Learning for Teaching: Teaching for Learning - Chapter 3

Slide 1

• Areas to Consider as a Teacher
• Academic knowledge
• Socioemotional knowledge
• Organisational knowledge
• Me Box Construction
• Think of four of five items that you would share with the students in your first class
• It is important for students to feel comfortable with you
• The Act of Teaching, a Venn Diagram
• Knowledge of the discipline
• Instructional techniques
• Romance with the discipline
• Reflection:
• Evaluation
• Context
• Result
• Action
• Reflections:
• Need to be contextualised
• Needs to be continuous before, during, and after teaching and learning
• Needs to be connected to link the students, content, teaching, learning, and products
• Needs to be challenging and post questions that create conflict in thinking and contemplation of different ways of thinking
• Developed by coaching from colleagues who encourage personal growth
• Celebrated and communicated with a wider audience

Types of Reflection

• Level 1 - the Mirror
• A clearer look at and understanding of yourself, intrapersonal intelligence. Who am I? What are my understandings, beliefs, values? How have I come to have these? How have my education and experiences changes who I am?
• Level 2 - the Microscope
• Relates to the experience you have had; a closer examination of a particular incident and what you have learned. How does your uni learning inform your knowledge? How does the school react to the situation you have experienced?
• Level 3 - the Binoculars
• Examines what influences a situation. What policies and mandates affect teaching and learning? Are there conflicts occurring in your teaching and learning situation in relation to regulations? How comfortable are you with adhering to regulations?

Ways to Reflect

• Annotate photos of a learning situation
• Record what has happened, share with others, discuss the situation
• Keep a journal
• Draw experiences
• Keep anecdotal records
• What Questions:
• What have I observed?
• What is the philosophy of the school?
• What do I expect to get out of this experience?
• What part of teaching or learning was most challenging? Most surprising?
• What roles am I taking on in the classroom and playground?
• What about myself did I share with others?
• What did I learn about students, curriculum, and teaching?
• What does it feel like to come into a different role?
• So What Questions
• What am I learning about myself and others?
• What impact did the teaching have on me?
• What did I do that was effective and why was it so?
• What did I do that was ineffective and what could be done differently?
• What is the relationship between my teacher world and my other worlds?
• What values, opinions, and decisions have been made or changed?
• What has surprised me?
• Now What Questions
• What would I like to learn more about?
• What challenges or difficulties do I need to follow up on?
• What would I do differently next time?
• How does this relate to the research?

The Professional 'You'

• Three Factors that make you an Individual in your Teaching
• Personal characteristics - gender, age, personality, school experience
• Professional background - qualifications, teaching experience, teaching style, teaching preparation
• Teaching context - students and class, resources, size of school, demography
• These Influences will Determine:
• Your professional and personal teaching style
• The resources used in teaching
• The types and levels of interaction between teacher and students
• We must address these issues to:
• Secure and maintain students' attention in all learning situations
• Create and maintain interest
• Promote learning
• Personal Attributes:
• Professional style - voice, gestures, eye contact, movement in the classroom
• Resources - visual, written, audio, kinaesthetic
• Interaction - student to student or teacher, teacher to parents, executives, or teacher

Interaction in the Classroom

• A Teacher May Talk To
• Accept ideas, behaviours, feelings
• Praise and encourage
• Accept or use student ideas
• Ask narrow and broad questions
• Give information, opinions, or directions
• Criticise or justify authority
• A Student May Talk to
• Respond to the teacher
• Predictably after being asked a question
• Unpredictably out of the blue, either good and constructive or interrupting the flow of classroom discussion
• Initiate talk to the teacher
• initiate talk to another student
• Respond either supportively or indicative of confusion to the learning environment
• Context of Teaching
• Nature of the learners - socioeconomic and cultural background, learning styles, gender, developmental stage, ability
• Philosophy of teaching
• Nature of the lesson - curriculum areas, grouping, resources required
• Time - mandated, allocated, academic instruction time
• Materials and equipment - types, availability, knowledge of use
• Class make-up - number, ability, and age range of students, physical size of room
• What Informs How we Teach
• How we were taught
• How we prefer to learn and to teach
• Preparation
• Knowledge background