This technique is used to implement a student inspired style of learning. It creates a climate of wonder, spontaneity and possibility that captures attention in a profound way. In general, the steps are this:

The Project The instructor creates a pet project all their own, that is related to the subject taught. The project is not announced, not explained. It just shows up one day. It is located behind the educator’s desk, or in a space near the educator’s turf, a place not readily accessible to students.

The Set Up The instructor works on the project during spare time, lunch breaks, while students catch up with busy work, etc. The instructor does not speak about the project, does not explain unless asked. At certain times, only simple responses are given in order to maintain a sense of wonder, sustained curiosity. At other times, more information can be given if the instructor wants to create teachable moments. The goal here is to tap into children’s natural sense of curiosity and build a desire to know more about the subject.

The Reveal The reveal should not take place until curiosity has peaked and a significant number of students are intrigued. This can happen in a scheduled or impromptu manner. The reveal should in some way act as a catalyst for student involvement, the best scenario being that the students become inspired to create a version of the project for themselves, believing it was their idea all along.

An enjoyable aspect of this project is playing the part of the “detached educator” in order to “trick” your students into learning, for instance, during the set up stage, it is important to play aloof, pretending to be immersed in the project with your back to the students. Teenagers hate being ignored or left out of the loop; you can use this to your advantage to capture their interest. (As long as you don’t string them along for too long a period, certainly don’t allow them to get turned off)

During the reveal stage and at teachable moments, be inspired with your answers; let them see your enthusiasm. Remember they want to “have more fun!” Let them see you having fun. If you can, stage the reveal on a day that is unexpected, perhaps during a busy-work session. After explaining, listen for a key response from a student; the best is “That’s cool! I wish we could do something like that.” (they have taken the bait.)  Your response should be a quizzical: “Really? How would you do that?”  Then let the students tell you how they would do the project. Allow yourself to be “talked into letting them do a version of the project on their own” with you to supervise. This is a happening, a phenomenological learning experience infused with spontaneity and student onus.

The vicarious learning experience can also be used for the simpler purpose of creating teachable moments in order to disseminate information, especially if for some reason the student project isn’t feasible. Later in the semester, the educator’s project can also be used as a reference or a model to coincide with a particular subject during lectures.

This is how the vicarious learning experiment worked for me: In my art room I began a large-scale painting, approximately 4 feet by 6, in a high realism style. I wanted my students to see the fine art process first hand. I chose “the Sheppardess” by William Bougeareau. I hung the canvas behind my desk next to a poster of the original painting and worked on it in my spare time. Interestingly, I received questions not only from my top-notch “A” students but also those who are normally unmotivated and have behavior issues, I had everyone’s interest peaked. The questions created many teachable moments that tied into lesson plans. For instance, I used graphing lines to translate proper proportions from the poster to my canvas. When asked about this I was able to tie the concept of proportional graphing into basic drawing assignments and a school mural we completed later that semester.

The experiment came to fruition one day when my students were looking at a preparatory sketch I had done of the model’s face in charcoal on newsprint. They said to me, “you see mister; this is what we want to learn. We want to learn to draw like this.” Since I believe in student-driven curriculum, I immediately began teaching a unit on how to draw a face in high realism. I told the kids I could teach them to draw like me in less than 4 weeks. Most didn’t believe me. However, I knew I could. Especially using step-by-step, hands on methods: The first day, I drew a portrait of a student while the entire class watched my sketching technique. Next, we focused on basic drawing using light and shadow. After that, we worked on form using worksheets to find facial proportions, and then I utilized a lightly traced copy of the girls face to hold the proportions while the students filled in the shading. The final was doing an artist’s copy in pencil. The kids succeeded with amazing results.

Another opportunity arose when a group of students were talking about how to the project inspired them to want to make a painting on canvas. They wanted to learn how to do an oil painting like mine. My response was “Really? What kind of painting would you like to do?”, “We would like to do a landscape like that guy on TV”. Therefore, for the better part of 3 weeks we turned the art room into a painting workshop complete with easels, oil paint and canvas. I rented an instructional video featuring Bob Ross and played it in the classroom as the students followed along; Bob was the teacher and I became the DVD rewinder and personal assistant to 70 kids. It was a great success, step by step processing, learn by doing, hands on learning, having lots of fun. Not once did any kids get bored. They stayed engaged for three weeks and everyone completed their work.

This technique works across disciplines. I could envision it applied to science, language arts, math, even P.E. If any educators use this technique, please e-mail me at wiseenka@yahoo.com and I will gladly post your results. Let me know how it works for you.