Loved the comments about (i) going beyond simply asking students to regurgitate information and (ii) using the classroom in a more meaningful way than simply presenting information to students. The regurgitation points supports the idea of using facilitation rather than lecturing to have students understand concepts in terms of their experiences with them.
Thanks Ruth. Yes, I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to change my practices this fall to be even more creative with the valuable in-person time I have with my students. So many better ways to use it than a lecture.
Useful analogy! Thank you. To extend it, I think of the ratio between screen time and analog time. Screen time and digital information is training wheels. Analog time is working with real people and physical reality. Every analogy is useful for the place where it breaks down. So for certain skills, especially in younger students, the scoot bike is having to deal with real people and unbalanced situations. That’s what I like about making writing real in your approach.
Thanks for the comment, Paul. I agree with the core of your argument, although I would make the distinction between active engagement and passive consumption rather than an analog/digital divide (although there are certainly correlations between them!)
As one example, in my field of engineering, there are many times that students are required to use a digital tool to make their design come to life (e.g., writing or simulating code). These activities are not inherently bad or poorly motivated, although they do make it easier to cave to the distracting influences so often delivered through our screens. Agree that it is important to carefully consider how and where we introduce digital tools into our classes though since they can easily become a medium for passive consumption.
Maybe different standards for different disciplines…I teach English. As we shaped policy for my school, we are considering what we call desirable difficulties from undesirable difficulties. Desirable difficulties are the scooter bike challenges. And the training wheels more or less remove the difficulties altogether. So we are agreed.
Great post, Josh! I substitute teach, but am very interested in the profession and institutions of learning. I like your analogy of learning to ride a bike, and also your treatment of AI. I think the analogy of learning to read by reading instead of phonetics may be apt here (though many in education seem to think I’m wrong). In pretty much all cases, it seems to me, a skill is learned by practicing the skill. At some point, something clicks, and the skill is sufficiently developed that the basics are now pretty much on auto pilot, and further practice just lets you master the skill in more detail.
I’m thinking that AI is just an additional resource for learning these days, as digital tools like YouTube, search engines, and social media have been around for decades. These tools have already made teacher to student information transfer sort of obsolete, albeit only so far. The analog, personal relationship of teacher to student is still very important to learning, according to the students I ask.
I’ve seen various examples of teachers trying to incorporate the Internet into the classroom environment. Some seem successful, and others not so much. The most successful results I see are in art and other creative areas where the teacher acts as a facilitator and the students are the creators. Adapting this approach to traditional academic subjects may work to improve learning.
Thank you for a new and thoughtful way of approaching all this. I think there is enduring value with this (even though I've never heard of scoot bikes!).
Chiming in as a non-educator, with my bike stories -- When I was young, my family lived on a very busy street surrounded on the sides with more busy streets (and a great meadow-like expanse in the back connecting houses all around, which was wonderful, but not for bike riding). For some inexplicable reason, my parents bought me a beautiful shiny red bicycle that was too big for me to ride and then didn't allow me to ride it because of our location. I do remember it had a lovely push-button bell which I would mournfully ding sometimes as I walked by it in the garage.
Well, the red bike was jettisoned as we moved to a new house when I was 10 and my siblings and I were given new, more appropriately-sized bikes -- and the big 'innovation' of the time was that they had 'banana seats'! The new house also fronted on a busy street but was surrounded by a connected arc of three quiet streets that, way back, further opened to other quiet streets; all in all, a safe and satisfyingly twisty course. So I think I came to riding a bike fairly late in the game?
I had training wheels for a very short time, but quickly figured out they just got in the way. The biggest resource for learning was my dedicated father holding the back of the banana seat and jogging alongside as best he could! A boost that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't... until the body-mind-spirit did its magic and the art of balancing all clicked into place one day.
There were many small falls, though I don't have memories of those.
All to say -- those are three elements to perhaps consider alongside (or within) a scoot-bike pedagogy -- Environment; Grown-ups who stabilize and push; and for some (many?), A very slow incremental ramp upwards to success.
Loved the comments about (i) going beyond simply asking students to regurgitate information and (ii) using the classroom in a more meaningful way than simply presenting information to students. The regurgitation points supports the idea of using facilitation rather than lecturing to have students understand concepts in terms of their experiences with them.
Thanks Ruth. Yes, I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to change my practices this fall to be even more creative with the valuable in-person time I have with my students. So many better ways to use it than a lecture.
Useful analogy! Thank you. To extend it, I think of the ratio between screen time and analog time. Screen time and digital information is training wheels. Analog time is working with real people and physical reality. Every analogy is useful for the place where it breaks down. So for certain skills, especially in younger students, the scoot bike is having to deal with real people and unbalanced situations. That’s what I like about making writing real in your approach.
Thanks for the comment, Paul. I agree with the core of your argument, although I would make the distinction between active engagement and passive consumption rather than an analog/digital divide (although there are certainly correlations between them!)
As one example, in my field of engineering, there are many times that students are required to use a digital tool to make their design come to life (e.g., writing or simulating code). These activities are not inherently bad or poorly motivated, although they do make it easier to cave to the distracting influences so often delivered through our screens. Agree that it is important to carefully consider how and where we introduce digital tools into our classes though since they can easily become a medium for passive consumption.
Maybe different standards for different disciplines…I teach English. As we shaped policy for my school, we are considering what we call desirable difficulties from undesirable difficulties. Desirable difficulties are the scooter bike challenges. And the training wheels more or less remove the difficulties altogether. So we are agreed.
Love the language of desirable vs. undesirable difficulties. I wrote something on a similar thread a while back that you might enjoy. https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/take-the-trail-up
Thanks. Good enough to make me subscribe. No pressure! 😉
Thanks Paul. Will hope to make it worth your while :) Thanks for your support, means a lot!
After reading your thought-provoking article, the beloved poem by Khalil Gibran took on new and even deeper meaning.
Thanks Lorraine! Glad it resonated with you.
Great post, Josh! I substitute teach, but am very interested in the profession and institutions of learning. I like your analogy of learning to ride a bike, and also your treatment of AI. I think the analogy of learning to read by reading instead of phonetics may be apt here (though many in education seem to think I’m wrong). In pretty much all cases, it seems to me, a skill is learned by practicing the skill. At some point, something clicks, and the skill is sufficiently developed that the basics are now pretty much on auto pilot, and further practice just lets you master the skill in more detail.
I’m thinking that AI is just an additional resource for learning these days, as digital tools like YouTube, search engines, and social media have been around for decades. These tools have already made teacher to student information transfer sort of obsolete, albeit only so far. The analog, personal relationship of teacher to student is still very important to learning, according to the students I ask.
I’ve seen various examples of teachers trying to incorporate the Internet into the classroom environment. Some seem successful, and others not so much. The most successful results I see are in art and other creative areas where the teacher acts as a facilitator and the students are the creators. Adapting this approach to traditional academic subjects may work to improve learning.
Thanks for the post! Have a great summer!
Thank you for a new and thoughtful way of approaching all this. I think there is enduring value with this (even though I've never heard of scoot bikes!).
Chiming in as a non-educator, with my bike stories -- When I was young, my family lived on a very busy street surrounded on the sides with more busy streets (and a great meadow-like expanse in the back connecting houses all around, which was wonderful, but not for bike riding). For some inexplicable reason, my parents bought me a beautiful shiny red bicycle that was too big for me to ride and then didn't allow me to ride it because of our location. I do remember it had a lovely push-button bell which I would mournfully ding sometimes as I walked by it in the garage.
Well, the red bike was jettisoned as we moved to a new house when I was 10 and my siblings and I were given new, more appropriately-sized bikes -- and the big 'innovation' of the time was that they had 'banana seats'! The new house also fronted on a busy street but was surrounded by a connected arc of three quiet streets that, way back, further opened to other quiet streets; all in all, a safe and satisfyingly twisty course. So I think I came to riding a bike fairly late in the game?
I had training wheels for a very short time, but quickly figured out they just got in the way. The biggest resource for learning was my dedicated father holding the back of the banana seat and jogging alongside as best he could! A boost that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't... until the body-mind-spirit did its magic and the art of balancing all clicked into place one day.
There were many small falls, though I don't have memories of those.
All to say -- those are three elements to perhaps consider alongside (or within) a scoot-bike pedagogy -- Environment; Grown-ups who stabilize and push; and for some (many?), A very slow incremental ramp upwards to success.
Thanks, Josh!