1. Have students read a short story and write essay questions they have about it to discuss in a Socratic seminar without teacher input. 2. Assign an experiment for a science class and have students write up the procedure and results without instructions. Have them discuss what they learned. 3. Give groups of students a historical document to analyze and have them prepare a presentation of the key points and themes to teach their peers without the teacher's guidance.

1. Teaching with your mouth shut
Professional Development Seminar
Anna Ohanyan, Ph.D.
Prepared for the Ohanyan Educational Complex
Yerevan, Armenia
September 28, 2012

2. Group-work/brainstorming
• Please describe a good teacher using keywords or
phrases.
– What does s(he) do in the classroom?
– What does s(he) do outside of the classroom?

3. Teaching through Telling model
• Telling as a natural model of teaching
(“instructions-to-my-house model”)
– Transfer of information, requiring student to
remember the information
• Ex. Telling someone directions to your house. The
person has to remember or write down
– Students taking notes, and then memorizing for the exam

4. The Great Teacher stereotype
• “She was enthusiastic about her subject. She
seemed to know everything there was to know
about it, and then some. She had an awe-
inspiring command over her material, and in
response to any questions, could hold forth
brilliantly for as long as she wished. She was
captivating when she spoke. She made her field
come alive. She got excited in explaining it, and
her excitement was contagious. She was clear in
her expositions. She asked probing questions and
followed them with illuminating answers”
(Finkel, 5).

5. Teaching through Telling model
• Groupwork/brainstorming:
– Advantages and disadvantages of this model
– Models of great teaching alternative to Teaching
through Telling model

6. Limits of Teaching through Telling Model
• “Education research over the past twenty-five years has
established beyond a doubt a simple fact: What is
transmitted to students through lecturing is simply not
retained for any significant length of time”. (Finkel, p.3)
• “Research clearly favors discussion over the lecture as an
instructional method when the variables studied are
retention of information after a course is over, transfer of
knowledge to novel situations, development of skill in
thinking or problem solving, or achievement in affective
outcomes, such as motivation for additional learning or
changes in attitudes – in other words, the kinds of learning
we most care about” (Gardiner, cited in Finkel, p. 3).
• one can never forget what s(he) understands.

7. Teaching with our mouth shut:
Let the books do the talking
• Teaching through
• Parables
– The Bible story about the manager of the rich man
– Little stories about people in concrete situations (mini-case
studies); they appear to hold crucial wisdom or knowledge;
somewhat opaque; challenging
– Concreteness, specificity, narrative organization, profoundity.
• Puzzles and paradoxes (esp. natural sciences)
– Canary in a bottle on a scale
– Concrete; engaging ; sufficiently intriguing to make us curious
about the answer; challenging
• Reading great books:
– Elise on Helen volcano being active, and writing daddy about it!

8. Teaching with our mouth shut:
Let the Students Do the Talking
• Skills of careful reading of primary texts
• Struggling with the text ON THEIR OWN.
– Ex. Discussing Iliad.
• The reasons for war
• Are they really fighting for Helen?
• Students leading the discussion; teacher as a passive observer
• Seminar
– “Socratic” seminar – teacher leads her students to a preordained conclusion through carefully
formulated questions and the deft art of conversation management
– Open-ended seminar – students bring their own questions about a reading, and through
conversation and inquiry they address some of the questions
– Some other process – Students Do the Talking)
• Learning through Inquiry: the “Debater’s Paradox”
– How do we learn? Are we told by someone else? Where does that person learn it from? Every
culture designates an authority of knowledge: priest, imam, teacher, parent, king, expert. Where
does the expert learn it from? Someone who knows everything? God? The process of learning
matters, as opposed to the source of knowledge;
– Inquiry as a process; inquiry, the process of learning as an engine of Enlightenment and Scientific
Revolution in the 17th century;
• Our own mind as the only authority of knowledge

9. Teaching with your mouth shut:
Let the Students Do the Talking
• Starting the class by asking students to brainstorm questions
about the text; why is this an effective technique? Why not?
• It prevents the first student willing to talk from directing the
conversation for an indeterminate amount of time.
• It allows students to hear, read, digest and even ponder a series of
questions about the text before beginning to discuss any one of them.
• Emphasizes the importance of bringing questions to class, having read
the material.
• Writing questions on the board before discussing them creates an
atmosphere of quiet deliberation – “the calm before the storm”.
• Unanswered questions stay with the students to ponder.
• Students chose the opening question to discuss.

10. Teaching with your mouth shut:
Let the Students Do the Talking
• The role of the teacher in open-ended seminars -
“managed conversations”
– Spotlight: slow down the discussion when the group
rushes past an important comment
• “What did you say, Nane? Can you repeat it please? Why do you
think that?”
– Contribute with usefully posed questions.
– Help the class to say focused and productive.
• Signal when sufficient time on a question has been spent
– “Why don’t we look at question #4 now? “I have lost the connection
between what we’re talking about now and Artak’s question”
– Help the class to have a civil and orderly conversation
• Students tend to interrupt, ignore, dominate the discussion, to
impede intelligent inquiry

11. Teaching with your mouth shut:
Let the Students Do the Talking
• Formal class presentations
– Discuss pros and cons
• Out-of-class study groups
– Discuss pros and cons
– Brainstorm more: consider group-work if there is
time.

12. Teaching with your mouth shut:
Teaching through Writing
• Direct and indirect speech:
– Direct speech/talking
• Teacher’s authority is more visible; student listens to the pace, the
speed, follows the gestures
– Indirect speech/writing to students
• Cooler format of interaction; student reads at his/her
own pace, pause and think, re-read passages; student is
more likely to digest his teacher’s words and to
formulate a response to it.

13. Teaching with your mouth shut:
Teaching through Writing
• The mystery of graded essays in Soviet Armenia 
• Teacher Response Letters
– Can be substantive or technical
– Two or three points in each letter
– Strengths and weaknesses of the paper; start with strengths
– Example on page 74 in Finkel.
• Pros and cons
• Converting Lectures into Texts
– Pros and cons
• Writing an essay
– Shows that the teacher is genuinely involved in the inquiry
– Provides an example of a good essay
– Contributes to the inquiry
• Learning through Writing Together
– Create community of writers (writing as a process of intellectual inquiry)
– Writing as “thinking on paper” (start with a question rather than a thesis – the goal in this type of
writing is to locate your thesis)
– Writing as a process of public and collective inquiry; students write for each other (p. 80
– Writing for a genuine audience

14. Teaching with your mouth shut: the rationale
• Is democratic; prepares future citizens to participate
effectively in a democratic society
• To develop the character of students
• Promotes independence of mind, self-
reliance, autonomy, judgment, sense of responsibility, and
capacity to work productively as members of a group.

15. Groupwork/brainstorming
• Please divide into groups according to the age of
students with whom you work
– Elementary school
– Middle school
– High school (social and natural sciences may work
together)
• Please develop potential assignments which
will allow you to teach without talking to the
students