At the beginning of each academic year, I ask my VCE Chemistry students what the most important things are in the classroom in order to learn Chemistry. Typical answers include ‘pens’, ‘notebooks’, ‘tables’, ‘chairs’ and ‘a teacher’. I have a different view.
1. Students
Students are the most important ‘things’ in the classroom if any learning is going to happen. No learning happens without students present!
2. Textbooks
The primary source of information is not the teacher. It’s the textbook. The textbook explains every topic on the course concisely and accurately, and teaches students all the theory required for the end-of-year examination. Textbooks contain so many practice questions that some students don’t even complete all of them. Before hunting for extra resources or question sets, do all of the questions in the textbook first.
Learn how to use a textbook here.
3. Stationery
Pens are more important than notebooks because the textbook is designed to be annotated. The giant margins in a textbook (which aren’t there in novels) are placed purposefully to accommodate students’ personalised notes. Students should use at least two different colours of ink to annotate their textbooks, and they should highlight important definitions and phrases as well. (They should translate words, too, if they are fluent in another language.) Teachers will need to guide and encourage students through this process initially. Some students enter your classroom with an aversion to writing in textbooks.
4. Notebooks
Making your own notes is a very efficient way to learn. Any teacher who gives pre-made notes to their students is depriving their students of the opportunity to learn for themselves. It’s fine to give some notes to students as an example, but the vast majority of student notes should be written by the students themselves (even if they’re copying most of it from the whiteboard).
An interesting study found that students who reviewed their own notes outperformed students who reviewed notes given to them by their teacher.
Several interesting studies have found that students who hand-wrote their notes learned more than those who typed them.
Learn how to make great notes here.
5. Teacher
A teacher’s role, in addition to providing academic and moral support, is to bring the textbook (or the subject) to life. A teacher is the difference between reading a play and watching a play. A teacher makes the subject more engaging, more interesting and more relevant by bringing their own experience, funny stories and exciting experiments into the curriculum. Great teachers make even the dullest academic subjects exciting to learn. They serve to inspire and guide students to an extent that technology will never be able to match.
Not in my top 5…
- PowerPoint slides
- Internet access
- iPads, laptops and other gizmos
- interactive whiteboards
- laboratory equipment & chemicals
- printed notes for students
- past examination papers
What do you think of my low-tech “top 5” list? Should technology be in the top 5? Will technology reduce the need for teachers? Is something other than the textbook the primary learning resource in your classroom?
Let me know in the comments section below.
James Kennedy 
SUCH a great reminder of organic education!
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I guess it depends on the teaching level and the country. I’m teach 11 to 15 y o teenagers in France. The textbooks are loaned to students so they are not allowed to write on them. I barely use it as a teacher, there is just pictures of experiment and exercises in it, very few lesson.
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