Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right (Stealers Wheel)

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

Meddling!! 

The current buzzword in education, and the focus of my teacher inquiry.

So far, it feels like doing stuff I've done for a while.

I'll backtrack for you: 

Meddler In The Middle is the latest craze because it builds on and/or discards two other popular sayings (the horribly rhyming Sage On The Stage and Guide On The Side).

Each of the three is presented as a model of teaching. The sage is familiar to us all from our university days, and that photo above, but I see echoes of it in some teaching via zoom - notably when a teacher talks for 50 minutes delivering content. Understandably, students hate it.

The guide model is, I guess, seen as a passive one, and that's maybe the danger.

While meddler feels more modern, and I do like it more as it continues the thrust of teaching as a subversive activity. 

Because the meddler is busy asking these kinds of questions (and yes, they are familiar - I have used them before) -

1. What do you think? This allows students to make sense of and apply new information 
2. Why do you think that? This pushes them to provide reasoning for their thinking.
3. How do you know this?
4. Can you tell me more? This inspire students to extend their thinking and share further evidence for their ideas.
5. What questions do you still have? 

More meddling to come - did I mention it's my teacher inquiry? As you will be aware, I like to unravel my thoughts via the blog. Caio.