The Power of Potential: Student Centered Learning | Ayla Postelnek | TEDxYeshivaUniversity

I want to start off tonight by taking a poll so bear with me and play along okay if you've ever in the entirety of your education gotten a bad grade please raise your hand okay amazing thank you now don't be shy and if you've ever somehow gotten more than one bad grade maybe five ten five hundred no one's judging raise your hand okay now finally if somehow despite those bad grades you still feel like you're on a path towards leading a successful and fulfilled life please raise your hand and I want you to keep those hands raised take a moment and look around look at how many other people have their hands raised as well Kimmy's your hands that was that poll just demonstrated it's an idea that's you might seem completely natural and second nature but in the world of Education it's a little bit foreign and that's the idea that our success is not defined by the grades we get or the numbers that were given but the math by the amount of effort that we put into our endeavors and the potential that we actualize and this idea is the main concept behind the education of philosophy of student-centered learning which is the educational philosophy which I want to share with you today so what is student-centered learning now student-centered learning is a philosophy that places the student at the center of the learning process and what that means essentially is that all of the educational needs ranging from what is being taught to how it's being taught is completely dictated by the students needs and in order to explain what exactly that means and why it's important I want to start off by sharing with you my personal story and how student-centered learning has impacted my life and then I want to go on and break down what student-centered learning is and how it is applicable and relevant and very important to every person in this audience today so when most people picture home schoolers usually something along the lines of this comes to and what most people do not imagine is something more like this but my family me my siblings were all homeschooled from a very young age which mean I had a very very individualized education and pretty much everything from what was being taught to how was being taught was completely dictated by my my individualized me and because my family wasn't unique enough in addition to being home schoolers we also what we call Bali chuba which is which means that we weren't always religious Orthodox Jews but as we grew as a family were given our religious practices and in our spirituality and so while I had an amazing and full and wonderful secular education my Jewish education was somewhat lacking just because we didn't have the understanding or really the resources behind a proper Jewish education and so about about the age of high school we realized that I could no longer get everything at home and through these classes and I was dual enrolled in a bunch of schools throughout Virginia where I grew up and for the first time in my life I encountered anti-semitism and for the first time I saw that not everyone loves Jews and so while I was at home getting excited about being Jewish and taking on more and learning and really getting into it I would go to school and I would be told that being a Jewish is disgusting but being Jewish is something you should be ashamed of and I would go home and we'd be so excited and growing and increasing and at school I would be told that everything that you are doing is wrong and it came to a point where I could no longer handle this conflict I knew who I was and I knew where I wanted to go and I wanted to have a proper Jewish education and being where I was was not conducive for such a thing and so with my parents support we decided that what I was going to do is leave high school a little early earn my GED and take a gap year in Israel to learn Judaic Studies now most religious Orthodox Jews between graduating high school and entering college take a year which is called seminary shibir where they go to Israel and they completely immerse themselves in Judaic Studies so in order to get out of this awful environment and to really understand what a proper Jewish education was I decided that I was going to leave early get a GED and go to Israel and that's what I did and I show up the first day and I'm in a foreign country I don't know a single person I don't speak the language but that's okay cuz I'm excited and I'm ready to learn and I show up the first day classes and I'm so ready to learn and I'm so excited and the rabbit gets the front of the class and he starts writing on the board and I'm looking at the board and I'm thinking what is going on because I thought I knew Hebrew but what he was writing did not look like Hebrew to me so as it turns out there's actually two different types of Hebrew there's regular black Hebrew which looks like this and this is used for our prayers and our former writings and then there's an informal script Hebrew called sub yen which looks more like this little different right so the rabbi was at the front of the board writing down savy yad which is a language that i couldn't possibly read and I think okay no problem I'm ready to learn I'm excited let's do this I'm just gonna listen really hard and the rabbit turns around and he starts speaking and he speaks in a language which we call he broish which means not quite English and not quite Hebrew but somewhere in between so about every fifth word is a Hebrew word that I completely don't understand so he's writing a Ling which I can't read and he's talking in a language that I hardly understand and I'm thinking oh my goodness what am i doing and I start looking around thinking about the only one is everyone else lost and all the girls around me are sitting there with their notes and raising their hands and nodding along and really excited and I start to completely meltdown because I'm thinking what am I doing here I can't read the language I can't understand a word he's saying and everyone else seems to know what's going on and I start freaking out saying what am I doing here I don't belong here who was I kidding but right before it was able to have a total and complete meltdown in the middle of class I stopped I took a deep breath and I asked myself the question that 16 years of my education had taught me to ask myself I asked myself is this within my potential now it's over four years later I went on to spend not only one but two years in that school in Israel afterwards I graduated with a bachelor's in Jewish education in Stern College and I'm currently in my first year teaching Judaic Studies for fifth grade and Rosenbaum Ishii of North Jersey and I look back at that moment and at that question and because the answer to that question was yes now not only do I understand what that rabbit was talking about that day but I actually teach what he was talking about and all of this all that I've done over these past few years and all that's left me to this point I really attest to that one moment into that one question that my education taught me to ask and it's this question in this mindset that I want to share with you today so what exactly is student-centered learning as I mentioned before student-centered learning is an educational mindset which places the student at the center of the learning process now some of you might be familiar with the term because most educators if you go into the class and you ask them do you use student-centered learning they're going to tell you yes and they wouldn't be lying because student-centered learning is the foundation of all aggressive approaches which means if you've heard a cooperative learning or angry based learning or project-based learning you're any of these progressive techniques they all stem from this one philosophy of student-centered learning and so what I'm sharing with you today is not necessarily one specific technique but just overall a philosophy and a mindset and in order to explain really what it is I'm going to approach it like an educator and break it down into two main parts the content and the mindset when we talk about contact and when we approach a student-centered based learning lesson we ask ourselves three main questions the first question is why why is what I'm teaching today or this week or this year relevant and important and then we make sure that our students know to ask and to understand why what they're learning is valuable and necessary I'm completely relevant and then once we have our why we next selves what what do I need to include in this lesson to make sure that my Y is actualized what content and information must be included to make sure the big combo with a lasting and valuable lesson and then finally the last question which really made student-centered learning unique and important is the how how am I going to teach this in a way that every single one of my students needs are met and now what this means is that let's say I have two students and I have one student trainee Sally and she is such an outgoing girl she loves to talk if you let her she would talk all day and Sally she really learns best when she's explaining things when she's talking it out when she's acting almost like the teacher and then I have another student named Sam and Sam is a very shy girl she's much quieter and she really enjoys learning by listening she likes that when the teacher just tells her the information and she's able to process it on her own and so what I'll do is I'll create a collaborative exercise where Sally and Sam are going to work together and in that way Sally is able to talk it out and teach it and really explain it and Sam is going to be able to listen and in this way they're both learning the exact same information but in a way that is best for both of them that's the how we can't take into account every student's needs and make sure that they're mad so that's with content but what about mindset mindset really comes down to that one question which I mentioned before is this within my potential and in order to explain this we need to really understand a basic concept see nowadays in the world of Education we are told to measure our success based off others which means that I might get a 90% on the test and that's an amazing grade but if every single other person in the class gets a 99 all of a sudden my 90% is now worthless what student-centered learning does is it takes that concept and it throws it out the door it says forget this forget what others are doing what you should look at is your potential alone where have you come from what have you achieved and what are your capabilities we make sure every one of our students knows to measure themselves only based off what they can achieve and nothing else so that's the content and that's the mindset and I'm sure you're all sitting here thinking this is really nice and wonderful sounds great maybe I'll send my kid to a school too believes in this but who cares right and that's really what I wanted to talk about today because there's one thing you all have in common here whether you're in kindergarten or in preschool or high school or grad school or you've graduated or you're a doctor a plumber a lawyer a mother it does not matter you all have one integral thing in common and that is you are always I'm constantly in a state of growth because as the world around us changes and develops we also have to change and develop and learn from our surroundings and so at every single given moment we are learning and we are adapting and we are changing and it's my belief based off my personal experiences that if you take the concepts of student-centered learning and you apply it to the everyday growth process but you can drastically change your life for the better so how does it work let's break it down we have our four main questions first off why when you get up in the morning ask yourself this important question why is what I'm doing today this week this year or with my life important and valuable and necessary every single person in this room and in this world should be able to answer this question why is what I'm doing important next or what what do I need to do what do I need to achieve today tomorrow next year it doesn't matter in order to make sure that my Y is actualized and finally the how you know yourself better than anyone else out there how can you best achieve this and well this is really nice and you're gonna ask yourself these first two questions and you might get up in the morning and you're ready you ask yourself why what and how you're empowered you're ready to go and you go go go and you have a strong day and you try really really hard and it's very possible that you still might fail but no worries it's fine growth mindset let's move on and the next thing you get up you have your Y your what in your house and you try and you try and you try and still it's very possible that you might fail four years ago I had these questions answered I knew my why I wanted to learn to take studies I wanted to be an environment where to be proud of being Jewish I knew my what I need to leave my environment I needed to make a big change and finally I had my how I left high school early I earned a GED I went to a foreign country in a foreign school where I didn't know a single person and despite all this despite being empowered and knowing exactly where I was and why I was there everything and everyone around me was screaming you cannot do this this is impossible and that is when the final and most important question came into play is this within my potential because you can get up any day and have your why your what in your house and be ready to go but when you hit that brick wall and when everything seems completely impossible ask yourself this final question is it within my potential look at all that you've achieved how far you've come what you've done to be who you are where you are today and look at all the unique capabilities that you undoubtedly have and if you do this you ask yourself these questions and you ask yourself is it within my potential there is absolutely nothing and no one that can stop you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 40,025

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Education, Students

Id: pI1GtWRI55A

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 18 2017