ABSTRACT
Engaged pedagogy produces self-directed learners, teachers, and students who are able to participate fully in the production of ideas. As teachers, our role is to take our students on the adventure of critical thinking. Learning and talking together, we break with the notion that our experience of gaining knowledge is private, individualistic, and competitive. By choosing and fostering dialogue, we engage mutually in a learning partnership. In most classrooms, teachers present the material and students passively receive it. They either commit to memory what the teacher says or take notes to remind them. Most students rarely read these notes once a class has ended. Having successfully regurgitated the material, they feel no need to hold onto the knowledge once it has been used to meet the material demands of the course. In retrospect, when I consider my undergraduate years what I remember most is not the energy and content of presentations, but rather the conversations generated by class discussion.
