What Does It Mean to Be a Teacher
In this slice Marker 1000 Smith explores the nature of teaching – those moments or sessions where we make specific interventions to help people learn particular things. He sets this within a word of pedagogy and didactics and demonstrates that we need to unhook consideration of the process of instruction from the role of 'instructor' in schools.
contents: introduction • what is pedagogy? • a definition of pedagogy • educational activity, pedagogy and didactics • approaching pedagogy equally a procedure • structuring interventions and making use of unlike methods • what does good teaching look similar? • conclusion • further reading and references • acknowledgements • how to cite this piece
Linked piece: the key activities of teaching
A definition for starters: Teaching is the process of attending to people's needs, experiences and feelings, and intervening so that they learn item things, and go beyond the given.
Introduction
In teacher education programmes – and in continuing professional person development – a lot of fourth dimension is devoted to the 'what' of educational activity – what areas nosotros should we encompass, what resources do nosotros need so on. The 'how' of education besides gets a nifty deal of space – how to structure a lesson, manage classes, assess for learning for learning then on. Sometimes, equally Parker J. Palmer (1998: 4) comments, we may fifty-fifty ask the "why" question – 'for what purposes and to what ends do we teach? 'But seldom, if e'er', he continues: 'do we ask the "who" question – who is the cocky that teaches?'
The thing about this is that the who, what, why and how of teaching cannot be answered seriously without exploring the nature of teaching itself.
What is education?
In much mod usage, the words 'educational activity' and 'instructor' are wrapped up with schooling and schools. Ane manner of approaching the question 'What is educational activity?' is to look at what those called 'teachers' exercise – and so to draw out key qualities or activities that fix them apart from others. The problem is that all sorts of things are bundled together in job descriptions or roles that may have petty to exercise with what we can sensibly call teaching.
Another way is to head for dictionaries and search for both the historical meanings of the term, and how it is used in everyday language. This brings us to definitions like:
Impart knowledge to or instruct (someone) as to how to do something; or
Cause (someone) to learn or sympathize something by case or experience.
As can be seen from these definitions we tin can say that we are all teachers in some fashion at some time.
Further insight is offered by looking at the ancestries of the words. For instance, the origin of the discussion 'teach' lies in the Old English tæcan meaning 'bear witness, present, point out', which is of Germanic origin; and related to 'token', from an Indo-European root shared by Greek deiknunai 'show', deigma 'sample (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english language/teach).
Fostering learning
To make sense of all this it is worth turning to what philosophers of instruction say. Interestingly, the question, 'What is educational activity?' hasn't been a hotbed of activity in recent years in the UK and USA. Still, as Paul Hirst (1975) concluded, 'being clear most what teaching is matters vitally considering how teachers empathize teaching very much affects what they actually practise in the classroom'.
Hirst (1975) makes ii very important points. For him teaching should involve:
- Setting out with the intention of someone learning something.
- Considering people'southward feelings, experiences and needs. Teaching is only teaching if people can take on what is taught.
To this we tin can add together Jerome Bruner's insights around the nature of education, and the process of learning and trouble solving.
To instruct someone… is not a matter of getting him to commit results to mind. Rather, it is to teach him to participate in the process that makes possible the establishment of knowledge. We teach a bailiwick not to produce footling living libraries on that subject area, but rather to get a pupil to think mathematically for himself, to consider matters as an historian does, to take office in the procedure of knowledge-getting. Knowing is a procedure non a product. (1966: 72)
We tin brainstorm to weave these into a definition – and highlight some forms it takes.
A definition: Teaching is the process of attention to people'south needs, experiences and feelings, and intervening then that they learn particular things, and become across the given.
Interventions ordinarily take the grade of questioning, listening, giving information, explaining some phenomenon, demonstrating a skill or process, testing understanding and capacity, and facilitating learning activities (such as notation taking, give-and-take, assignment writing, simulations and practice).
Permit us await at the key elements.
Attending to people's feelings, experiences and needs
Considering what those nosotros are supposed to be teaching need, and what might be going on for them, is one of the main things that makes 'education' different to indoctrination. Indoctrination involves knowingly encouraging people to believe something regardless of the evidence (run across Snook 1972; Peterson 2007). Information technology besides entails a lack of respect for their man rights. Instruction can be described as the 'wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning undertaken in the conventionalities that all should have the adventure to share in life' (Smith 2015). The procedure of instruction flows from a bones orientation of respect – respect for truth, others and themselves, and the world (op. cit.). For teachers to be educators they must, therefore:
- Consider people's needs and wishes at present and in the futurity.
- Reflect on what might exist good for all (and the globe in which nosotros live).
- Program their interventions accordingly.
In that location are a couple of problems that immediately arise from this.
Offset, how do we balance individual needs and wishes confronting what might be practiced for others? For nearly of usa this is probably something that we should answer on a case-by-case basis – and information technology is also something that is likely to exist a focus for conversation and reflection in our work with people.
2d, what do nosotros do when people do not meet the signal of learning things – for example, effectually grammar or condom requirements? The obvious response to this question is that nosotros must ask and listen – they may have point. Even so, we besides must weigh this against what nosotros know about the significance of these things in life, and any curriculum or wellness and safety or other requirements nosotros have a duty to come across. In this case nosotros have a responsibleness to effort to introduce them to people when the time is right, to explore their relevance and to encourage participation.
Failing to attend to people's feelings and experiences is problematic – and not merely because it reveals a basic lack of respect for them. It is also pointless and counter-productive to effort to explore things when people are non ready to expect at them. Nosotros demand to consider their feelings and look to their experiences – both of our classroom or learning surroundings, and effectually the issues or areas we want to explore. Recent developments in brain scientific discipline has underlined the significance of learning from experience from the fourth dimension in the womb on (meet, for example Lieberman 2013). Bringing people'southward experiences around the subjects or areas we are looking to teach about into the classroom or learning situation is, thus, fundamental to the learning procedure.
Learning particular things
Teaching involves creating an environs and engaging with others, so that they learn particular things. This can be annihilation from tying a shoe lace to appreciating the structure of a iii human action play. I want highlight three central elements here – focus, knowledge and the ability to engage people in learning.
Focus
This may be a chip obvious – simply it is probably worth saying – teaching has to take a focus. We should exist clear about nosotros are trying to do. One of the findings that shines through research on teaching is that clear learning intentions assist learners to run across the point of a session or intervention, keep the process on runway, and, when challenging, make a difference in what people learn (Hattie 2009: location 4478).
As teachers and pedagogues at that place are a lot of times when we are seeking to foster learning but there may not be great clarity nearly the specific goals of that learning (meet Jeffs and Smith 2018 Chapter 1). This is peculiarly the case for informal educators and pedagogues. We journey with people, trying to build environments for learning and change, and, from time-to-fourth dimension, creating educational activity moments. It is in the teaching moments that we commonly need an explicit focus.
Subject knowledge
Equally obvious, nosotros need expertise, we need to have content. Every bit coaches nosotros should know about our sport; as religious educators nigh conventionalities, practise and teachings; and, as pedagogues, ethics, human being growth and development and social life. Good teachers 'take deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, and when teachers' noesis falls beneath a certain level information technology is a significant impediment to students' learning' (Coe et. al. 2014: 2).
That said, there are times when we develop our understandings and capacities as nosotros go. In the process of preparing for a session or lesson or grouping, we may read, listen to and watch YouTube items, look at other resource and learn. We build content and expertise every bit we teach. Luckily, we can depict on a range of things to support usa in our efforts – video clips, web resource, textbooks, activities. Yes, it might be nice to be experts in all the areas we accept to teach – merely nosotros can't be. It is inevitable that nosotros volition be chosen to teach in areas where we have limited knowledge. Ane of the fascinating and comforting things enquiry shows is that what appears to count most for learning is our ability as educators and pedagogues. A proficient understanding of, and passion for, a subject area; good resources to draw upon; and the capacity to engage people in learning yields skilful results. It is difficult to find bear witness that peachy expertise in the discipline matter makes a significant difference within a lot of schooling (Hattie 2009: location 2963).
Sometimes subject expertise can become in the way – it can serve to emphasize the gap between people'southward knowledge and capacities and that of the teacher. On the other hand, information technology can be used to generate enthusiasm and interest; to make links; and inform decisions about what to teach and when. Having a concern for learning – and, in particular, seeking to create environments where people develop as and, can be, self-directed learners – is ane of the key features here.
Engaging people in learning
At the center of teaching lies enthusiasm and a commitment to, and expertise in, the process of engaging people in learning. This is how John Hattie (2009: location 2939) put it:
… it is teachers using particular instruction methods, teachers with loftier expectations for all students, and teachers who have created positive educatee-teacher relationships that are more probable to have the above average effects on student achievement.
Going beyond the given
The idea of "going beyond the information given" was primal to Jerome Bruner'due south explorations of cognition and education. He was part of the shift in psychology in the 1950s and early 1960s towards the study of people as active processors of noesis, equally discoverers of new understandings and possibilities. Bruner wanted people to develop their ability to 'go beyond the data to new and peradventure fruitful predictions' (Bruner 1973: 234); to experience and know possibility. He hoped people would go equally 'autonomous and self-propelled' thinkers as possible' (Bruner 1961: 23). To practise this, teachers and pedagogues had to, as Hirst (1975) put it, appreciate learner'due south feelings, experiences and needs; to engage with their processes and view of the globe.
Two key ideas became primal to this process for Jerome Bruner – the 'spiral' and scaffolding.
The screw. People, as they develop, must take on and build representations of their experiences and the world effectually them. (Representations being the fashion in which information and knowledge are held and encoded in our memories). An idea, or concept is generally encountered several times. At first it is probable to exist in a physical and simple way. As agreement develops, it is likely to encountered and in greater depth and complication. To succeed, didactics, educating, and working with others must expect to where in the spiral people are, and how 'ready' they are to explore something. Crudely, it means simplifying complex data where necessary, and and then revisiting it to build understanding (David Kolb talked in a similar mode virtually experiential learning).
Scaffolding. The idea of scaffolding (which we volition come dorsum to later) is close to what Vygotsky talked virtually equally the zone of proximal evolution. Basically, it entails creating a framework, and offering structured support, that encourages and allows learners to develop particular understandings, skills and attitudes.
Intervening
The terminal chemical element – making specific interventions – concerns the process of taking defined and targeted activeness in a situation. In other words, equally well equally having a clear focus, we endeavour to piece of work in means that facilitate that focus.
Thinking well-nigh instruction equally a process of making specific interventions is helpful, I call up, because it:
Focuses on the unlike actions nosotros have. As nosotros saw in the definition, interventions normally take the form of questioning, listening, giving data, explaining some phenomenon, demonstrating a skill or process, testing understanding and capacity, and facilitating learning activities (such equally note taking, discussion, assignment writing, simulations and practice).
Makes us wait at how we move from ane way of working or communicating to another. Interventions oftentimes involve shifting a conversation or discussion onto a unlike track or changing the process or activeness. It may well be accompanied by a alter in mood and pace (e.k. moving from something that is quite relaxed into a catamenia of more than intense action). The process of moving from ane fashion of working – or way of communicating – to another is far from straightforward. It calls upon united states to develop and deepen our practise.
Highlights the more formal grapheme of pedagogy. Interventions are planned, focused and tied to objectives or intentions. Didactics also frequently entails using quizzes and tests to see whether planned outcomes accept been met. The feel and character of teaching moments are dissimilar to many other processes that informal educators, pedagogues and specialist educators employ. Those processes, like conversation, playing a game and walking with people are ordinarily more than free-flowing and unpredictable.
Teaching, withal, is non a simple step-by-step process e.m. of attending, getting data and intervening. We may well starting time with an intervention which and so provides united states of america with data. In addition, things rarely go equally planned – at to the lowest degree not if we attend to people'due south feelings, experiences and needs. In addition, learners might non always get the points straightaway or see what we are trying to help them learn. They may exist able to accept on what is being taught – but it might take time. Every bit a result, how well we have done is often unlikely to show up in the results of any tests or in assessments fabricated in the session or lesson.
Teaching, pedagogy and didactics
Earlier, we saw that relatively little attending had been given to defining the essential nature of education in recent years in the UK and North America. This has contributed to defoliation around the term and a major undervaluing of other forms of facilitating learning. The same cannot be said in a number of continental European countries where there is a much stronger appreciation of the different forms education takes. Reflecting on these traditions helps us to better understand didactics every bit a detail procedure – and to recognize that information technology is fundamentally concerned with didactics rather than teaching.
Perhaps the virtually helpful starting bespeak for this discussion is the strong distinction made in ancient Greek society betwixt the activities of pedagogues (paidagögus) and subject teachers (didáskalos or diadacts). The first pedagogues were slaves – oftentimes foreigners and the 'spoils of war' (Young 1987). They were trusted and sometimes learned members of rich households who accompanied the sons of their 'masters' in the street, oversaw their meals etc., and saturday beside them when existence schooled. These pedagogues were generally seen as representatives of their wards' fathers and literally 'tenders' of children (pais plus agögos, a 'child-tender'). Children were often put in their charge at effectually 7 years and remained with them until tardily adolescence. Every bit such pedagogues played a major part in their lives – helping them to recognize what was wrong and right, acquire how to behave in unlike situations, and to appreciate how they and those around them might flourish.
Moral supervision past the pedagogue (paidagogos) was also pregnant in terms of condition.
He was more important than the schoolmaster, considering the latter only taught a boy his letters, but the paidagogos taught him how to comport, a much more than important affair in the eyes of his parents. He was, moreover, even if a slave, a member of the household, in touch with its ways and with the begetter'south authority and views. The schoolmaster had no such close contact with his pupils. (Castle 1961: 63-4)
The distinction between teachers and pedagogues, instruction and guidance, and education for school or life was a feature of discussions effectually education for many centuries. It was still around when Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) explored education. In On Pedagogy (Über Pädagogik) first published in 1803, he talked every bit follows:
Education includes the nurture of the child and, equally it grows, its culture. The latter is firstly negative, consisting of discipline; that is, merely the correcting of faults. Secondly, culture is positive, consisting of instruction and guidance (and thus forming part of didactics). Guidance ways directing the educatee in putting into exercise what he has been taught. Hence the departure between a private teacher who merely instructs, and a tutor or governor who guides and directs his pupil. The ane trains for school merely, the other for life. (Kant 1900: 23-4)
It was after – and especially associated with the work of Herbart (see, for instance, Allgemeine pädagogik – Full general Pedagogics, 1806 and Umriss Pädagogischer Vorlesungen, 1835 – Plan of Lectures on Education and included in Herbart 1908) – that teaching came to be seen, wrongly, equally the key activeness of education (see Hamilton 1999).
Didactics – certainly within German traditions – can be approached equally Allgemeine Didaktik (general didactics) or as Fachdidaktik (subject didactics). Probably, the most helpful ways of translating didaktik is equally the study of the instruction-learning process. It involves researching and theorizing the process and developing practise (see Kansanen 1999). The overwhelming focus within the didaktik tradition is upon the education-learning process in schools, colleges and academy.
To approach education and learning in other settings information technology is necessary to plough to the pädagogik tradition. Within this tradition fields like informal educational activity, youth work, community development, art therapy, playwork and child care are approached as forms of pedagogy. Indeed, in countries similar Federal republic of germany and Denmark, a relatively large number of people are employed as pedagogues or social pedagogues. While these pedagogues teach, much of their activity is conversationally, rather than curriculum, -based. Inside this what comes to the fore is a focus on flourishing and of the significance of the person of the pedagogue (Smith and Smith 2008). In add-on, three elements stand out about the processes of the electric current generation of specialist pedagogues. Starting time, they are heirs to the ancient Greek procedure of accompanying and fostering learning. Second, their instruction involves a significant amount of helping and caring for. Indeed, for many of those concerned with social teaching it is a place where care and pedagogy come across – one is non somehow less than the other (Cameron and Moss 2011). Third, they are engaged in what we can call 'bringing situations to life' or 'sparking' change (animation). In other words, they animate, care and educate (ACE). Woven into those processes are theories and beliefs that we also need to nourish to (see Alexander 2000: 541).
We can run into from this word that when English language language commentators talk of didactics every bit the art and scientific discipline of teaching they are mistaken. As Hamilton (1999) has pointed out teaching in schools is properly approached in the main as instruction – the study of education-learning processes. Pedagogy is something very different. It may include didactic elements but for the nigh part it is concerned with animation, caring and education (see what is instruction?). Information technology'southward focus is upon flourishing and well-beingness. Within schools there may be specialist educators and practitioners that do this but they are usually not qualified school teachers. Instead they hold other professional qualifications, for example in pedagogy, social work, youth work and community instruction. To really understand teaching as a process we need to unhook it from school teaching and recognize that it is an activeness that is both part of daily life and is an chemical element of other practitioner's repertoires. Pedagogues teach, for case, just from within a worldview or haltung that is frequently radically different to school teachers.
Budgeted teaching as a process
Some of the pedagogy we do tin exist planned in advance because the people involved know that they will be attending a session, event or lesson where learning particular skills, topics or feelings is the focus. Some instruction arises as a response to a question, issue or situation. All the same, both are dependent on us:
Recognizing and cultivating teachable moments.
Cultivating relationships for learning.
Scaffolding learning – providing people with temporary back up and so that they deepen and develop their understanding and skills and grow as independent learners.
Differentiating learning – adjusting the fashion nosotros teach and arroyo subjects then that we tin can meet the needs of various learners.
Accessing resources for learning.
Adopting a growth mindset.
We are going to look briefly at each of these in turn.
Recognizing and cultivating teachable moments
Teachers – certainly those in most formal settings similar schools – have to follow a curriculum. They accept to teach specified areas in a detail sequence. Equally a result, in that location are always going to be individuals who are not ready for that learning. Equally teachers in these situations we need to look out for moments when students may be open to learning about different things; where nosotros can, in the language of Quakers, 'speak to their condition'. Having a sense of their needs and capacities we can respond with the right things at the right time.
Informal educators, animators and pedagogues work differently for a lot of the time. The management they have is often non set by a syllabus or curriculum. Instead, they listen for, and detect what might be going on for the people they are working with. They accept an idea of what might brand for well-being and evolution and can apply it to the experiences and situations that are beingness revealed. They expect out for moments when they can intervene to highlight an outcome, give data, and encourage reflection and learning.
In other words, all teaching involves recognizing and cultivating 'learning moments' or 'teaching moments'.
It was Robert J Havinghurst who coined the term 'teachable moment'. One of his interests every bit an educationalist was the way in which certain things have to be learned in order for people to develop.
When the timing is right, the ability to acquire a item job will exist possible. This is referred to as a 'teachable moment'. It is important to keep in mind that unless the fourth dimension is right, learning will not occur. Hence, it is important to echo of import points whenever possible and so that when a student's teachable moment occurs, due south/he can benefit from the cognition. (Havinghurst 1953)
There are times of special sensitivity when learning is possible. We have to expect out for them, to help create environments that tin create or stimulate such moments, be ready to respond, and draw on the right resources.
Cultivating collaborative relationships for learning
The master thing hither is that education, similar other parts of our work, is about relationship. We have to think nearly our relationships with those nosotros are supposed to be instruction and nigh the relationships they have with each other. Creating an environment where people can work with each other, cooperate and learning is essential. One of the things that has been confirmed by recent research in neuroscience is that 'our brains are wired to connect', nosotros are wired to be social (Lieberman 2013). Information technology is not surprising then, that on the whole cooperative learning is more constructive that either competitive learning (where students compete to run across a goal) or individualistic learning (Hattie 2011: 4733).
As teachers, nosotros need to be appreciated as someone who can depict out learning; cares about what people are feeling, experiencing and need; and breathe life to situations. This entails what Carl Rogers (in Kirschenbaum and Henderson 1990: 304-311) talked about as the core conditions or personal qualities that allow united states to facilitate learning in others:
Realness or genuineness. Rogers argued that when we are experienced equally real people -entering into relationships with learners 'without presenting a front or a façade', nosotros more than probable to exist constructive.
Prizing, acceptance, trust. This involves caring for learners, but in a non-possessive way and recognizing they have worth in their own correct. It entails trusting in chapters of others to learn, make judgements and change.
Empathic understanding. 'When the teacher has the ability to understand the student's reactions from the inside, has a sensitive awareness of the fashion the procedure of education and learning seems to the student, then again the likelihood of significant learning is increased'.
In practical terms this means we talk to people, not at them. We listen. We seek to connect and sympathise. We trust in their chapters to learn and change. We know that how we say things is often more of import than what we say.
Scaffolding
Scaffolding entails providing people with temporary support so that they deepen and develop their agreement and skills – and develop as independent learners.
Similar concrete scaffolding, the supportive strategies are incrementally removed when they are no longer needed, and the teacher gradually shifts more responsibility over the learning process to the student. (Great Schools Partnership 2015)
To practise this well, educators and workers need to be doing what we have explored in a higher place – cultivating collaborative relationships for learning, and building on what people know and do and then working only beyond information technology. The term used for latter of these is taken from the work of Lev Vygotsky – is working in the learner's zone of proximal development.
A third key aspect of scaffolding is that the support around the particular discipline or skill is gradually removed every bit people develop their expertise and commitment to learning.
Scaffolding can accept different forms. It might simply involve 'showing learners what to practice while talking them through the activity and linking new learning to former through questions, resource, activities and language' (Zwozdiak-Myers and Capel, S. 2013 location 4568). (For a quick overview of some different scaffolding strategies see Alber 2014).
The educational employ of the term 'scaffolding' is linked to the work of Jerome Bruner –who believed that children (and adults) were active learners. They constructed their own knowledge. Scaffolding was originally used to draw how pedagogues interacted with pre-school children in a nursery (Woods et. al. 1976). Bruner defined scaffolding as 'the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in conveying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring' (Bruner 1978: 19).
Differentiation
Differentiation involves adjusting the manner we teach and arroyo subjects so that we can run across the needs of diverse learners. It entails irresolute content, processes and products so that people tin can better understand what is beingness taught and develop advisable skills and the chapters to act.
The basic idea is that the primary educational objectives—making sure all students principal essential noesis, concepts, and skills—remain the same for every student, but teachers may use unlike instructional methods to help students run into those expectations. (Nifty Schools Partnership 2013)
It is often used when working with groups that have within them people with different needs and starting cognition and skills. (For a quick guide to differentiation come across BBC Active).
Accessing resources for learning
One of the key elements we require is the power to access and make bachelor resources for learning. The ii obvious and central resources we have are our own knowledge, feelings and skills; and those of the people nosotros are working with. Harnessing the experience, cognition and feelings of learners is usually a good starting signal. Information technology focuses attending on the outcome or subject; shares material; and can encourage articulation working. When information technology is an expanse that nosotros need to respond to immediately, it tin can too requite united states a little infinite get together our thoughts and access the material we need.
The third cardinal resource is the net – which we tin either make a whole group activity by using search via a whiteboard or screen, or an private or modest grouping activity via phones and other devices. One of the good things about this is that information technology also gives us an opportunity non just to reflect on the subject of the search but as well on the process. We tin examine, for case, the validity of the source or the terms we are using to search for something.
The fourth great resource is activities. Teachers need to build upwardly a repertoire of different activities that can be used to explore issues and areas (encounter the section below).
Concluding, and certainly not least, in that location are the standard classroom resources – textbooks, handouts and written report materials.
Every bit teachers we need to have a range of resource at our fingertips. This can exist every bit simple equally carrying around a file of activities, leaflets and handouts or having materials, relevant sites and ebooks on our phones and devices.
Adopting a growth mindset
Last, we need to encourage people to adopt what Carol Dweck (2012) calls a growth mindset. Through researching the characteristics of children who succeed in education (and more mostly flourish in life), Dweck found that some people accept a stock-still mindset and some a growth mindset.
Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to show yourself over and over. If you have but a certain amount of intelligence, a sure personality, and a certain moral grapheme—well, and so y'all'd better testify that you accept a healthy dose of them. It just wouldn't do to look or feel deficient in these almost basic characteristics….
In that location's another mindset in which these traits are non merely a mitt y'all're dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you take a royal flush when you're secretly worried it's a pair of tens. In this mindset, the mitt you're dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the conventionalities that your basic qualities are things you tin can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which style—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can alter and abound through awarding and experience. (Dweck 2012: half-dozen-7)
The stock-still mindset is concerned with outcomes and performance; the growth mindset with getting better at the task.
In her research she found, for example, that students with a fixed mindset when making the transition from elementary schoolhouse to inferior high in the United States, declined – their grades immediately dropped and over the next two years continued to decline. Students with a growth mindset showed an increase in their grades (op. cit.: 57). The significance of this for teaching is profound. Praising and valuing accomplishment tends to strengthen the fixed mindset; praising and valuing effort helps to strengthen a growth mindset.
While it is possible to question elements of Dweck'south inquiry and the either/or way in which prescriptions are presented (run into Didau 2015), there is item merit when teaching of adopting a growth mindset (and encouraging it in others). It looks to alter and development rather than proving outselves.
Structuring interventions and making utilize of different methods
Ane of the key things that research into the processes of teaching and educating tells us is that learners tend to like structure; they want to know the shape of a session or intervention and what it is nearly. They also seem to like multifariousness, and changes in the pace of the work (e.g. moving from something quite intense to something free flowing).
It is besides worth going back to the lexicon definitions – and the origins of the word 'teach'. What nosotros find hither are some hints of what Geoff Trivial (2009) has talked about as 'teacher-centred' methods (equally confronting active methods and student-centred methods).
Instructor-centred | Active | Student-centred |
Talking | Supervised student | Reading for |
Explaining | Discussion | Private study |
Showing | Grouping piece of work | Assignments and |
Questioning | Games | Projects and reports |
Notation-making | Role-play, drama | Independent |
Seminars | Self-directed |
If nosotros inquire learners almost their experiences and judgements, 1 of things that comes strongly through the enquiry in this surface area is that students overwhelming adopt grouping discussion, games and simulations and activities similar drama, artwork and experiments. At the lesser of this list come analysis, theories, essays and lectures (see Trivial 2009: 139-141). All the same, there is not necessarily a connection between what people enjoy doing and what produces learning.
Schoolteachers may utilise all of these methods – but so might sports workers and instructors, youth ministers, community development workers and social pedagogues. Dissimilar schoolteachers, informal educators similar these are non having to follow a curriculum for much of their fourth dimension, nor teach content to laissez passer exams. As such they are able to think more holistically and to think of themselves as facilitators of learning. This means:
Focusing on the agile methods in the central column;
Caring virtually people'due south needs, experiences and feeling;
Looking for teachable moments when and then can make inputs frequently along the lines of the first cavalcade (teacher-centred methods); and
Encouraging people to learn for themselves i.e. take on projects, to read and study, and to learn independently and be self-directed (student-centred methods).
In an appendix to this piece we look at some central activities of teaching and provide practical guidance. [See cardinal teaching activities]
What does proficient teaching expect similar?
What one person sees as good teaching can easily be seen every bit bad by another. Here we are going to await at what the Ofsted (2015) framework for inspection says. Withal, before nosotros get in that location it is worth going back to what Paul Hirst argued back in 1975 and how we are defining educational activity hither. Our definition was:
Teaching is the process of attending to people's needs, experiences and feelings, and making specific interventions to assistance them learn item things.
We are looking at teaching as a specific process – function of what we practise as educators, animators and pedagogues. Ofsted is looking at something rather different. They are grouping together teaching, learning and cess – and adding in some other things around the sort of outcomes they want to meet. That said, it is well worth looking at this list as the thinking behind it does impact on a lot of the work we do.
Inspectors volition make a judgement on the effectiveness of pedagogy, learning and assessment by evaluating the extent to which:
teachers, practitioners and other staff have consistently high expectations of what each kid or learner tin achieve, including the nigh able and the about disadvantaged
teachers, practitioners and other staff accept a secure agreement of the historic period grouping they are working with and have relevant bailiwick knowledge that is detailed and communicated well to children and learners
cess information is gathered from looking at what children and learners already know, understand and can do and is informed past their parents/previous providers as advisable
assessment information is used to plan appropriate teaching and learning strategies, including to identify children and learners who are falling behind in their learning or who need additional support, enabling children and learners to make good progress and achieve well
except in the case of the very young, children and learners understand how to meliorate every bit a upshot of useful feedback from staff and, where relevant, parents, carers and employers sympathise how learners should improve and how they can contribute to this
appointment with parents, carers and employers helps them to understand how children and learners are doing in relation to the standards expected and what they need to do to improve
equality of opportunity and recognition of multifariousness are promoted through educational activity and learning
where relevant, English, mathematics and other skills necessary to part as an economically active member of British lodge and globally are promoted through teaching and learning.
We run across some things that many volition not disagree with like having high expectations of learners, knowing what the needs of the group may be, having expertise in the area being taught; recogniting diversity and having a concern for equality of opportunity; and then on. Nosotros may likewise see the office that cess plays in reinforcing learning and helping to shape future learning. However, in that location are things nosotros may disagree with. Perhaps more importantly in that location are all sorts of things missing here. For example, why is in that location an emphasis on economic activity as confronting social, religious and political participation? Some other effect, for many of you reading this, is perhaps the way in which little account is fabricated of the extent to which learners take responsibility for their own learning. They are encouraged to contribute to learning but non own it.
Practiced educational activity is rather more technique according to Parker J. Palmer. Expert pedagogy, he says, 'comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher' (Palmer 1998: eleven). It is the way we are experienced, our enthusiasm, our care, our noesis, our interest in, and business organisation for, people that is the central to whether we are felt to be expert teachers. As Jackie Beere (2012) and others accept argued nosotros need to exist present as people in the classroom or learning environment.
This is not to say that technique isn't important. It is. We need to be skilled at scaffolding learning; creating relationships and environments for learning; and communicable pedagogy moments. It is simply that these skills need to be employed by someone who can exist respected, is experienced equally existent and is wise.
Conclusion
In this slice we take made a plea to explore teaching as a process rather than something that is usually approached equally the thinking and activity associated with a detail role – the schoolhouse teacher. As has been argued elsewhere a significant amount of what those called schoolhouse teachers do is difficult to classify as teaching (run into What is pedagogy?). Fifty-fifty the most informal of educators volition discover themselves instruction. They may well piece of work difficult at building and facilitating environments where people can explore, relate and learn. However, extending or deepening that exploration oftentimes leads to short, or not so short bursts of didactics or instructing. For example, equally sports coaches or outdoor educators nosotros may be both trying to develop teamwork and build particular skills or capacities. As a specialist or religious educators we might be seeking to give information, or innovate ideas that need some explanation. These involve moments of teaching or instructing. Once we have this and so nosotros tin can hopefully begin to recognize that school teachers have a lot to learn from other teachers – and vice versa.
Nosotros besides demand to unhook 'pedagogy' from school teaching inside English language linguistic communication discussions – and to connect it with the tradition of didactics. Ane of the bug with the imitation link of school teaching to educational activity is that it is impairing a proper discussion of educational activity. Notwithstanding, that may change a little in the UK at least with the development of professional standards for social pedagogy and the emergence of graduate and post-graduate study in the area.
Further reading and references
Resources
Check out the Teaching and Learning Toolkit. The Educational Endowment Foundation has produced a very attainable review of the evidence concerning different things that schools exercise. Many of the things that schools do have little or no evidence to back up them eastward.k. streaming and setting, insisting on school uniform, using operation related pay. Some things are very productive like giving feedback; teaching specific strategies to gear up goals, and monitor and evaluate academic development; peer tutoring; and early years' intervention.
Key teaching activities. This infed folio outlines 9 primal activities and why they are central to the process of teaching.
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Acknowledgements
The section 'teaching, pedagogy and teaching' draws heavily on another piece written by Marker 1000 Smith for infed.org (see Smith 2012).
The ACE diagram is taken from Smith, Yard. K. (forthcoming). Working with young people in hard times (Chapter 1). https://infed.org/mobi/working-with-young-people-in-difficult-times/
Picture: Group project by Brande Jackson. Flickr | ccbyncnd2 licence
The ACE diagram is taken from Smith, M. K. (forthcoming). Working with young people in difficult times (Affiliate 1). https://infed.org/mobi/working-with-young-people-in-difficult-times/
How to cite this piece: Smith, One thousand. K. (2018). 'What is education?' in The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. [https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-teaching/. Retrieved: insert appointment].
© Mark K Smith 2016, 2018.
Last Updated on August 24, 2020 by
Source: https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-teaching/
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