Learning by Teaching and Increased Exposure in the Classroom

Learning by Teaching and Increased Exposure in the Classroom

The idea of inclusion or mainstreaming has been around the education community for a long time. Both of these ideas involve including students with learning disabilities in regular classrooms to be taught by regular teachers rather than special education teachers. The difference between the two is that inclusion allows for a learning disabled student to be in a classroom for the majority of their day and mainstreaming allows or a learning disabled student to be in a regular classroom for a set amount of time if they have shown that they (the special needs student) can keep the same pace as the students in the regular classroom. Both inclusion and mainstreaming that include special needs students in regular classrooms could easily be modified to help students without learning disabilities to excel at their education. Including students from a lower class level in a higher-class level could benefit both the higher level students as well as the visiting students.

By including a group of students from a lower level class (preferably 1 grade level lower), in an upper level class, both students would benefit. The upper level students would benefit by working with a lower level student and mentoring/tutoring them in their (the upper level) subject. The lower level students would gain extra knowledge, which they would normally learn in their next year of school. Along with getting a leg up on the next year of school, the lower level students would be exposed to different teaching techniques when the teacher of the upper level class was teaching his or her lesson.

This theory is very similar to mainstreaming with the exclusion of learning disabled students. The Latin phrase “Homines dum docent discunt,” which means people, learn while they teach (James Miltner, Graduate Instructor at University of Michigan, March 24, 2005). This phrase demonstrates how an older student mentor would benefit greatly from tutoring a younger student. A great example of this would be in math courses. Generally a student will take Algebra then progress to Geometry the next school year. If the students from the Algebra (A-students) course were to meet with the Geometry class (G-students) once a week and be taught a lesson by the Geometry te...

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...ould need to have a solid grasp of what they (the upper level student) were showing the lower level student. This would be more like tutoring. Adversely a student with little or no knowledge of a language can be placed in an environment that speaks only the language they are currently learning and become proficient in it rather quickly.

Increased or early exposure to courses that a student may not take normally at a specific level is an excellent tool for learning when they are paired with an upper level student. There are excellent benefits to all the participating parties being that the upper level students gain extra knowledge and expertise in the subject which they are assisting their lower level partners with by immediately applying the knowledge they just learned in class. The same is to be said in a primary school where students spend most of the day together if they are in a split classroom. Students in the class will be able to assist others in their strong subjects and be helped in their weak subjects. By giving the students the ability to teach and be exposed to advanced material, the education system could be made stronger for the future.