Maybe Teaching is a Bad Idea

Why Faculty Should Focus on Learning

Larry D. Spence

• Publisher: Stylus Publishing
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781642674675
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

Deep and lasting learning results when we teach human brains in ways responsive to how they're structured and how they function, which is not how we imagine they work or wish they would work. This book proposes a radical restructuring of teaching so that it conforms to how people learn. Spence maintains that teaching cannot and should not be aimed at transferring knowledge from teacher brains into student brains. In his words: "Decades of experience have made perfectly clear that this approach frustrates teachers, bores students, and results in minimal learning."This is a book that challenges—it will poke and prod your thinking. The author writes near the end of Chapter 4, "I wanted to write a book that asked real questions and explored possible answers. I am not concerned that you agree with my answers or ideas, but I fervently hope the questions I'm raising will lead you to questions about habitual teaching practices and the resulting failure of students to learn."

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Early Learning Experiences in School
• 2 Early Teaching Experiences in College
• 3 It’s Time to Put Lectures on the Shelf
• 4 What’s the Role of Questions in Learning?
• 5 Content: Does All That Information Lead to Knowledge?
• 6 Teaching Realities: Conflicts, Assumptions, and Approaches
• 7 What is Learning?
• 8 Rethinking Failure and Ignorance
• 9 Criticism: The Key to Learning
• 10 Teaching that Promotes Learning from Mistakes and Failure
• 11 Practice Makes Perfect, but Not Unless It’s Deliberate
• Epilogue
• Index
• Also available from Stylus
• Backcover