Together, we learn!
DEVELOPMENT in class may be personal but a helping hand won’t hurt, would it? To have a partner in class might be the best way for students to learn.
The pace of learning of each student varies hence some might be able to grasp all the teacher’s instructions, some may be left behind. The teachers would of course, go back to the previous discussion to accommodate those who may not have not been able to ride in the vessel where learning occurred. This accommodation would however delay those who had already been in the vessel who could have crossed to the next topic already. Also, the question on how to determine which ones got the lesson and those who did not is a different story.
A teacher may determine those who got the lesson through quizzes and recitations but most students would hesitate to ask the teacher to repeat the lessons he or she did not get and will feel more comfortable to ask the seatmate instead. But teachers often would prohibit talking to seatmates in class unless there’s a group activity, to avoid unnecessary noise. It is only rational to prohibit discussions of seatmates especially if it’s off the topic and when the teacher is talking in front.
What I believe would be a nice exercise that teachers may adopt is to have 5-minute breaks in between concepts to allow seatmates to discuss how they understood the topic, what they did not grasp so the other could fill in the gap, and this way, each could even add additional information about what they learned on the topic.
It would be a couple of wins: a short break for the teacher, the bond between students would strengthen, they may become good friends, a lot of time would be saved where instead of the teacher having to come back to the previous topics, the seatmates would be there to aid the teacher in doing so.
Also, the discussion would engage the students’ interest on the topic as they would have to pay more attention to the teacher so they’ll have something to add on the seatmates’ discussion, and also because they already understand the topic better. A danger however in this exercise is for a blind-leading-theblind situation where both the students were lost, both students would go off-topic and would only create unnecessary noise.
The teacher should then come in and lead the students’ discussions and/or strategically plan the seating arrangements. These may work on others, and this may not, but there’s no harm in trying and only so much to gain. Teachers, how about you try this in your class and tell me how it went? (