http://www.hks.harvard.edu/degrees/teaching-courses/teaching/slate#ContentTop Our job at the Kennedy School is to prepare a new generation of public leaders to fix a world in trouble. The problems that we face are more complex, more intricate, more involved, more global so we have to think about different ways of teaching and learning. Weve known for a long time that people dont learn best when theyre being talked to. You get a lecture and you get a lot of information thrown at you at once but its not necessarily inculcated in your daily understanding of how to address a policy problem. We now realize that there are much more effective ways of teaching and learning. One of the things were doing is experimenting with the physical lay-out of the classroom. When I first walked in to the classroom, I think I was a little bit confused. We werent passive students listening to someone in front of the class. We were engaging with each other because were face to face. There was a real flattening of the hierarchy where instead of being as they put the sage on the stage, I was kind of an orchestrator of student learning rather than a deliverer of knowledge. Students are creating the class themselves. They are part of fueling the material thats coming out of it. Class time is a scarcest time of all. So the professor can either spend a lot of time in class just talking to the students or he can spend more time in class discussing with the students and being more interactive. Weve been experimenting with the flipped classroom where we deliver material outside the class and before the class. What weve done is create on-line models, letting the students learn about the concepts at their own pace. And when they come to class, they come with that knowledge ready to work on hard problems. As evidence accumulates about what works, it changes the whole schools conception of a good teaching. Somebody experiments with
simulations whether kind of traditional role
playing simulations or more novel game-based simulations where people have to deal with a state of the world generated by a roll of the dice and nobody knows whats gonna happen. While were dealing with simulations, were case studies or video conference, were engaged in real world problem-solving but were still in a classroom. We have to send our students out into the world to practise. When you get on the ground, you really get to see these concepts come alive. In the world everything is messy. Its real people, with real problems needing real solutions. Weve had so many moments where things didnt go as planned and they think if everything goes as planned its because youre not adapting, youre not iterating, youre not taking signals from the place that you are in. There is no one best way to engage in active learning. We dont know the right answer yet. We have so many ideas and we need to continue experimenting, evaluating what were doing so that we can scale off future innovations. Its really great to come to a place where there are people so concerned with the learning of the students. The goal is not just to get students to learn in the classroom but rather to have that learning be so deep, so in their bones, that when they get out of the Kennedy School they instinctively use their learning to deal with complex problems in the real world. The most important way in which we have an impact on world is by improving what our students can do. Teaching, teaching right, is action in the most powerful sort. Its given me the most confidence that I can succeed at the business of government. (Transcription by Suwardjono) see also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA5R41F7d9Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_WBkngxT4E