Learning differently: A teaching method for high school students

Today's modern adults are not the same as they were ten years ago, they are a connected generation that requires more effort to seduce them. Today's young people have access to all academic resources for their learning, in other words; they don't need to. They don't require someone to dictate to them what they are hitherto looking at or to talk to them about what they already know. For young people in the age group between 18 and 25, the classical teaching methods seem boring and soporific. They can't hold more than 20 minutes in content listening to their teacher explaining a concept and it's not a defect since in 20 minutes they can simulate hundreds of information on twitter and facebook. They are a greedy generation and as soon as the teacher exceeds the maximum quota of their attention, they are evaded. The emergence of an innovative teaching method seems urgent to make the most of their dynamism and potential. In the existing there are several methods of teaching tested and approved for the previous generation, but always there is a but.

The method I will detail is based on articles (article-based teaching method). I have observed a few facts about this generation:

• A generation that is hyper-active.
• A generation that loves challenges.
• A generation that hates being stuck.

1. A hyper-active generation: This category of young people can't focus on one thing at a time, but they have the ability to manage multiple streams at the same time. They can explain to you while engaging in a game and chatting with someone else, they can do exercises while listening to a podcast and sending messages... Consequently, the goal is to orient this ability in their favor and in favor of the academic sequence.
2. A generation that loves challenges It doesn't matter what they accomplish if there is no challenge they won't be involved. They will try to succeed completely to prove that they are not a wasted generation, a student can work day and night just to prove that he can do and not for what he wants to do. So we must take advantage of this spirit of challenge to encourage them towards the most efficient path for their future.
3. A generation that hates being stuck: They don't like to be told the identical thing over and over again when they want to move forward, in other words, if the course moves forward at a slow pace they will be lost because they want to know more or test more, so we have to be careful not to be in this situation because they lose confidence quickly and they will not accept more from us. How based on these 3 observations will the article based method solve the problems? What is article based teaching? What constitutes the steps? How does this method improve learning?

This method is based on the selection of an article in the field of learning. The choice of an article and not a definition or a course is made by cars: The articles are up to date: several doctors and researchers and experts in the field publish articles every day with topics and technologies up to date with the demands of the job market. The articles are rich: Definitions, challenges and hands on are different from a classic course. The articles are not always reliable: in the articles everything is debatable, you can find imperfect ideas or bad rules of practice, which allows to generate a debate with the listeners. Once the right article is selected, students will spend 10 to 15 minutes exploring it in their own way; Some who will do nothing but discover it, others who will research the terms or technologies used and others who will practice the examples cited. At the end of this phase of reading, which aims to present the students that they have the right and they can read articles on areas that may not know, it will work their autonomy and their spirit of research, The intact class will start a brainstorming phase, and the teacher will have to collect the information and especially the questions asked: There will be questions of type: "what is it? There will be "what" questions, "how" questions and "why" questions. His questions will raise the level of the class and the diverse levels of the students.

For example: What is PHP, what is the web, what is a server...These questions will come from students with a beginner level because they did imperfectly understand and especially they did not seek the answer to their question by themselves. For this category a work of autonomy in addition to the taught concept will be set up.

How do you install such a server? How does the browser work, how do you write in php?These questions will come from the category of students with intermediate level because they have carried out some research for the "what's what" but have not gone farther waiting for the teacher's guidelines. For this category an accompaniment to set a way will be advised to show them the article or the document or the video which contain the solution and let them find by them even the solution, until it becomes autonomous. Why php and not node, why apache why chrome and not firefox for what em and not rem? These questions prove that the student has looked for the definitions and tested and is at the point of understanding the mechanism or the internal functioning of things, so it proves that he possesses an advanced level not in the mastery of the subject but in the learning.

Thanks to these questions we can prepare together, teacher and student, the bases of the pedagogical progression, we list the sessions and in each session the concepts to be seen. Each session starts the same with an article and in the same way brainstorming, hands on and lab.

The steps:

The first step is to select the article, depending on the audience of their initial level. To teach programming to first year students in high-school we choose different articles than for students in their last year of engineering. There are introductory articles, practice articles and advanced articles. An article must be easily readable with an exact logical sequence, so that one does not fall into problems of comprehension and concentrates on the substance. The theme of the article should pursue the subject of the module being taught. The article must contain a practical part or hands on. The article must be up to date with the technology or the topics requested in the job market.

Once the right article has been chosen for the ideal audience, a phase of reading and concentration begins, It is tolerated that the students exchange among themselves to better work the team spirit.

After the reading phase, the brainstorming phase begins with a round of questions and remarks. Note that in an article we can find a concept badly treated or defined, we assign to the students to solve this incoherence before orienting them.

A collection of the questions asked by the students will be sorted according to the level of understanding. Answer questions by addressing everyone, not just the person who asked the question, to avoid misunderstanding by others and to engage other candidates in discussion and debate.

Reveal the major points to be explored and detailed at the end of this phase.

Each point will be considered in a lesson and in each lesson the same process is repeated: Choice of a new item, debate and brainstorming, explanatory and detailed, hands on and practical. At the end of each stage (end of all lessons by the theme) we implement a mini project by teams to increase the rivalry, challenge and work in teams.

Thanks to this method, the student will always be active and attentive, the phases do not last long and therefore the students will not get bored, the learning will start by themselves by reading the articles, looking for answers to their questions, the teacher will follow this logical sequence by explaining the misunderstood concepts and the students will practice to assimilate the knowledge. Autonomy, teamwork and a pleasant atmosphere are what will maintain the teacher-student relationship and guarantee better learning.

Every student who is not used to read articles will learn to do so, Students who don't search will be encouraged to search. And the students who are searching will be influenced to practice.

True case: I consider the example; to teach the rules of cybersecurity for web application: The topic already is not intended for the beginner, it is intended for students in the 4th or 5th year of the engineering cycle. As a teacher I know that students must consider the security of the front and back. But to start and to attract their attention I chose this article: https://blog.codinghorror.com/password-rules-are-bullshit/ , you can read the article (I won't talk about the content here.). Most of the questions were about how to? Since the concepts are understandable at their level but especially: How to choose? How to secure? How to limit access? How to plan? .... Thanks to these questions, we have divided this pedagogical sequence into five lessons:

• Core concepts and security rules for web applications. article: https://24ways.org/2018/securing-your-site-like-its-1999

• Access security in web applications. article https://certitude.consulting/blog/en/invisible-backdoor/

• encryption and hashing in web applications. article https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-undercover-war-on-your-internet-secrets-how-online-surveillance-cracked-our-trust-in-the-web/

• Authorization vs authentication. article https://dev.to/kimmaida/authorization-and-authentication-for-everyone-27j3

• Good designs can secure our applications. article https://opensenselabs.com/blog/articles/secure-design

Each lesson can give rise to several sub-topics. The lessons will be 2 hours maxima and at the end of each lesson you have to make a lab to practice the concepts. At the end of the sequence, a project should be accomplished to summarize all the concepts comprehended.

Conclusion: Unlike 10 or 20 years ago, nowadays all professionals write and publish articles or their point of view or discovery, I found that this is the best teaching method for high school. Faced with a young, hungry and connected audience, we need to innovate even in teaching to better prepare them for the job markets.

Following the practice of this method over 2 years, 80% of my students find a job or a work-study program at the end of their apprenticeship. Thank you.