Department of Physiology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan 48201, USA.
Adv Physiol Educ. 2009 Dec;33(4):257-64. doi: 10.1152/advan.00075.2009.
Teachers often overrate the importance of their content and underrate their influence. However, students forget much of the content that they memorize. Thus, attempts to teach students all that they will need to know is futile. Rather, it is important that students develop an interest and love for lifelong learning. Inspiring and motivating students is critical because unless students are inspired and motivated our efforts are pointless. Once students are inspired and motivated, there are countless resources available to learn more about a subject. Thus, teachers must abandon the mistaken notion that unless they "cover the content" students will be unprepared for the future and they will have failed as teachers. Teachers must not worry about "losing" or "wasting" valuable lecture time for in-class discussion, collaborative problem-solving, and inquiry-based activities that take time away from covering content. Rather than worrying about covering content, teachers must design activities to focus student learning on how to use scientific knowledge to solve important questions. This is important because learning is not committing a set of facts to memory but the ability to use resources to find, evaluate, and use information. In fact, memorizing anything discourages deep thinking. Deep thinking is essential because understanding is the residue of thinking! To encourage thinking we must create a joy, an excitement, and a love for learning. We must make learning fun; because if we are successful, our students will be impatient to run home, study, and contemplate-to really learn.
教师常常高估自己的内容的重要性，而低估自己的影响力。然而，学生忘记了他们所记住的大部分内容。因此，试图向学生传授他们需要知道的所有知识是徒劳的。相反，重要的是学生要培养对终身学习的兴趣和热爱。激发和激励学生至关重要，因为除非学生受到启发和激励，否则我们的努力将毫无意义。一旦学生受到启发和激励，就有无数的资源可供他们学习更多关于某个主题的知识。因此，教师必须摒弃这样一种错误观念，即除非他们“涵盖了内容”，否则学生将对未来毫无准备，他们作为教师的工作将是失败的。教师不应该担心“失去”或“浪费”宝贵的课堂讨论、协作解决问题和基于探究的活动时间，这些活动会占用涵盖内容的时间。教师不应担心“涵盖内容”，而应设计活动，将学生的学习重点放在如何利用科学知识解决重要问题上。这一点很重要，因为学习不是将一系列事实牢记在记忆中，而是利用资源查找、评估和使用信息的能力。事实上，记忆任何东西都会阻碍深入思考。深入思考至关重要，因为理解是思考的残余！为了鼓励思考，我们必须营造一种对学习的热爱、兴奋和乐趣。我们必须使学习变得有趣；因为如果我们成功了，我们的学生将迫不及待地跑回家，学习和思考——真正地学习。
