[Tango-L] Discussion Topics

[Chris, UK]

Christopher L. Everett wrote:

> My usual experience taking group classes has been that instructors
> present material in order of increasing complexity, and at some
> point the majority of the class finds itself in over its head.
> 
> This is inevitable,

It is not inevitable. It is inevitable only of poor bulk teaching.

A teacher can have smaller groups. A teacher grade the students better. A 
teacher can use assistants, so that different abilities can get focused 
attention. 

A good teacher adapts to avoid putting the majority of the class in over 
its head.

> What's important to remember is that the best learning is that done at
> the edge of your existing abilities.

On that we agree. It's sad that more teachers do not understand this. This 
is one reason why learning by doing is so much more effective than 
learning by teaching - only in learning by doing does can that boundary of 
ability direct the learning process.

> You can't blame instructors for this.  They have to arrange the
> material this way, or no one gets anything out of the class.

Untrue. Here is an example each way from a study I made about five years 
ago of the methods of about 60 tango teachers.

Gustavo Naviera taught a lesson on "Boleos". He began by having the class 
watch his dancing... a demonstration of a long sequence near the end of 
which was one boleo. He then asked the class to copy it. Some could not 
get past the tricky turn at the start. Some more got stuck on the 
cross-system chain in the middle. A few got as far as the boleo. Some 
skipped most of the sequence and cut straight to the boleo. This was an 
example of a method that excluded most of the class from the lesson, like 
yours above.

Gavito taught a lesson on just "Tango" - no hostage to fortune there. He 
started by watching the class dancing. He then proposed a simple move he 
called the Basic Two. Almost all the class could do it. He then elaborated 
this in different ways: slower/faster, in different rhythms, with an 
extension, a decoration etc. Each couple was free to take as much or as 
little as suited them, and explore the combinations as appropriate to the 
music. This was an example of a method that included as much of the class 
as possible, and maximised the opportunity to advance each individual's 
boundary of ability.

Chris

-------- Original Message --------

*Subject:* Re: [Tango-L] Discussion Topics
*From:* "Christopher L. Everett" <ceverett at ceverett.com>
*To:* Bruce Stephens <bruce at cenderis.demon.co.uk>
*CC:* Tango-L <tango-l at mit.edu>
*Date:* Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:54:20 -0500

My usual experience taking group classes has been that instructors
present material in order of increasing complexity, and at some
point the majority of the class finds itself in over its head.

This is inevitable, given that any class represents a range of
abilities.  What's important to remember is that the best learning
is that done at the edge of your existing abilities.  In a group
lesson, perhaps 10 or 15 minutes of the class might lie in that
space, the rest being too easy (rehash of what you already have),
or too hard (waaay outside what you can do).

You can't blame instructors for this.  They have to arrange the
material this way, or no one gets anything out of the class.  But
at the same time, it strikes me as a waste of energy to take notes
or videotape stuff you can do easily, or stuff outside your range.

Christopher

Bruce Stephens wrote:
> "Trini y Sean (PATangoS)" <patangos at yahoo.com> writes:
>> Given that one can only retain 5 +/-2 pieces of information
>> in short-term memory, Ed makes a quite reasonable comment
>> and his usage of the word "learned" is perfectly
>> understood.
> The usual number is 7 (+/- 2), but the original paper probably doesn't
> support most of the conclusions that it's used to support.
> 
<http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000U6&topic_id=
1>.
>
> It's about remembering random (disconnected) facts (or discriminating
> things on a unidimensional scale).  I guess that might apply to a
> tango class if a teacher attempts to teach a number of unrelated
> figures, or gives some pattern of steps without adequately motivating
> them.
>
> Remembering such things would be challenging, but I'm not sure that
> using notebooks, videos, etc., is a suitable response.  Probably
> better to motivate and connect the collection of whatever it is you're
> teaching.  And probably you'd end up teaching maybe one or two things,
> plus some variations on the same theme (which students could easily
> reconstruct afterwards, having understood the principles).
>
> [...]
>
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