Teachers & Students as Co-Learners

1. TEACHERS AND
STUDENTS AS CO-
LEARNERS
CHAPTER 1

2. BACKGROUND 1
WE ARE ALL
LEARNERS
 This encourage students to expose and help
to repair the many flaws in the education
system and in the world’s current body of
knowledge.
 Help students develop an attitude of
constructive criticism.

3. STRATEGY 1
CELEBRATE NEGATIVE
FEEDBACK
Even if we suspect that students give the
feedback with less than constructive intentions,
we should respond as though the feedback was
given with the best of intentions.
“Treat people as they are and they will remain
as they are. Treat people as they can and
should be and they will become as they can and

4. BACKGROUND 2
THE EFFECTS OF
EXPECTATIONS
 Pygmalion Effect
 High Expectations  Improved Performance
 Low Expectations  Worsened Performance
 When students think they are being taught by
high quality teachers, the students seem to
learn more, and vice versa.

5. STRATEGY 2
SHOW THAT WE’RE LIFE-LONG
LEARNERS
 The class should be engaging about:
 what we think we have learned
 how we learned it
 what we still want to know

6. BACKGROUND 3
TEACHERS SHARE ABOUT
THEMSELVES
 This fits with the concept of Learning
Community (Roth and Lee 2006), where the
main goal is the learning, and a feeling of
human community promotes that goal.
 Connecting new knowledge to what we
already know and have experienced.

7. STRATEGY 3
MAKE CONNECTIONS TO OUR
OWN LIVES
 Text-to-text connections
 Text-to-world connections
 Text-to-self connections

8. BACKGROUND 4
SAGES VERSUS
GUIDES
 The student centered paradigm seeks to
involve teachers and students in collaboratively
“performing” for each other, rather than
teachers doing all the performing.
 “Those who teach learn twice”

9. STRATEGY 4
LET STUDENTS
TEACH
 In this technique, students are first taught a
set of comprehension strategies. They then
take turns playing the role of teacher, teaching
their peers how to use these strategies.

10. BACKGROUND 5
LISTEN TO LEARN
 Listen to your students.

11. STRATEGY 5
TAKE TIME TO UNDERSTAND
WHAT STUDENTS ARE TRYING
TO SAY
 “Seek to understand before seeking to be
understood.”
 As we strive to understand what students are
trying to communicate, we should look for the
good and build on that.

12. BACKGROUND 6
BUILDING ON STUDENT’S
EXPERIENCES
 One way for students to teach us teachers is
to talk about topics that students know but we
teachers do not.
 In this role reversing process, students learn
about explaining clearly and patiently, while
teachers are reminded how it feels to be the
ones receiving help.

13. STRATEGY 6
TAP STUDENT
EXPERTISE

14. BACKGROUND 7
JOURNALING
 Students’ journal entries often benefit from
feedback, which can come from teachers and
from peers. This feedback should focus on
ideas, not on matters such as punctuation,
grammar, and spelling

15. STRATEGY 7
ASK STUDENTS TO WRITE
JOURNALS

16. BACKGROUND 8
SHARING OUR LEARNING WITH
OUR STUDENTS
STRATEGY 8
TELL STUDENTS WHAT WE ARE
READING/VIEWING

17. BACKGROUND 9
SEE OUR TEACHING THROUGH
STUDENT’S EYES
STRATEGY 8
ASK STUDENTS TO EVALUATE