It looks like there's a reoccurring theme in education. At least one that I've noticed is the more responsibility and hands on experience you give to students the more they learn. I've been in that situation many times in my life, and one of the greatest learning experiences I've had in film was at Salt Lake Community College. I had a film teacher where everything we did in class was hands on for at least an hour of the two hour class. Sometimes I was lost, but I did get considerably better as the class went on. I figured some things on my own, and those that I couldn't my teacher was there to help me out. As we watched the the film this last week, especially the segment on the kid learning to do film, edit, and create content for his school was very relatable. The scene where the teacher picks his video apart and says that it's plain and kind of boring was great because instead of simply accepting the video, giving it a grade, and moving on he asks the boy to do it again and make it more interesting. A week later when they came back it was sooo much better! It was also something that he cared about so he wanted to make it better and improve the video, and once he began to see his potential he took it seriously and made it what it was.
Next example was the girl starting her own business. (Sorry I can't remember any of their names). She was fantastic, a little odd, but she was determined and was learning and working on something that she cared about. There were real consequences and real deals that were going down which automatically forces an individual to take it more seriously. She was also learning on the job which is a big deal. You learn, in the field, what works and what doesn't work. She was determined and what she didn't know she was forced to figure out and ask people. It's a very effective way of learning.
The class that took part in welcoming an old circus elephant had a pretty cool opportunity there. They had a real duty that they were taking seriously and they wanted to learn because they knew that they would have to implement the things that they were learning. I had another teacher that did a lot of that. He was a science teacher and there were certainly real consequences if you screwed up. It reminded me of Harry Potter a little because if you screwed up the formula (potion) it might just blow up in your face, and nobody wants that.
This teacher would teach us the proper way to do things, or rather, the theory behind the experiment, and then expect us to implement what we learned. We quickly found out who was paying attention, and who wasn't. It also exposed those that didn't quite understand and it forced us to ask questions so we wouldn't screw it up. I'm sorry about the randomness of this post, but I feel like I talked a lot about this subject in my "Teaching Philosophy" post.
Anyway, I think the greatest learning happens when it's hands on. That's all.
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