Twan Wildeboer
Industrial Design Engineering, University of Twente
I feel like the most successful learning experiences are those teaching others. This learning happens at multiple levels, in different roles. Guiding another student with their course or subject would be the second level, explaining something you just learned from someone else (the first level). The third level would be when you’re being a teacher assistant helping in a course (about a design subject) with theoretical and practical questions then guiding a project group of students with their design project as a tutor would be level 4. The next level is being a teacher yourself in a class or a course, developing course contents and giving lectures (level 5). I would argue that not all levels need to be followed in order, or subsequently, a lot can be learned by tpeople, throwing them in the dark, coming up with things and dealing with uncertainty.
When one can explain a concept, they will need to have a good understanding of the concept. By ‘forcing’, or rather, facilitating the need of them to explain a concept, they will create themselves a good understanding and curiosity for the concept. Throwing people in the deep end will give them responsibility, and this will help them to accelerate their learning because it feels like it matters to them. Dealing with uncertainty, will help them gain confidence and small mistakes that may be impactful, will be powerful teachers.