Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (Teaching and Learning in Higher Education)

by Jessamyn Neuhaus

GINs also need to understand some of the other well-documented facts about learning that impact our teaching, such as: • Sitting still and listening is not an effective way to learn. Yes, fellow scholars, I know you can learn this way and so can I, but most people need a lot of movement, interaction, and actual application of ideas in order to learn.30 • Students do not learn content by merely listening to us talk about the content, because “telling students information does not translate to learning.”31 We’re not the Matrix Operator uploading kung fu directly into Neo’s cerebral cortex, so we need to plan for effective lecturing by interspersing it with small group activities or note review or other types of activities. • Any type of learning must build on previous knowledge. For example, Stacy Bailey asks her literature students to think about their own first kiss to help them better understand Romeo and Juliet.32 • In addition to meaningful connections to previous knowledge, learning requires repeated practice over an extended period of time and frequent testing.33 • “Productive struggle” is an important part of learning because “trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt.”34 • Learning is not a purely intellectual exercise. Emotions matter.35 To learn anything, students must occasionally be frustrated and experience failure, but they can’t get mired in that feeling. Students with a gro...

One of the best summary lists of this type I’ve ever seen.