Learning to Cross the Road: What Do You Show Your Students? Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To show the squirrel it could be done. Most of us attempt to teach our subjects by telling students things, that is, describing, identifying, defining, specifying, explaining, lecturing, etc. We spend uncounted hours attempting to transmit our well-learned information and vital insights by clearly stating what we want students to know and understand. It can be quite rewarding because explaining things feels good and seems like real teaching. It is also not unusual for this to produce frustration later on when we discover from assessments, or from later attempts to reference earlier material, that our explaining things did not lead to a fundamental understanding that we’d hoped to convey. Here are three steps to go beyond information giving.
