How can teachers change from being workers to making the students become the workers?

Who talks more in the classroom, the teacher or the students? A teacher can observe for classroom talk by putting a slash in a teacher talk/ student talk chart every two minutes. If the teacher feels comfortable, he can ask a student to do this recording. If a teacher feels he cannot teach and record, he may use a camcorder to capture the class so he can analyze it later. At the end of the class, the recorder counts all the slashes in each column and determine a percent of the total for both sides. Hopefully, the teacher will find that his students are talking at least 70% of the time. When the teacher is talking, students do not become active participants who learn through social interaction with others. Teachers can increase student talk time learning through activities such as pair-shares, reciprocal teaching, discussion group in which students have different roles, and small groups.

Does the teacher or the students ask more content questions? Again the teacher can keep a running total or she can have a student keep track by recording each time someone asks a question by putting a slash in the teacher or student column. A percent of the total is determined for each. When students are the workers, they ask more than half of the questions in the class. When students ask questions, they are active participants in class; they do not just passively listen. Students who ask questions clarify concepts, show connections, and strive for insights. For example, if science students ask “Isn't this almost the same as ...? or “How is this different from...”, they show that they are connecting this present learning to previous learning. Students need to be encouraged to ask questions; many feel that asking questions shows their lack of learning. A teacher may post in the classroom the anonymous saying “"Questions are the creative acts of intelligence." Some students may prefer some question starters such as “How is this similar to..?”, “How is this different than...”, and “What would happen if ....”

Is the teacher or the students demonstrating the learning goal? The teacher or a student can record who is demonstrating learning and for how long in the two column teacher -student chart. This time the recorder puts down the amount of time that each person demonstrates learning. For example, if the math teacher solves a problem on the board for fifteen minutes, the recorder writes down “15” on the teacher side. Likewise, if students are solving problems at their desk for ten minutes, “10” is put on the student side. The numbers are totaled on each side, added together, and then the percent of each side is determined. Students are active learners when they demonstrate at least 70% of the time. When they are demonstrating and doing the work, they learn. Teachers can have students spend more time in demonstrating when students explain problems, present their findings, produce charts or concept maps of their ideas, and produce “how -to” media presentations.

Who has created most of the class materials being used, the teacher or the students? During any class, the teacher or a student can record each time some material is used in the classroom and who created it. The recorder will need a three column chart, teacher, student, and other. If the English teacher has created a handout of questions for a chapter in the novel, a slash is put in the teacher column. If the students wrote up their own questions about the chapter, a slash is put in the student column. If the chapter questions come from a source other than the teacher or student such as a textbook or a website, then the recorder puts a slash in the other column. These slashes are totaled and then the percent of the total is determined. When students made material comprise more than 50% of the class, then students are workers and not the bosses. Teachers can have students create a list of web resources, a Power Point, a collection of images, their own questions for a lesson, their own practice quizzes, design their own lab, and find real life math problems.

Teachers will want to change their role from the workers who do all the things in the classroom to the role of a boss who watches their workers do the classwork. Such a transformation means that students are active learners who participate in their learning; they become responsible for their learning. Such pupils are on their way to being lifelong independent learners as opposed to learners who are dependent on their teachers.

Dr. Harry Grover Tuttle focuses on assessing and improving student learning through low- and high-tech tools.

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