly bubbled on the average multiple choice test,
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6:08 - 6:10and I am here to share with you:
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6:10 - 6:12it is not learning.
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6:12 - 6:15That is the absolute wrong thing to ask,
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6:15 - 6:17to tell kids to never be wrong.
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6:17 - 6:20To ask them to always have the right answer
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6:20 - 6:22doesn't allow them to learn.
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6:22 - 6:24So we did this project,
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6:24 - 6:26and this is one of the artifacts of the project.
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6:26 - 6:28I almost never show them off
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6:28 - 6:30because of the issue of the idea of failure.
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6:30 - 6:32My students produced these info-graphics
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6:32 - 6:35as a result of a unit that we decided to do at the end of the year
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6:35 - 6:37responding to the oil spill.
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6:37 - 6:40I asked them to take the examples that we were seeing
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6:40 - 6:42of the info-graphics that existed
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6:42 - 6:44in a lot of mass media,
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6:44 - 6:47and take a look at what were the interesting components of it,
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6:47 - 6:49and produce one for themselves
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6:49 - 6:51of a different man-made disaster from American history.
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6:51 - 6:53And they had certain criteria to do it.
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6:53 - 6:55They were a little uncomfortable with it,
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6:55 - 6:57because we'd never done this before, and they didn't know exactly how to do it.
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6:57 - 6:59They can talk -- they're very smooth,
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6:59 - 7:01and they can write very, very well,
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7:01 - 7:04but asking them to communicate ideas in a different way
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7:04 - 7:07was a little uncomfortable for them.
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7:07 - 7:10But I gave them the room to just do the thing.
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7:10 - 7:12Go create. Go figure it out.
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7:12 - 7:14Let's see what we can do.
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7:14 - 7:16And the student that persistently
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7:16 - 7:19turns out the best visual product did not disappoint.
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7:19 - 7:21This was done in like two or three days.
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7:21 - 7:24And this is the work of the student that consistently did it.
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7:24 - 7:27And when I sat the students down, I said, "Who's got the best one?"
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7:27 - 7:29And they immediately went, "There it is."
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7:29 - 7:31Didn't read anything. "There it is."
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7:31 - 7:33And I said, "Well what makes it great?"
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7:33 - 7:35And they're like, "Oh, the design's good, and he's using good color.
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7:35 - 7:38And there's some ... " And they went through all that we processed out loud.
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7:38 - 7:40And I said, "Go read it."
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7:40 - 7:43And they're like, "Oh, that one wasn't so awesome."
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7:43 - 7:45And then we went to another one --
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7:45 - 7:47it didn't have great visuals, but it had great information --
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7:47 - 7:50and spent an hour talking about the learning process,
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7:50 - 7:52because it wasn't about whether or not it was perfect,
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7:52 - 7:54or whether or not it was what I could create.
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7:54 - 7:57It asked them to create for themselves,
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7:57 - 7:59and it allowed them to fail,
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7:59 - 8:01process, learn from.
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8:01 - 8:03And when we do another round of this in my class this year,
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8:03 - 8:05they will do better this time,
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8:05 - 8:07because learning
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8:07 - 8:10has to include an amount of failure,
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8:10 - 8:12because failure is instructional
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8:12 - 8:14in the process.
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8:14 - 8:17There are a million pictures
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8:17 - 8:19that I could click through here,
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8:19 - 8:22and had to choose carefully -- this is one of my favorites --
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8:22 - 8:24of students learning,
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8:24 - 8:26of what learning can look like
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8:26 - 8:29in a landscape where we let go of the idea
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8:29 - 8:31that kids have to come to school to get the information,
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8:31 - 8:33but instead, ask them what they can do with it.
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8:33 - 8:35Ask them really interesting questions.
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8:35 - 8:37They will not disappoint.
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8:37 - 8:39Ask them to go to places,
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8:39 - 8:41to see things for themselves,
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8:41 - 8:43to actually experience the learning,
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8:43 - 8:46to play, to inquire.
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8:46 - 8:48This is one of my favorite photos,
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8:48 - 8:50because this was taken on Tuesday,
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8:50 - 8:52when I asked the students to go to the polls.
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8:52 - 8:55This is Robbie, and this was his first day of voting,
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8:55 - 8:57and he wanted to share that with everybody and do that.
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8:57 - 8:59But this is learning too,
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8:59 - 9:02because we asked them to go out into real spaces.
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9:05 - 9:07The main point
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9:07 - 9:10is that, if we continue to look at education
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9:10 - 9:13as if it's about coming to school
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9:13 - 9:15to get the information
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9:15 - 9:17and not about experiential learning,
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9:17 - 9:20empowering student voice and embracing failure,
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9:20 - 9:22we're missing the mark.
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9:22 - 9:24And everything that everybody is talking about today
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9:24 - 9:27isn't possible if we keep having an educational system
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9:27 - 9:30that does not value these qualities,
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9:30 - 9:32because we won't get there with a standardized test,
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9:32 - 9:34and we won't get there with a culture of one right answer.
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9:34 - 9:36We know how to do this better,
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9:36 - 9:38and it's time to do better.
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9:38 - 9:43(Applause)
- Title:
- How to learn? From mistakes
- Speaker:
- Diana Laufenberg
- Description:
-
Diana Laufenberg shares 3 surprising things she has learned about teaching -- including a key insight about learning from mistakes.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 09:45
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for How to learn? From mistakes | ||
TED edited English subtitles for How to learn? From mistakes | ||
TED added a translation |