Is yelling at students OK??

[boulderjohn]

Yelling at a student during a debrief is never (at least I can't think of any situation in all my years of instructing - on the ground, in the air, on a ship or under the water) called for. During the actual act of instructing it is an entirely different matter, and yelling may be appropriate or even required from time to time. Not very often, but instruct long enough and you'll find it necessary.

Rick

And to that extent I agree:

Occasionally he would shout through his regulator during the dive when I was really screwing up, but nothing severe.

[Kingpatzer]

That was quite a while ago. The methods I used are still considered the best methods to use by educational experts. I am still heavily involved in educational research, and I can't think of a single highly regarded educational theorist who is significantly different. Yet, these methods are still too rarely used in schools, because they are different from the experiences we have had in the past. They are different from what we "know" about education. They are not "facts."

Obviously it is not possible to fully explicate what is clearly years of experience and research into a post, but could you provide a synopsis of what you do and how it is different from the norm?

[boulderjohn]

Obviously it is not possible to fully explicate what is clearly years of experience and research into a post, but could you provide a synopsis of what you do and how it is different from the norm?

If you read through my columns (link below in my signature), you will get a pretty good sense. You may also want to check out the guidelines for science classes that I co-wrote. It will take a long time to explain everything. The best I can do is little more than a list topics. These are off the top of my head, and I will probably think of more after I post it.

1. The primary one is enforced mastery learning, which is essentially what is done in scuba instruction. A student keeps at it until a standard is reached, with the length of time required for it unimportant. That is pretty much the opposite of what happens in school.

2. Related to that is standards-based or criterion-based assigning of grades. This (coupled with the first one above) is almost certainly the key reason for sky-rocketing student achievement, but when I was asked to implement a writing program in one of the top technical colleges in America, I was told I could not do it that way, because it violated school rules and would lead to students doing too well! (If students learn too much and their grades accurately reflect that learning, then schools are accused of grade inflation. It is thus important to discourage high levels of student learning so that a decent number will do poorly and enhance the school's image of having high standards.)

2. Constructivist learning design.

3. Project-based learning/authentic assessment.

4. Collaborative learning. (Perhaps the most controversial. I dismissed it myself when I first tried it and hated it. Then I learned that I was doing it wrong. When it is done incorrectly, it is a terrible system that is harmful to education. When done correctly, it is an excellent system that leads to greatly increased learning.)

5. Individualized instruction. The teacher must believe that every single student can have genuine academic success given the right conditions and the right instructional approach. The teacher goes after failing students with that belief, adjusting instructional approaches to meet student needs. That belief continues even when the teacher is unsuccessful with individual students.

6. High expectations for all. You do not help students by lowering standards to meet their current levels of performance. You help students by raising their performance to meet high standards.

7. Rubrics to guide student learning.

8. Success breeds success. Bring students to early success to instill a sense of confidence. Build on that success through...

9. Scaffolding. Proper lesson sequencing leads students from one successful learning experience to another, each one building on the one before. Each new task puts a transfer load on a student. If the transfer load is too small, the student is bored and learns nothing. If it is too great, the student will fail at the new task. A scuba example: partial mask flood-->full mask flood-->no mask breathing-->mask removal and replacement-->no mask swim and replacement.

10. Understanding by design (Title copyrighted by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTigue). Many lessons are not aligned, that is, there is a disconnect among the purpose of instruction, the assessment of learning, and the instruction itself. A proper curricular design begins with a clear understanding of what the student needs to know and is followed by the design of an assessment that will actually require that the student demonstrate success on those skills and understandings. (Many assessments have nothing to do with such actual success.) Once those two items are in place, instruction is designed to make sure student meet success. Most instruction is designed in exactly the opposite way.

[NWGratefulDiver]

On the dive that I hoped would be the last before reaching full cave certification, everything went very well until I had to finish pulling the reel at the end of an extremely high flow exit. Let's just say I had some trouble, and I knew while I was struggling with it that I was not performing at a passing level. I was, frankly, crushed, furious at myself for being so clumsy. As we did our surface stop, nothing was said to me about it. We went back to our picnic table to break down our gear. Still nothing. We ate lunch. I probably looked like I wanted to die. He then put his hand on my shoulder and said, "It wasn't that bad. Let's go do it."

And I did.

That's exactly what happened to me too ... and if I'm not mistaken, we had the same instructor.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[boulderjohn]

That's exactly what happened to me too ... and if I'm not mistaken, we had the same instructor.

We did.