There is a book out this holiday season titled Eat More Better: How To Make Every Bite More Delicious by Dan Pashman. Dan is a friend of mine and a very funny person and when I listen to his podcast, The Sporkful, I often hear him saying in a tongue in cheek way, "You are eating it all wrong!"
As I listened to him, I realized he was right. For example, I had been eating doughnuts all wrong. Why eat a doughnut right side up where the icing hits the roof of your mouth? We all know that your taste buds are in your tongue so flip the doughnut over and bite it icing down.
Dan educated his listeners that the same principle can be applied to a slice of pizza (cheese side down) or a cheeseburger (after grilling, place on bun cheese side down.) I know this sounds crazy and radical but remember: Columbus was called crazy for saying the world was round.
Just as we may be eating certain foods "all wrong", I believe we sometimes might be approaching test prep, studying, and learning "all wrong". The disconnect that some (by no means all) parents, educators, and students have between in-person learning and online learning is something we as a society need to move past. For most students, a mixture of in-person and online learning will result in the most success.
We take the best of in-person learning (the skill, empathy, wisdom, and magic of a great teacher combined with real-world learning interactions with motivated peers) and online tools. Every student works at his or her own pace, software automatically keeps track of progress, strengths, weaknesses, teacher don't have to waste time manually grading each student's work one by one.
Parents, students, and educators who try an online learning experience sooner rather than later and use it to supplement the best of in-person instruction will have an advantage over those who are not open minded and don't try to incorporate online learning into the teaching and learning experience.
