It’s sometimes said that schools are where young people go to see older people work. Too often, we fall into the trap of seeing our students as vessels that need to be filled up. Instead, we should remember this quote attributed to Confucius: “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
There are many ways to maximize the chances that students are doing the work and doing the “understanding,” such as inductive teaching (having students discover the concepts and rules by providing examples from which they can identify a pattern) and cooperative learning. —Education Week Teacher: Five Questions That Will Improve Your Teaching.