Strategic Confusion

There are very few conscious processes occurring in the brain prior to action. Because of this you must make students explain ideas aloud or in writing or make them participate in other activities to get their brains to process and organize information.

When having students discuss ideas in small groups pick the groups for them. Putting students that don't know each other together keeps the conversation on topic longer rather having it quickly switch to a party or other shared experience for the group members.

Prof. Duke always has students write on a topic for 2-3 mins at the start of class. People are better at talking about a topic after they have written on it and organized their thoughts. Conversations after 2-3 mins of writing are much more productive than cold conversations with no prep time.

Instruction must start with the instructor having a vision of what an accomplished student will look like at the end of the semester.

Neither the instructor nor the students can be allowed to see "getting the correct answer" as the goal of instruction because it is possible to get the right answer without having any real understanding.

On assignment Prof. Duke gives one of four grades "check-plus", "check", "check-minus" and "minus". Roughly speaking "check-plus" means you wowed him, "check" means you are on track and have a good understanding, "check-minus" means there are some gaps in your understanding but nothing that will be a serious detriment to your success in life and "minus" means you are significantly below where you ned to be. All three checks are indistinguishable in the grade book. A student who receives all check grades will receive a B in the class. If a student wants an A Prof. Duke tells him or her to make up their own project and show him something that will wow him. Students have difficulty with the idea of not being told how to get an A (on feedback sometimes Prof. Duke will say simply, "make it better, you're now wowing me yet") but if a student can't get excited about a project of his or her own design then this student isn't going to be successful in life.

In a freshman course on "critical thinking" Prof. Duke wrote on the syllabus that every student needed to read a Pulitzer Prize winning book that semester. Students asked if they were going to write a book report or if they were going to have discussions or quizzes to prove they were reading. Prof. Duke said no. Adults don't read books so that they can't write reports or take quizzes they read books because they want to and it's part of being a curious, interesting adult. A few students never read a book but most did and several students started hanging around after class to discuss what they were reading with their friends (just like anyone reading a book outside of school would do).

"There are two ways you can get people to do something - you can threaten them with grades or you can inspire them."

Here's a video of a longer, more in depth version of the talk Prof. Duke gave to us. Click the picture for the webcast and you can watch the video from the archive.