Brilliant or Insane?

Santa, please give educators results-only learning for their schools this year. 

I'm doing my part, promoting my book, Role Reversal, and visiting school districts nationwide and in Canada, encouraging educators to eliminate traditional teaching, in favor of student-centered, results-only learning.

Every little bit helps, though. We can transform teaching and learning in classrooms everywhere, if educators understand that lecture, homework, tests and grades are destroying our kids' thirst for learning. 

I know it's a lot to ask, but give me a hand, Santa. Please put results-only learning under every educator's tree this Christmas. 

Oh, and leave a note, asking them to share it with all of their peers. 

Who knows? Maybe this Christmas, we'll change the world.

To the casual observer, this may look like a bunch of kids sort of doing their own thing and, to some degree, it is. Looking deeper, though, there is so much more.

What makes this class so powerful is just how much the students are driving the learning. After some brief instruction, the learners scurried off to three stations -- a student-directed review station, a computer station, where students reinforced the day's concept with a digital math game and a hands-on diagnostic station, where the students shared learning with the teacher and each other, using real objects to demonstrate how fractions work. 

I was reminded of just how engaging results-only learning is. At the review station, one student facilitated discussion, using an interactive white board, selecting peers to go to the board and share their solutions to problems. "What if someone doesn't know the answer?" I inquired. 

"We work through it together," was the response. The teacher, I was informed, was the last resort. Can you imagine this philosophy in a traditional classroom? 

Although there were many noteworthy approaches to teaching and learning in the 60 minutes I spent as a 5th grader, what struck me most was how easily the teacher evaluated his students. No points, percentages or letter grades were assigned to anyone. 

The student-centered classroom facilitator spoke to every individual student at some point, carefully observing if concepts were mastered. Two-way narrative feedback helped him assess learning, far more than a multiple choice quiz ever could.

My favorite part of the day. We all had fun!