Learning from students

When I taught digital journalism at Stanford, I became aware that although I knew more about tools such as WordPress, RSS, wikis, forums, Google Maps, persistent search, than the majority of the students, there were students who were far more technically savvy. I arranged to teach the course in the Spring quarter so I could ask the other journalism teachers in the Fall quarter who their most tech-savvy students were. Then I took the tech savvy students to lunch and went over the syllabus with them. I always learned something. One such student -- who went on to create and sell a couple companies -- insisted that journalists should know how to publish. So I arranged with Reclaim Hosting for students to obtain a domain name and server access for $25/year. The students created their own blogs. One of my edu-mentors, Jim Groom showed me how to set up a class hub like this one that included the syllabus and syndicated the students' posts:  Social Media Issues. 

Groom instructed me, step-by-step, and we recorded his instructions so other educators could follow the same path: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

Besides giving students voice and knowledge, the process of learning from my students how to better teach is an example of what I came to call co-learning. It offers proof of the claim I make on the first day of class -- that I the teacher am open to learning from students how to teach better; when this principle is applied to pedagogy, students are the experts on learning that teachers should listen to and learn from. If traditional curriculum as like track laid down by the syllabus, with the students as the train that the teacher conducts along the track of the syllabus to the destination, co-learning can be thought of as a sailing ship with the same destination, but which involves continuous collaboration among captain and crew and occasional course correction. Granted, this worked well for me with a subject like "Social Media Issues." I'm not sure it can be translated to mathematics or history. Nevertheless, after 6000 years of students sitting in rows, facing a standing teacher in a physical classroom,  the advent of a plethora of digital media -- and students who quickly gain expertise in how to use it -- makes possible under the right circumstances a more collaborative, student-agency-focused, "New Culture of Learning."