Tag Archives: teaching

Types of Planning

Planning is a critical part of the educational process. Teachers plan every day what they will do. Administrators might actually do more planning than the teachers at times. Due to the nature of their position, leaders need to make many different types of plans to guide their institutions. In this post, we will look at some of the different types of plans that are used by institutions.

Hierarchical Plans

Hierarchical plans are plans that have levels to them. There are several types of hierarchical plans. Some of the hierarchical plans include strategic administrative and operating plans. Each of these plans serves a specific purpose within an institution.

Strategic plans explain the general position of the school in terms of mission and vision. The strategic plan may also include a philosophy statement of what the institution is about. This is perhaps the highest level at which planning can take place. In addition, most accreditation agencies expect some sort of mission and vision statement along with evidence of how these statements are communicated to shareholders.

The administrative plan is for determining the allocation of resources within an institution. Another way to see this is the administrative plan explains how resources are distributed for the achievement of the mission and vision statement of the strategic plan. The purpose behind this is that resources must be shared to achieve the mission statement of the institution and thus the strategic plan guides the administrative plan which is focused on implementation.

Lastly, the operating plan deals with the day-to-day running of the institution. After the vision is set, and the resources are distributed, the operating plan uses the resources daily. This can include salaries, lesson plan development, grade submission, activities for students, etc.

Frequency of use plans

There are of course other plans besides the hierarchical plans mentioned above. Another type is frequency of use plans. These are plans that are referred to often in the day-to-day of the institution. Standing plans include the rules, policies, and procedures of an organization. Policies guide decision-making and guide behavior. Examples can include policies and professional development which are often not rigid and can be negotiated with the school or committee in charge of this process.

Rules are stricter than policies and remove the interpretation that can happen under policies. For example, it might be a rule that teachers can only spend a certain amount of money on travel per year. Lastly, Procedures specify steps to take to complete a task, such as logging into the institution’s email system.

Some plans might only be used once. These can include budgets that are used once a year and then updated. Other examples can be plans for a project which has a specific start and end date. Once the project is over the plan will probably not be reused again.

Other PLans

There are also several other miscellaneous plans. Time-frame plans are plans based on the duration of the plan. Short plans are less than a year and an example would be most lesson planning. Medium plans last up to five years and are generally institutional-level plans to meet accreditation expectations. Lastly, long-term plans are over five years in length and are generally long-term development plans for an institution.

Plans can also be focused within a specific scope of the institution. There could be specific plans for various departments within a school. In addition, plans might only involve specific stakeholders. For example, there might be plans that only affect teachers or only affects students. Lastly, there are also contingency plans which are plans that usually deal with emergencies such as fires or natural disasters.

Conclusion

Planning is always going to be a major responsibility of institutions as they look for ways to support their stakeholders. The examples shared here are probably plans that many have made before but may not know the exact terminology involved. Therefore, hopefully, what was shared here is insightful.

Responsibilities and Skills of Teachers

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Every job has its list of responsibilities and skills required for the position. This post will look at some of the common skills and responsibilities associated with teaching.

Planning/Coordinating

Teachers are expected to spend a large amount of their time making daily and long-term lesson plans. Developing these plans can include setting long-term goals, short-term objectives, procedures, assignments, and more. However, Once plans are developed, they have to be implemented, which involves coordinating students’ behavior and, at times, working with people outside of the class for various reasons.

Controlling/Supervising

Teachers have to constantly observe the behavior of their students and make adjustments to what plans or goals they have in mind. For example, if students are struggling, the teacher needs to slow down and reteach. Suppose the problem is not comprehension but a rather poor attitude. In that case, the teacher needs to modify how they enforce rules.

Teachers also have to track resources such as paper, pencils, books, time, etc. These things must be observed while also trying to move forward in the curriculum and maintain learning.

Professional Development

Teachers also must stay abreast of the latest developments in their field. This includes changes and innovation in teaching and in one’s area of expertise. Different fields change at different speeds, but all teachers have to stay current to help students to be prepared for the workforce and or college.

Staying current in one’s profession is not overly time-consuming. The real challenge is doing this along with the other responsibilities of teaching and the demands of one’s life outside the classroom.

Skills of Teachers

The skills of teachers can be broken down into three categories

Technical skills
Human relation skills
Conceptual skills

Technical skills are essentially the expertise of the teacher. For example, a math teacher knows math and can use it practically. In addition, teachers must have technical knowledge of teaching, such as familiarity with pedagogy and various approaches to instruction. Generally, a teacher must have a high degree of technical skill because they are a teacher to others.

Human relation skills are the ability to work with other people. Teachers need to have ways to connect with students to inspire enthusiasm and growth. In addition, teachers also need to maintain relationships with other teachers, parents, and the administration. Working with others is often dicey, and surprisingly, teachers can often struggle to maintain a cordial relationship with their peers, students, and community members.

Conceptual skills relate to planning and seeing the big picture. Developing this skill comes with experience. For example, new teachers often cannot see beyond developing daily lesson plans, while more experienced teachers can plan months or semesters at a time. Conceptual skills become more important if a teacher moves more in the direction of leadership after a few years in the classroom.

Conclusion

Teaching is a challenging field in that it calls on a person to keep track of several important tasks while also developing themselves and working with others. Since doing this is no easy task, perhaps that is why so many teachers can find their jobs challenging.

Roles and Status in the Classroom

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ROles and status are terms related to societies that can also be examined from the classroom perspective. This post will look at roles and status and how they influence the classroom learning environment.

Roles

Roles are behavior patterns that are associated with a person’s status. In the classroom, the most common roles are teacher and student. However, this is an overgeneralize as the roles of an individual could be nuanced and complicated by various factors. In addition, a student and or the teacher’s role in the classroom can be influenced by their roles outside the classroom, as we will see.

Status is a term related to a role and is the benefits and burdens of a person’s role. For example, there are advantages to being a teacher in the classroom. One is the leadership position in which the teacher tells students what to do instead of being told what to do. However, there are also burdens such as discipline problems, dealing with difficult parents, and low pay. There are also pros and cons to being a student. Students have much less responsibility compared to teachers but are also under constant surveillance and control by adults.

Being a teacher is an example of an achieved status or a form of status that a person works for. Other examples of achieved status are entrepreneurs, actors, athletes, pilots, etc. Ascribed status, on the other hand, is a status that a person does not choose. Generally, many K-12 students have this status ascribed to them by their parents and the government, and many would prefer not to be a student.

Teachers and students often have multiple roles, which is called a role set. A teacher could be a parent, spouse, family member, friend, leader, a musician in addition to their teaching role. A student can also have multiple roles such as child, sibling, athlete, worker, to name a few.

If a person has to perform too much under their role, it can lead to role strain. For example, teaching is often demanding enough for many individuals. If the job becomes too burdensome, burnout can take place. The same is true for students who are struggling with academics.

If two or more roles lead to conflict, this is an example of role conflict. For example, suppose a teacher is having problems in their role as a parent. In that case, it can carry over and affect their performance in the classroom. The same can also be said of a student whose role as a child can bring problems into the classroom.

All of the ideas mentioned here have ignored the classroom to a large extent. Students can have different roles within the classroom. Some are more of the leader type, others are the class clowns, while many are simply followers. Teachers can also have varying roles based in part on their teaching style. Some teachers are more controlling, while others are more hands-off. Status can also play a role. An older respected teacher has a different role in their classroom than an untested young teacher.

Conclusion

Roles and status are things people acquire and seek throughout their lives. Sometimes this is good, but not always. Students and teachers need to be aware of their roles so that they can understand when things may not be working well in the classroom.

Barriers to Decision-Making

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A google search will show you that the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day. This seems like a large amount, but teachers make 1,500 educational decisions a day. Making such a vast number of decisions can lead to fatigue, among other problems. A greater danger may be making poor decisions. Here we will look at some common barriers to decision making.

Sunk Cost

Sunk cost happens after a decision is made. What has happened is there are signs that a decision is terrible, but the leadership sticks to the decision because of the investment that has already been made. It is common for teachers and administrators to invest in products and services that later turn out to be inferior. However, because a commitment has been made and resources spent, there is a hope that staying the course will allow for an improvement in the situation.

To avoid this trap, administrators must realize that not all decisions are good ones. This means that when an idea is not working, the administrators or teachers who made the wrong choice to own the mistake shrink the mistake’s cost. Ignoring this to look like you’re in control and know what you are doing can be highly damaging to an institution.

Uncertainty

Decision-making should be as informed as possible. However, we never have access to all knowledge. This implies that there is always a measure of risk. Due to the uncertainty, leadership generally will choose the most conservative option available to minimize risk. This is wise at times but can leave tremendous opportunities on the table.

An idea related to uncertainty is a concept called bounded rationality. Bounded rationality states that people who face complex or uncertain situations often cannot make entirely rational decisions. In other words, when facing uncertainty, people’s decision-making can become uncertain or unpredictable. This commonly happens in novel situations in which it is unclear what to do. In such cases, people are limited in how much they can process and thus utilize their intuition to overcome.

Conflict

People generally want to avoid conflict. This is particularly true when decision-making involves conflict. Despite this, there are times when conflict is the best decision, such as when a student will not obey a teacher. If the teacher avoids the conflict, it sends a message to other students to duplicate the disobedient child’s behavior, which will lead to more significant problems and harsher conflict in the future.

There are at least two ways to think of conflict, and the difference is in terms of what people focus on during the disagreement. Process conflict is focused on improving how to do something and can lead to improved performance. Relationship conflict is a conflict between people that can often gt highly personal and should be avoided. The challenge is that people confuse process and relationship conflict. For example, a student is disrupting the class, the teachers reprimand this, and the student takes it personally.

As a teacher or administrator, it is crucial to keep conflict focus on process and behavior and not on people. When people become the problem, relationship conflict is sure to follow.

Conclusion

Decision-making is a crucial component of everyone’s life. Every day we are all called to make many different decisions. The implications of our choices could be tremendous. Therefore, that is why it is essential to be aware of common roadblocks to making sound decisions.

Decision-Making and Teaching

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Decision making is a critical requirement of being a teacher. In any single day, teachers are making dozens of decisions that affect students and others’ lives. In this post, we will look at decision-making methods and the role of emotions in this complex process.

Two Systems of Decision Making

There are two ways in which the brain makes decisions. These two ways are the reactive system and the reflective system. The reactive system is a way of making a decision that does not involve deep contemplative thought. Instead, the teacher is making a decision based on experience and or expertise. Sometimes there is not enough time to go through a thorough thought process, such as during an emergency.

The reactive system is related to the idea of programmed decisions. Programmed decisions are decisions that are made frequently and are often based on some criteria. For example, following a general schedule of teaching is programmed decision-making. Generally, the requirements will be time, but there are instances when the schedule will go off course for learning.

The reflective system is the opposite of the reactive system and is a way of thinking logically, analytically, and deliberately before taking action. This style of decision making is instrumental when facing novel situations or highly complex situations. For a teacher, planning teaching is often a reflective process as it involves deciding the future in advance. When time allows, the reflective system is usually a better choice. However, when time is short, there is no time to think, and the reactive system may be a better option.

Non-programmed decisions are associated with reflective thinking. These types of decisions are for unusual situations in which reflective thinking is needed. When the involvement in the decision is high, the problem probably calls for non-programmed decision making. However, when the involvement is low, then programmed decisions may be a better alternative.

Emotions

Emotions also play a role in decision making. If feelings are strong, it can often prompt teachers to make poor reactive choices. For example, if a student is disrespectful, the teacher may lose their temper, leading to all kinds of problems. Therefore, when emotions run high, it may be better to wait to decide so that a poor reactive choice is not made.

Emotional intelligence is the skill of recognizing/understanding one’s feelings and the feelings of those around us. When a teacher understands their emotions and their students’ feelings, they can use the information to make better decisions rather than the worst ones. The challenge is feeling the feelings without them overwhelming you. Being in a leadership role in the classroom calls on a higher degree of self-control than what is required of the students. We all know this but it does not prevent people from making mistakes.

Conclusion

Insights into the processes that decisions involve can be beneficial knowledge for teachers. Understanding the harmful yet helpful role of emotions can help teachers avoid pitfalls when it is necessary to make decisions during highly charged situations.

Work Behavior of Students

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Students all have their unique personalities. These unique traits that students bring into the classroom can influence their ability to perform academically. This post will look at several personality traits that influence students’ behavior and attitude towards work.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is what someone thinks of themselves. Students who have high self-esteem are often more assertive and ambitious in achieving goals. Naturally, the opposite is true of students with low self-esteem. This means that as a teacher, there may be times when the output and quality of a student’s work are influenced by the self-esteem a student has.

Self-esteem can be affected by the family as well as prior academic success or failure. In addition, self-esteem can also change based on the context. A student might be confident in one subject but timid in another. A closely related term to self-esteem is self-efficacy, which is focused primarily on the student’s belief that they can do something.

Locus of Control

Locus of control is how a person sees if what happens to them is due to their actions or something beyond their control. People with an internal locus of control believe that they have authority over their success and failure. People with an external locus of control believe that they do not have power over their success and failure.

Students who have an internal locus of control are often more motivated and see a connection between effort and reward. This implies that students with an external locus of control are less motivated and do not know the relationship between hard work and reward. In addition, external locus of control students often like to blame the teacher for their academic challenges.

Introversion/Extroversion

Introverts are often solitary and care little for socially, while extroverts are the opposite. For students, the type of activities a teacher gives can help or harm them based on this trait. Introverted students may prefer to work alone and reflect, while extrovert students love group interaction and projects. Therefore, a combination of introverted and extroverted activities will help to have a balanced learning experience.

Authoritarianism & Dogmatism

Authoritarianism is a person’s view of authority. Students who authoritarian are demanding of people lower than them while being submissive to superiors. Furthermore, authoritarian students are rigid, fearful of change, distrustful, and hate restraint. Non-authortarians are more sympathetic to a democratic style of learning while supporting change.

If a student is authoritarian, they may need a rigidly structured classroom. Non-authortarian students, on the other hand, will thrive better in a more relax, negotiated learning experience.

Conclusion

Working with students requires knowing how the students think and are motivated. Insight into personality is one step in determining how to approach and support students for academic success.

The Shocks of Teaching

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New teachers often experience the shock of being a teacher. In this post, we will look at three common shocks new teachers face. These shocks are the shock of the classroom, administration, and peers.

Shock of the Classroom

A new teacher has to deal with the reality of the classroom. The problem here is that teachers are highly familiar with the classroom experience as students. This warps their perception of the classroom as they are no longer a student but a teacher. In other words, the student is now on the other side of the desk as a teacher.

This change can be difficult to adjust to. For example, it is common for new teachers to struggle with developing appropriate relationships with students. By appropriate it is meant avoiding the pitfall of trying to be buddies with the students. Cordial relationships are good as a teacher but the teacher is still an authority figure who needs to respected and obeyed by the students. This balance is difficult for many teachers to find as many new teachers want to be liked.

Another major challenge is the implementation of all the various teaching strategies that were acquired as a student-teacher. All teaching styles work but all teaching styles do not work for all teachers. It takes time to develop a personal style of teaching and this is learned mainly through trial and error. Unfortunately, the students are the guinea pigs in this process of instructional mastery.

Shock of Administration

Working with the principal also demands a shift in perspective. All teachers were students who interacted with principals before but at a larger social distance. Now as a teacher, the social distance is smaller but this can actually make things more confusing in terms of how to relate.

The principal is a colleague but also superior. They can support a teacher’s teaching with advice and counsel but could also, and even simultaneously, believe that a teacher is unfit for their school. This dual role of supporter and judge can be uncomfortable for many.

Some principals have an open door policy while others say they have an open-door policy because that is what they are supposed to say. Some will help while others will say they will help because that is what they are supposed to say. The mixed messages can be frustrating. However, if there are any significant problems at a school it is the principal who is the first to pay the price. Therefore, many leaders are not only looking at the teachers but also trying to watch their own back.

Shock of Peers

Another shift in perspective needed is dealing with peers. Again, a new teacher brings their viewpoint of being a former student with them when interacting with fellow teachers. Now as a teacher, a new teacher gets to see what teachers are really like. The gossip in the breakroom, politic intrigue with the administration, complaints about parents and students, and more. Sometimes the atmosphere can be somewhat negative, to say the least.

Dealing with other teachers is not always negative. There are opportunities for collaboration and learning from more experienced teachers. However, it is important to know both sides of the experience so that a new teacher is not disappointed with what they see.

Conclusion

The main problem here is that a new teacher has to deal with changing their perspective on how they see education. Going forward, a new teacher is an authority figure and not a friend and a colleague/employee and not a student. With this transition comes confusion that can be overcome with time.

Contracts and Tenure for Teachers

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Finding that first teaching job and signing that first contract is the dream of many young students. Another goal for many is to achieve tenure. In this post, we will look at the teacher’s contract and tenure.

Contract

A contract is an agreement with obligations between two or more peoples or parties. It clearly explains the duties and rights of both sides. From the teacher’s perspective, duties can include such things as the teaching assignment, length of the school day, and length of the school year. In terms of rights for the teacher, it may address such items as salary, max class size, and the process for grievances. A grievance is a way to complain about working conditions such as classes that are too large or neglect of building maintenance.

All teachers, including teachers with tenure, sign a contract. The contract is generally of one academic year in length. One reason for this length is because budgets are generally year-to-year and it may be necessary to not renew contracts of teachers. Another reason is that if a teacher who does not have tenure is not performing it is easier to let go of them after a year than if they are signed to a multi-year contract.

Once a contract is signed, it needs to be approved by the school board, the principal or HR Director represents the school board but the contract is generally not considered official until the school board approves it. This is often a formality as the school board usually empowers the local administration to select the faculty.

A breach of contract takes place when either party does not fulfill its obligations in the contract. For example, a school does not pay a teacher or a teacher stops working for the school. The penalties for this vary. For the teacher, it is possible to have your teaching license suspended or revoked. A school that breaches a contract can be fined. However, this varies from state to state.

If it is ever necessary to breach a contract as a teacher it is best to ask for a release through a resignation letter. Often, employers avoid keeping workers who no longer want to be there and the release is granted. Also, the administrative headache of keeping someone employed who does not want to be there is not worth it. Most contracts have some explanation of how either party can get out of it.

Tenure

Tenure is a removal of the probationary status of a new teacher. With tenure, a teacher moves to what is called a continuing contract, which stays in effect until further notice. This means that signing a yearly contract is mainly a formality until otherwise. Obtaining tenure varies by state. In some places, it based on time serve while in others it takes an action from the school board.

The primary purpose behind tenure is to allow the teacher to focus on teaching without concerns with interference. One example of interference would be worrying if you had a job next year because of philosophical differences with the administration.

Tenure is not a guaranteed job, rather it means that there must be grounds for dismissal. There must be a strong reason to dismiss a tenured teacher as the job now belongs to the teacher. Examples of ways to get fired for teachers with tenure include gross negligence, clear incompetence, or inappropriate behavior with students. Even when a tenured teacher should be dismissed many states require that the tenured teacher is given a chance to change their behavior. The exception being for highly offensive behavior such as being convicted of a crime.

The exception to this is when a school has to reduce the size of its workforce. When a school is struggling financially even tenured teachers are not safe. The school simply needs to demonstrate that they do not have the finances to support all of their current teachers.

Conclusion

A teacher needs to be aware of the hiring and dismissal policies for their own protection. Failure to be aware of the ideas covered in this post could put the teacher in a bad situation in which there appears to be no solution.

Due Process

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Conflict is a natural result of interacting with people. Whether in the home or job there are times when rules are ignored and subordinates clash with leadership. In the context of the school, it is important that certain processes are respected and observed when it may be necessary to discipline or terminate a teacher. In this post, we will look specifically at due processes and it’s role in administrative concerns with teachers.

Definitions

Due process within the context of education means that teachers are treated fairly and their rights should not be violated. Of course, there is always a problem with determining what is fair and what is a violation of a teacher’s rights. Determining these two things is left to the courts to decide for each case.

The idea of due process is derived from the 5th and 14th amendments of the United States Constitution. The fifth amendment speaks of how a person will not be deprived of life, liberty, or property with due process of law. The 14th amendment essentially says the same thing but indicates that the state governments also cannot take away things without due process.

When attempting to determine the fairness of an action an administrator may take against a teacher. There are two forms of due process that need to be considered which are substantive due process and procedural due process.

Substantive due process is essentially how big of a deal the issue/problem is and whether the action of the administration is reasonable for the issue/problem. An example of a substantive process being unfair is if a teacher is terminated from their employment for being 10 minutes late one time. The problem in this example is tardiness and the action was termination. The question to consider is whether being late one time for ten minutes is substantive, or a big enough of a deal, to justify termination?

Procedural due process relates to how fair the process was for making a decision about a teacher. Returning to the example of the late teacher, if the teacher was dismissed without even hearing their side of the story, many would see that as a violation of procedures. This is because the teacher was not given an opportunity to explain what happened.

Other Factors

The definition of due process varies from one state to the other. However, below are some examples of proper due process when needing to handle disciplinary measures with a teacher.

Provide an opportunity for the teacher to share their side of events.
Depending on the sensitivity of the situation, a teacher should have an opportunity to confront witnesses
Be sure to give ample notice of the termination and evidence for why.
The right to an attorney
Impartial, objective, decision-making

This is not an exhaustive list. Rather, it is just some of the ideas that one needs to be aware of.

The ideas presented here are primarily limited to the United States. Due process is found in other countries. However, in some contexts, the law is on the books but not enforced. This can leave a teacher in a bad situation without help. This is especially true if foreign teachers who often have no protection when working abroad.

Conclusion

Due process is a tool meant to not only protect the teacher but to also protect the school as well. If a process is conducted fairly the teacher cannot make false claims against the school. As such, both sides need to be familiar with this process just in case it is necessary to make decisions that may appear to be detrimental to one of the parties.

Attitudes of Teachers

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Some would say that success in the classroom begins in the mind. What and how a teacher thinks about the world around him can play a role in their success as a teacher. It’s within our minds that our attitudes are formed. By attitudes, we are talking about how one thinks or feels about something. What we think about something could have a serious influence on how we do oi ourselves. In this post, we look at several forms of relationships that teachers often develop attitudes about and these are attitudes towards self, students, peers, and the subject

Towards Self

Teaching is a profession that requires a lot of people skills and extroversion. However, to reach out to others a teacher needs to understand who they are as a person as well. If a teacher does not keep track of their own mental and emotional health it can quickly lead to burnout. This means that a teacher needs to be aware of their own emotions and stress in addition to the needs of the students.

A teacher needs to also reflect on how they are doing in terms of their teaching. There should be an internal desire to improve to help students to be successful. Many teachers neglect this as they focus on the social side of teaching.

Towards Students

What a teacher thinks about other students matters as well. If a teacher believes a student is dumb that students will often find ways to confirm this as stated by the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. However, sometimes a negative view of a student will motivate the student to excel in a desire to prove a teacher wrong. This is generally rare as students tend to succumb to the expectations of those around them.

Similarly, it is important for a teacher to consider their attitude towards parents. Demanding parents can have a negative effect on a teacher that can shape attitudes. The same can also be said of parents who are indifferent to their children’s studies. In both situations, a teacher wants to avoid a negative comment because the attitude you have towards a parent can spill over into the relationship/interaction with the student.

Towards Peers

As with any other institution, schools have people who see things differently. Teachers will sometimes get along and will some times try to undermine each other. There will be disagreements and even fights over the use/allocation of resources, responsibilities, teaching styles, etc. Gossiping and forms of passive backstabbing do occur as well.

It is not all negative. There is laughing and camaraderie, sharing of ideas, and support when there are problems. Through the ups and downs of dealing with other teachers, it is important to try to maintain a positive attitude towards the people around and the institution we are working at.

Towards Subject

It is also important that a teacher show interest and enthusiasm for their subject. This is normally not a problem as a teacher goes to school to learn this subject that they like. However, there are times when a teacher’s attitude towards a subject can become negative. If the teacher is asked to teach something they are not interested in or weak as it could cause a loss of enthusiasm. For example, a music teacher who is asked to cover PE. The music teacher might love music but would lack enthusiasm for PE.

Moving a teacher to a different grade or a subject within their expertise could also lead to this. For example, moving a 2nd-grade teacher to 4th grade my influence enthusiasm or moving a geometry teacher to teaching trigonometry. In both these situations, the teacher is competent for the assignment but not interested.

Lastly, any of the ideas present in the previous sections can influence enthusiasm for the subject. Lack of reflection, bad kids, bad parents, bad peers, can all drain the life of a teacher. This can carry over into the classroom and affect the enthusiasm of a subject that a teacher loves.

Conclusion

Success begins in the mind. For a teacher to be successful they must begin with monitoring their attitudes about themselves and the surrounding people.

Challenges in Teaching Math

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There are challenges and issues in teaching any subject. Math is no exception to the challenge of teaching. In this post, we will look at a brief history of math teaching in the United States and how math is taught in many parts of America today.

Brief History of Math Teaching

Talk to most students, and they while share how it is difficult to learn math. One of the biggest challenges may be how abstract it is. When studying math it is often more of a mixture of drilling with an expectation to solve problems that have no context or relevancy for the student. For example, solving 2x + 4 = 10 lacks a connection for many students.
Prior to the 1960s mathematics was taught in the United States with an emphasis on computation. Calculate over and over until you get was one of the main philosophies of this approach. During the 1960s, there was a change to an approach called “new math” which focused on the structure or the components/theories of mathematics. This made math even more abstract. In addition, at least with the focus on computation a student could memorize the steps to complete problems, with the “new math” approach the focus on theories without heavy computational practice made learning difficult.

Teaching Math Today

Today, whether to focus on computation or structure depends more on the level of math the students are studying. College bound students are still exposed more to structure while those who are not are often taught using more of a computational focus. The challenge with this is that everyone wants every child to be college bound which means essentially that most students are taught with a focus on the structure and theories of mathematics with a goal of understanding why certain steps are taken when calculating something.

Generally, it is common for math teachers at the high school level and above to focus on teaching conceptual understanding first before procedural steps (elementary is usually hands-on). In other words, explaining theory and the why of the steps before actually using the steps to solve problems. This can sometimes lead to the teaching of long complicated mathematical proofs for various concepts such as the quadratic formula. For a math expert, proofs are critical to knowing why a certain approach works, however, for the average person, proofs can be incredible confusing because they involve math that the learner is not total comfortable with in many situations with little practical application.

The downside of learning procedural steps first is that it becomes difficult to apply them in different situations or to transfer the knowledge to new contexts. For example, in my own experience, it was common for a math teacher to teach the steps of how to solve a problem but then when it was time to practice, the problems were always slightly different from what the teacher taught. I would need to square something that the teacher did not square or factor something that the teacher did not factor in order to have success. The focus on the steps made it impossible to bring in other tools or handle situations that called for other steps.

For the math teacher, who was a natural expert, seeing a problem and bringing in other tools and adding and taking away steps was easy because of their understanding of theory. However, for the rest of us, there is a need to drill and become comfortable before expanding the use of the concepts to unknown situations.

Conclusion

The goal is not to indicate that there is one particular way of teaching math. The challenge is really how to help non-math students have success at math. This involves using both concepts and drill in a combination that allows weaker students to survive or even succeed in a difficult academic situation for them.

Motivations for Teaching

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Often, it is expected that new teachers have a reason for wanting to teach. In this post, we will look at several common reasons why people choose the occupation of teaching.

Money

This is probably a reason for not teaching. Teachers normally make enough money but not much more than that. Generally, there is an increase over time but it is often difficult to get ahead financially in the teaching profession. However, if you take the skills you develop as a teacher (communication, planning, leadership, etc.) you can pivot these skills into side jobs or other career fields. Many famous writers and musicians were at one time teachers (JK Rowling, Stephen King, Gene Simmons, Sting).

Towards the end of one’s career the salary can be lucrative. This often takes 20 plus years in many countries and requires additional professional development in order to continue to progress of the step salary. If continuing to study appeals to you than teaching might be the right choice as a career.

Prestige

Despite the apparent association with how poor the educational system, is teaching is still considered a highly respective occupation. Often, people speak highly of teaching in general but often have sharp criticism of the teachers of their own children or even of the teachers they experienced as a student.

The amount of prestige varies depending on the discipline and level of teaching. Often science and math are more prestigious than the humanities due in part to the higher expect salary of science and math majors. Teaching at the university level is often considered more prestigious than teaching K-12 due in part to the higher level of education required and the assumption of greater talent that is necessary to teach at the tertiary level.

In many ways, the respect given to teachers is almost tongue in cheek. People are suppose to say that teaching is important and respectable even if they rarely appreciated the hard work of their own children’s teachers or the teachers they studied under.

Authority

Teaching comes with a large amount of power and authority over students. The students spend several hours a week with you as you play a critical role in shaping their character. This can be good or bad depending on the type of teacher. There is also a great deal of academic authority over students. As a teacher, it is not hard to find ways to fail hardworking students are to pass lazy ones. The difference is in the integrity of the teacher and how they use this authority.

Schedule

Teaching still allows for a better work life balance when compared to other professions. This in part due to the holidays and built in vacations. However, during a given week in a semester a teacher is putting in about 50 hours a week in the US which is comparable to other occupations in America.

This means that once Christmas, Easter, and holidays are removed from the equation teachers a worker just as hard in terms of hours given to their job as others. However, there are additional burdens on teachers with meetings, clubs, field trips, and other extra-curricular activities at the school. Someone has to watch the kids during recess, lunch, etc and this is in addition to the teaching load of the teacher.

Students & Colleagues

Many people become teachers for the chance to interact with students and colleagues. For students, it is a chance to help them to develop and grow intellectual and socially as well as a chance to spark interest in learning in general. This opportunity to have an impact on the lives of young people is a primary motivation for entering the teaching field.

There are downsides to working with students as there are times when behavior becomes an issue. Nothing is more draining to a teacher than dealing with a group of students who do not want to learn. Navigating this disinterested in education can be discouraging to say the least.

For the colleagues, it is a chance to wok within what is usually a non-competitive environment. Unlike other industries where there is a best salesman or best manager, in teaching every teacher can be a great teacher because there is normally no ranking. However, with the pressures of standardized testing teaching has become more competitive.

Conclusion

Everyone must determine for themselves what is their motivation for becoming a teacher. This is really a personal decision and there is rarely a way to state conclusively that someone’s motivation to teach is wrong. The examples provided here are for giving reasons to think about why someone may want to teach.

Moral Demands of Teaching

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As with many jobs, teaching comes with a certain moral expectation. Due to their influence over children, teachers are expected to be a positive moral example for their students. Naturally, what is meant as positive has changed and morphed overtimes. This post will try to trace how the moral expectations of teaching have changed over time in the United States.

19th Century

Originally, teaching was considered temporary work for young men as they made plans to move on to better things. This led to a great deal of turnover. Horace Mann, a leading political figure of the United States at the time wanted to change this. He wanted to move away from the stern male teacher to the gentle female teacher. For the most part, Mann was successful as by the end of the 19th century about 70% of all K-12 teachers were women which is a number that is about the same today.

The switch to a primarily female teaching corp had its advantages and disadvantages. Traditionally, women were more nurturing than men were which may be a benefit for young children. Despite this, it may be possible that at least some children would benefit from the strong hand of male disciplined as portrayed stereotypically during this time period. However, women teachers could be just as itinerant as male teachers as we shall see.

Moral Demands Teaching 19th-Early 20th Century

There were many restrictions on a teacher’s behavior that people would find completely unacceptable today. For example, teachers were expected to go to church every Sunday. Not only is this a church-state violation but it is also compulsory worship in a Christian setting. This would exclude most other religions from teaching in US public schools at this time.

There were also rules against smoking, drinking, dancing, playing cards, and even loitering at ice cream parlors. Even today, few teachers would complain about restrictions for smoking and drinking on-campus but would chafe at such a restriction after hours on personal time. No dancing and play cards would be indefensible. However, during this time, dancing was associated with sexual licentiousness and playing cards was linked with gambling which were both unacceptable behaviors in Christian America. These taboos have been lost over time. Lastly, loitering at ice cream parlors is no longer a concern due to changing times but during the time of these restrictions hanging out anywhere was considered unproductive to society especially for a teacher.

There were also restrictions in terms of dating. Male teachers needed to be careful about how often they were courting women. This was probably meant to make sure that the male teacher was not a womanizer. He could court but not too often or too much. Of course, we are using the word court instead of date because technically there was no dating for teachers at least officially. The purpose of courting was for the consideration of marriage and not premarital sex.

For a female teacher, marriage meant being dismissed from her teaching job. At this time, it was not considered acceptable for a woman to work outside the home once married especially in the teaching. Whether this was fair or not is opened to debate. However, there were not all the amenities that we have today available such as childcare, washer machines, microwaves, etc. that allow a woman to have a career while supporting a home. If the wife did not stay home the home would literally have collapsed.

Changes

As values changed so did the standards for morality for teachers. Over time women were allowed to return to teaching after pregnancy with the caveat that their job was still available. Eventually, in the US, maternity leave was no longer mandatory by the 1970s. Pregnancy discrimination was also banned.

As mentioned previously, there is a stronger separation between how teachers act on an off-campus. Behaviors that used to be unacceptable such as smoking and drinking are only problems if they happen on campus during school hours. Teachers are not the only ones held to such a standard. Even police officers are expected to abstain from certain behaviors when on duty.

Conclusion

Teaching is a rewarding profession that at times can place higher standards in terms of moral behavior. Being around impressionable youth requires teachers to uphold strong moral values because of their influence. Over time, however, the behaviors that are considered moral and acceptable has changed along with the moral expectations of teachers.

Teaching English

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Teaching English or any other subject requires that the teacher be able to walk into the classroom and find ways to have an immediate impact. This is much easier said than done. In this post we look at several ways to increase the likelihood of being able to help students.

Address Needs

People’s reasons for learning a language such as English can vary tremendously. Knowing this, it is critical that you as a teacher know what the need in their learning. This allows you to adjust the methods and techniques that you used to help them learn.

For example, some students may study English for academic purposes while others are just looking to develop communications skills. Some students maybe trying to pass a proficiency examine in order to study at university or in graduate school.

How you teach these different groups will be different. The academic students want academic English and language skills. Therefore, if you plan to play games in the classroom and other fun activities there may be some frustration because the students will not see how this helps them.

On the other hand, for students who just want to learn to converse in English, if you smother them with heavy readings and academic like work they will also become frustrated from how “rigorous” the course is. This is why you must know what the goals of the students are and make the needed changes as possible

Stay Focused

When dealing with students, it is tempting to answer and following ever question that they have. However, this can quickly lead to a lost of directions as the class goes here there and everywhere to answer every nuance question.

Even though the teacher needs to know what the students want help with the teacher is also the expert and needs to place limits over how far they will go in terms of addressing questions and needs. Everything cannot be accommodated no matter how hard one tries.

As the teacher, things that limit your ability to explore questions and concerns of students includes time, resources, your own expertise, and the importance of the question/concern. Of course, we help students, but not to the detriment of the larger group.

Providing a sense of direction is critical as a teacher. The students have their needs but it is your goal to lead them to the answers. This requires a sense of knowing what you want and being able to get there. There re a lot of experts out there who cannot lead a group of students to the knowledge they need as this requires communication skills and an ability to see the forest from the trees.

Conclusion

Teaching is a mysterious profession as so many things happen that cannot be seen or measured but clearly have an effect on the classroom. Despite the confusion it never hurts to determine where the students want to go and to find a way to get them there academically.

Improving Lecturing

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Lecturing is a necessary evil at the university level. The university system was founded during a time when lecturing was the only way to share information. Originally, owning books was nearly impossible due to their price, there was no internet or computer, and there were few options for reviewing material. For these reasons, lecturing was the go to approach for centuries.

With all the advantages in technology, the world has changed but lecturing has not. This has led to students becoming disengaged in the learning experience with the emphasis on lecture style teaching.

This post will look at times when lecturing is necessary as well as ways to improve the lecturing experience.

Times to Lecture

Despite the criticism given earlier, there are times when lecturing is an appropriate strategy. Below are some examples.

When there is a need to cover a large amount of content-If you need to get through a lot of material quickly and don’t have time for discussion.
Complex concepts/instructions-You probably do not want to use discovery learning to cover lab safety policies
New material-The first time through they may need to listen. When the topic is addressed later a different form of instruction should be employed

The point here is not to say that lecturing is bad but rather that it is overly relied upon by the typical college lecturer. Below are ways to improve lecturing when it is necessary.

Prepare Own Materials

With all the tools on the internet from videos to textbook supplied PowerPoint slides. It is tempting to just use these materials as they are and teach. However, preparing your own materials allows you to bring yourself and your personality into the teaching experience.

You can add anecdotes to illustrate various concepts, bring in additional resources, are leave information that you do not think is pertinent. Furthermore, by preparing your own material you know inside and out where you are going and when. This can also help to organize your thinking on a topic due to the highly structured nature of PowerPoint slides.

Even modifying others materials can provide some benefit. By owning your own material it allows you to focus less on what someone else said and more on what you want to say with your own materials that you are using.

Focus on the Presentation

If many teachers listen to themselves lecturing, they might be convinced that they are boring. When presenting a lecture a teacher should make sure to try to share the content extemporaneously. There should be a sense of energy and direction to the content. The students need to be convinced that you have something to say.

There is even a component of body language to this. A teacher needs to walk into a room like they “own the place” and speak accordingly. This means standing up straight, shoulders back with a strong voice that changes speed. These are all examples of having a commanding stage presence. Make it clear you are the leader through your behavior. Who wants to listen to someone who lacks self-confidence and mumbles?

Read the Audience

If all you do is have confidence and run through your PowerPoint like nobody exists there will be little improvement for the students. A good speaker must read the audience and respond accordingly. If, despite all your efforts to prepare an interesting talk on a subject, the students are on their phones or even unconscience there is no point continuing but to do some sort of diversionary activity to get people refocus. Some examples of diversionary tactics include the following.

Have the students discuss something about the lecture for a moment
Have the students solve a problem of some sort related to the material
Have the students move. Instead of talking with someone next to them they have to find someone from a different part of the lecture room. A bit of movement is all it takes to regain conscientiousness.

The lecture should be dynamic which means that it changes in nature at times. Breaking up the content into 10 minutes periods followed by some sort of activity can really prevent fatigue in the listeners.

Conclusion

Lecturing is a classic skill that can still be used in the 21st century. However, given that times have changed it is necessary to make some adjustments to how a teacher approaches lecturing.

Mentoring New Teachers

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A career in teaching is an attractive option for many young adults. One of the major challenges in a career in teaching is the student teaching experience that is normally placed at the end of the degree program. This post will provide some suggestion for teacher mentors

Go Over Local Expectations

Every school has its own set of policies and expectations that all employees need to adhere too. Often, the student teacher is not aware of these and it is the mentoring teacher’s responsibility to provide some idea of what is expected. This includes such things as showing them around the campus, communicating expectations for how to dress, discipline procedures, and even how to deal with grades.

Knowing these little things can allow the new teacher to focus on teaching rather than the administrative aspects of the classroom.

Provide Feedback

Feedback is critical so that the new teacher knows what they are doing well and wrong. It is, of course, important to mention what the student teacher does well. However, growth happens by providing support to overcome weaknesses.

The temptation for many supervising teachers is simply to mention what the problems are and let the student figure out what to do. This approach may work for an experience or a highly independent teacher. However, for most new teachers they need specific support on what to do in order to improve their teaching and overcome a weakness.

Therefore, criticism without some sort of suggestion for how to overcome the problem is not beneficial. In addition, it is important to only address major problems that can cripple the educational experience of the students rather than every single weakness in the students teaching. We all have issues and problems with our teaching and for beginners, only the big problems should be corrected.

The student also should provide feedback on how they view their own teaching. Most teacher education programs require this in the form of a journal. However, the benefit of the journal is only in discussing it with others such as the mentor teacher.

Lead By Example

IN reality, in order for a student to be a successful teacher, they need to see what successful teaching is so they can imitate until perfection. What this means for you as a supervising teacher is that you need to lay the example for the student to imitate. Everyone has there own style but a good example goes a long way in molding the teaching approach of a student.

This also means that a mentor teacher needs to do a lot of verbalizing in terms of what they do. Often, as an experienced teacher, things become automatic in the classroom. You know what to do without much thought or discussion. The problem is that if there is a lack of explanation in terms of wqhat is happening the student teacher is not able to deermine why you are doing certain things. Therefore, a mentor teacher must explained explictiylywhat they are doing and why while they are provding the exmple of teaching.

Conclusion

Students who dream of teaching need support in order to have success. This involves bringing in people with more experience to support these young teachers as they develop their skillset. This means that even experienced teachers need some support in order to determine how to help new teachers

Elearning Academic Success

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Studying online has become almost an expectation now. Even if you never earn a degree or take a class for credit online there are still many opportunities to train and develop skills over the internet. The role of the teacher is to try and find ways to engage and support their students as they begin their learning experience physically alone with support perhaps thousands of miles away.

In this post, we will look at ways to encourage the academic success of students while studying online. Two ways to support academic success in elearning involve providing feedback and encouraging engagement.

Provide Feedback

Feedback is critical in every aspect of teaching. However, in elearning, it is even more important. This is because the students have no face-to-face communication with you so they have no idea how they are doing beyond a letter grade. In addition, there is no body language to examined or other paralinguistic features that the student can infer meaning from.

Giving feedback requires timeliness. In other words, mark assignments quickly and indicate progress. In addition, if students do not meet expectations it is critical that you point them towards resources that will help them to inderstand. For example, students seem to neglect reading rubrics. When a student gets feedback from a rubric they can see where they were not succesfful.

In terms of a more formative feedback approach, there may be times where it is beneficial to live stream lecture. This allows the students to chime in whenever they do not understand an idea or point. Furthermore, the teacher can ask a question or two of the students and get feedback from them.

Engage Them

Engaging is almost synonymous with active. In other words, students should be doing something in order to learn. Unfortunately, listening is a passive activity which implies that lecturing is not the best way to inspire learning.

In the contest of elearning, one of the ways to inspire active learning is to have the students go out and do something in the real world and report what happens online in the form of a reflection. For example, students studying English will go out and teach English in the real world. They will then come and share their experience. The teacher is then able to provide insights and feedback to improve the students teaching. This provides a connection to the real world as well as a sense of relevance

In a more abstract subject, such as history, music theory, or engineering, students can become active through sharing these insights with laymen or explaining how they are already applying this information at their job or in the home. The goal of using provides the purpose for learning the content.

Conclusion

Feedback and engagement are critical to success in a situation in which the student is primarily learning alone which is found in the context of elearning.

Working with Different Class Sizes VIDEO

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How to work with different class sizes.

Teaching Autonomous Learning VIDEO

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Tips for teaching autonomous learning

Types of Reading for the Classroom VIDEO

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Reading types for instructional purposes

Questioning Strategies VIDEO

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Insights into asking questions in the classroom

Major Challenges of Teachers

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This post will provide some examples of common problems teachers face. Although the post may seem overwhelmingly negative the purpose here is to provide insight into the actual realities of teaching rather than the romantic experience portrayed in many venues.

Adminstration

Administrators are in charge of the “big picture” of guiding a school towards particular goals that are often laid out by local laws and the results of the prior accreditation visit. This focus on large institutional goals can often cause the administrator to lose sight of the needs of the teachers (unless this was a recommendation from the last accreditation visit),

What results is a task-oriented leadership that is focused on attaining goals or at least showing progress towards goals. This can lead administrators to step on, overwork, and even mistreat teachers. It is hard to blame administrators because if they do not meet specific targets they could lose their own employment.

The constant meetings and incredulous policies that are derived to “help the students” can become exceedingly frustrating for any teacher. Rest assure that few administrators just randomly think up bad ideas. Often the inspiration is from a higher source that is abusing the local administrator.

Co-Workers

There is a surprising amount of petty bickering and fighting among teachers that can become Machevellini in nature. Gossiping backbiting and of course backstabbing all take place. A teacher A confides in teacher B there having problems handling their students and teacher B spreads this to everyone on-campus that teacher A is a terrible teacher who cannot handle her duties.

I’ve heard of teachers complaining that other teachers do not collaborate during lunch with them as though lunchtime is meant to be a meeting that has required attendance. In another setting, I’ve seen teachers slander another teacher in order to help a friend get the job. Petty jealousy can lead teachers to isolate themselves to avoid political attacks which makes it harder to support students.

Parents & Students

Perhaps the biggest problem facing teachers is not necessarily students but parents. If a child is out of line it should only take a simple phone call home to resolve the problem. However, this is almost never the case. Today many parents are indifferent to the behavior of their children. This leaves the teacher only to provide intervention towards a wayward student.

The other extreme is the parent who overly protects and defends everything their child does. This undercuts the teacher’s authority in the same way as a parent who does not provide any sort of behavioral support. The same parents are often quick to get the attention of the administration which is always.

Class Administration

There are a bevy of things that a teacher must do in their own classroom such as

Class preparation
Marking assignments
Decorating
Meetings
Communicating with parents/students
Professional development

This all requires serious time management. It is hard to stay on top of all of these expectations if you are laid back and easy going. It requires strict discipline in order to keep some sort of sanity.

Conclusion

Teaching is tough. However, it is not all bad. There are many rewarding moments in being a teacher. Yet to be successful a teacher must be aware of the common problems that will face so that they are able to weather them.

Teacher Burnout

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Teacher burnout is a common problem within education. The statistics vary but you can safely say about 1/3 of teachers suffer from some form of burnout at one point or another during their career. This post will define burnout, explain some of the causes, the stages of burnout, as well as ways to deal with burnout.

Definition

Essentially, teacher burnout is an experience of a person who is overwhelmed by the stress of teaching. The most common victims of this are young teachers as well as female teachers.

Young teachers are often at higher risk because they have not developed coping mechanisms for the rigors of teaching. Women are also more often to fall victim to teacher burnout because of the added burning of maintaining the home as well as difficulties with distancing themselves emotionally from their profession as a teacher.

Causes

Teacher burnout is generally caused by stress. Below are several forms of stress that can plague the teaching profession.

Workload-This is especially true for those who can never say “no.” Committees, field trips, student activities, grading, lesson plans, accreditation. All of these important tasks can overwhelm a person
Student behavioral problems-Classroom management is always a challenge as families continue to collapse.
Issues with leadership
Boredom-This stressor is more common with experienced teachers who have taught the same content for years. There are only so many ways to teach content that are appealing to the teacher before there is some repetition. Boredom can also be especially challenging for a teacher who values learning more than personal relationships with students.

Stages of Burnout

The stages of teacher burnout follow the same progression as burnout in other social work like professions. Below are four stages as developed by McMullen

Closed off- The burnout victim stops socializing and is rigid against feedback. Signs include self-neglect.
Irritable-The victim temper shortens. In addition, he begins to complain about everything. Problems are observed everywhere whether they are legitimate or not.
Paranoia-The teacher is worried about everything. Depression is common at this point as well as a loss of motivation.
Exhaustion-THe teacher is emotionally drained. They no longer “care” as they see no way to improve the situation. Compassion fatigue sets in which means that there is no more emotional support to give to students.

Dealing with Burnout

Perhaps the most important step coping with burnout is to prioritize. It is necessary for a sake of sanity to say no to various request at times. Personal time away from any job is critical to being able to return refreshed. Therefore, teaching cannot be the sole driving force of the typical person’s life but should be balanced with other activities and even downtime.

It may also be necessary to consider changing professions. If you are not able to give your best in the classroom perhaps there are other opportunities available. It is impractical to think that someone who becomes a teacher must stay a teacher their entire life as though there is no other way to use the skills developed in the classroom in other professions.

Conclusion

Burnout is a problem but it is not unique to education. What really matters is that people take control and responsibility of their time and not chase every problem that comes into their life. Doing so will help in coping with the rigors of the teaching profession.

Critiques of Groupwork in ESL Classrooms

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Many ESL teachers adhere to the principles of Communicative Language Teaching which includes such characteristics as cooperative language learning and groupwork. However, not everyone has embraced the emphasis on groupwork in modern language classrooms.

This post will explain some of the common objectives to groupwork in order to inform language teachers as to what concerns some have with the popularity of groupwork.

Use of the L1 Groupwork

If a class has a large number of students who share the same L1 there is a risk that the students will use their L1 when working in groups. This is a particular risk in EFL classrooms. However, there are several ways to address this problem

Make sure the task is of moderate difficulty. Too hard or too easy will encourage L1 use
Provide clear directions. If the students don’t understand what to do they will communicate frustration in their own language
Emphasis the use of the L2. This provides relevance and accountability

Lost of Control

Groupwork usually looks chaotic and messy. Some teachers and administrators do not like the appearance of groupwork even if learning is taking place. Dealing with this problem requires the use of a reduced emphasis on groupwork but not the total removal of it.

There are times when group work should be avoided because of control issues. Below are some examples

Difficult students
Extremely large class sizes (how large depends on the teacher)
Inexperience teacher

Any of these situations call for caution for the teacher. Furthermore, it is necessary for the teacher to circulate throughout the room and try to support the various groups. This is difficult but normally easier than trying to support all students individually.

L2 Use in Groups will Reinforce Errors

Some argue that students using the L2 with proper feedback will develop bad habits. This true but bad habits in the L2 may be better than not using the L2. For some, broken English is better than no English.

The concern here is looking at fluency vs accuracy. Each teacher can have their preference but constant correction often discourages language use. As such, free-flowing conversation with the teacher looking the other can help in developing fluency.

Working Alone

Some students prefer to work alone. However, communication is a group experience. This means that the quiet ones must experience at least some groupwork in order to develop their language skills. Therefore, the teacher needs to encourage some groupwork regardless of student preference.

Conclusion

Groupwork should be a part of most language classrooms. The question is trying to find the appropriate balance of groupwork with other forms of learning. This is left for each teacher to decide for themselves.

Interactive Learning in TESOL

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Interactive learning is a foundational theory of language acquisition that has had a profound influence on many approaches/methods in TESOL. By foundational, it is meant that teaching in an interactive is an assumption for ensuring language acquisition.

This post will explain what interactive learning is as well as ways in which it is used in the TESOL classroom.

Interaction Hypothesis

The technical term for interactive learning is the interaction hypothesis developed by Michael Long. This hypothesis proposes that input and output in language. As students engage with each other both in written and oral ways there communication skills will improve. This, of course, is obvious for most of us but credit must still be given when someone takes what is obvious and becomes the first to note it in the literature.

Communication is viewed as a negotiation between two or more people. This experience of back and forth is where language skills are developed.

Traits of Interactive Learning

If a teacher is a proponent of interactive learning. It is possible you will see one or more of the following experiences in their classroom.

Majority of the learning happening in groups or pairs
Generating authentic language using real-world activities
Back and forth negotiated speaking
Tasks that prepared students to communicate outside the classroom

This is just a partial list of learning experiences that take place in an interactive learning classroom. The primary take away may be that it would be rare for students to work alone and or spend a great deal of time listening to lectures or on non-authentic assignments.

Approaches/Methods Influenced by Interactive Learning

The majority of approaches/methods developed in the latter half of the 20th have been partial are fully influenced by interactive learning. Communicative Language Teaching is completely about interaction. Cooperative language teaching is also highly interactive. Community language learning is also heavily influenced by interaction.

Other approaches/methods may or may not be interactive. Examples include Whole Language, Competency-Based Language Teaching, Text-Based Instruction, and Task-Based instruction. If any of these were to incorporate interactive activities it would be at the discretion of the teacher.

Conclusion

Interactive learning is perhaps the dominant foundational theory of language teaching in TESOL today. The majority of approaches/models are at least sympathetic to learning a language in this manner. As such, a language teacher should at least be familiar with this theory or perhaps consider incorporating these characteristics into their teaching philosophy.

Drill Pattern Activities for ESL Students

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Drill and practice is a behavioral approach to acquiring language. Through the frequent use of drills, students will hopefully uncover the pattern and structure of the language.

Although there is criticism of drill and practice such as the focus on memorization and the common inability of the student to generate language on their own. This method is still used frequently in language teaching.

The purpose of this post is to provide several drill and practice activities that can be used in teaching language. In particular, we will look at the following activities

Inflection
Replacement
Restatement
Completion
Transportation
Contraction
Integration
Rejoinder
Restoration

Inflection

Inflection involves the modification of a word in one sentence in another sentence

Example

I bought the dog —–> I bought the dogs

Replacement

Replacement is the changing of one word for another

Example

I ate the apple —–> I ate it.

Restatement

Restatement is the rewording of a statement so that it is addressed to someone else

Example

Convert the sentence from 2nd person to third person

Where are you going?—–>Where is he going?

Completion

Completion is when the student hears a sentence and is required to finish it.

Example

The woman lost _____ shoes—–>The woman lost her shoes

Transposition

A change in word order is needed when a word is added to the sentence

Example

I am tired. (add the word so)—–>I am so tired.

Contraction

A single word replaces a phrase or clause

Example

Put the books on the table—–>Put the books there

Integration

Two separate sentences are combined

Example

They are kind. This is nice—–>It is nice that they are kind

Rejoinder

These are responses to something that is said. A general answer based on a theme is expected from the student

Example say something polite

Thank you

Example agree with someone

I think you are right

Restoration

The student is given several words and they need to combine them into a sentence

Example

boy/playing/toy—–>The boy is playing with the toy

Conclusion

The examples in this post provide some simple ways in which English can be taught to students. These drill and practice tools are one of many ways to support ESL students in their language acquisition.

Distributed Practice: A Key Learning Technique

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A key concept in teaching and learning is the idea of distributed practice. Distributed practice is a process in which the teacher deliberately arranges for their students to practice a skill or use knowledge in many learning sessions that are short in length and distributed over time.

The purpose behind employing distributed practice is to allow for the reinforcement of the material in the student’s mind through experiencing the content several times. In this post, we will look at pros and cons of distributed practice as well as practical applications of this teaching technique

Pros and Cons

Distributed practice helps to maintain student motivation through requiring short spans of attention and motivation. For most students, it is difficult to study anything for long periods of time. Through constant review and exposure, students become familiar with the content.

Another benefit is the prevention of mental and physical fatigue. This is related to the first point. Fatigue interferes with information processing. Therefore, a strategy that reduces fatigue can help in students’ learning new material.

However, there are times when short intense sessions are not enough to achieving mastery. Project learning may be one example. When completing a project, it often requires several long stretches of completing tasks that are not conducive to distributed practice.

Application Examples

When using distributed practice it is important to remember to keep the length of the practice short. This maintains motivation. In addition, the time between sessions should initial be short as well and lengthen as mastery develops. If the practice sessions are too far a part, students will forget.

Lastly, the skill should be practiced over and over for a long period of time. How long depends on the circumstances. The point is that distributed practice takes a commitment to returning to a concept the students need to master over a long stretch of time.

One of the most practical examples of distributed practice may be in any curriculum that employs a spiral approach. A spiral curriculum is one in which key ideas are visited over and over through a year or even over several years of curriculum.

For our purposes, distributed practice is perhaps a spiral approach employed within a unit plan or over the course of a semester. This can be done in many ways such as.

The use of study guides to prepare for quizzes
Class discussion
Student presentations of key ideas
Collaborative project

The primary goal should be to employ several different activities that require students to return to the same material from different perspectives.

Conclusions

Distributed practice is a key teaching technique that many teachers employ even if they are not familiar with the term. Students cannot see any idea or skill once. There must be exposed several times in order to develop mastery of the skill. As such, understanding how to distribute practice is important for student learning.

Examples and Nonexamples in Teaching

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Teaching involves the use of various techniques in order to convey meaning for the students. The available methods that are available are highly varied. In this post, we will look at the use of examples and nonexamples in providing meaning for students.

Example

The term many of us are probably familiar with is example. In education, examples represent an idea or concept that a teacher is trying to teach their students.For example (no pun intended), if a teacher is trying to explain vocabulary they may use several different illustrations to explain the word. Consider the example below.

Teacher: Today’s vocab word is convoluted. Convoluted means something that is complicated. For example, the human body is very convoluted with all of its cells and systems.

This example above brief an illustration of the use of examples. Examples provide synonyms or other means of similarity with the unclear concept. Therefore, an example is always like or similar to whatever it is an example of.

Nonexample

Nonexamples are, as you can tell, the opposite of examples.Where examples provide an instance of similarity, nonexamples provide an instance of contrast. Below is the same situation with the use of convoluted is a sentence but this time the teacher shows the meaning through employing a nonexample.

Teacher: Today’s vocab word is convoluted. Convoluted means something that is complicated. Something that is not convoluted would be a rock or a ladder.

The example in the last sentence is an example of what convoluted is not. The contrast helps students to envision what the word is not and to develop their own ideas of what the word is.

Teaching Ideas for Examples and Nonexamples

Depending on the teaching method there are many practical ways to use examples and nonexamples. If direct instruction is used, it would be the teacher who provides the examples and nonexamples. If indirect instruction is employed, the students create the examples and none examples. In cooperative or inquiry classrooms, small groups develop examples and nonexamples.

For whatever reason, it is normally easier to develop examples rather than develop non-examples. The mind seems better adapted at seeing similarities rather than differences. For this reason, challenging students to develop nonexamples, may stretch their thinking more.

As a teacher, it is probably best to develop examples and nonexamples before teaching that are consistent with the goals and objectives of the learning experience. It’s difficult to create great teaching strategies while in front of the students. A methodological approach to developing teaching tools is always valuable.

Conclusions

Examples and nonexamples are tools that most teachers have been using without perhaps knowing it. This is especially true for examples. However, understanding how and why the tools work is highly beneficial in inspiring informed practice.

The Natural Approach to Language Acquisition

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The Natural Approach is a somewhat radical approach in language teaching. By radical I mean that it was often anti-everything that was happening in language teaching at the time of its development. Now, the Natural Approach is considered a fringe but not too shocking in terms of the philosophy behind it.

In this post, we will look at the assumptions, curriculum and of the Natural Approach

Assumptions

The Natural Approach is based on cognitivism and starts with the assumption that language learning emerges naturally if students are given appropriate exposure and conditions.

The focus is always upon the meaning of words and grammar is not focused upon. There is no need to explicitly analyze the grammatical structure of a language. Instead, the Natural Approach, students need time to develop gradually a knowledge of the rules. The language experience must always be slightly beyond the student’s ability as this stretches the student to continue to grow.

The Natural Approach also encourages maintaining an enjoyable and warm classroom environment. This is believed to help with motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety.

Curriculum

The Natural Approach is intended for beginners in a language. Therefore, the most basic skills are acquired from the use of this approach. The learner plays a role in the development of the curriculum. They are expected to do the following.

Share their goals for learning the language
Deciding when they want to begin to talk in the target language
Make sure the communication in the class is comprehensible

The teacher’s role is to provide clear examples of the target language. The teacher is also expected to provide a friendly warm atmosphere of learning. Lastly, the teacher needs to provide a variety of learning experiences.

The teacher achieves these goals through the use of games and group activities. Singing is another aspect of the Natural Approach as well. Basically, the students experience the language in a fun, low-stress environment. Through this easy-going experience, language acquisition takes place.

Conclusion

The Natural Approach to language learning is distinct in its cognitive focused yet relax environment emphasis. This approach is highly useful for training children in particular in acquiring a new language as the focus is more on fun than the academic discipline of learning.

Competency-Based Education

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Competency-based education (CBE) involves focusing on the outcomes of learning in the form of standards/objectives rather than the input of learning as they are developed by the teacher. This is actually a radical shift in terms of approaching curriculum development.

This post would provide a brief explanation into CBE and its role in education

The Old vs the New

One of the original models for curriculum development was established by Ralph Tyler. His model, in summary, includes the following steps

Decide what to teach
Decide how to teach it
Decide how to assess it

This model is a classic but it is lacking in including actions that the students should do. When employing the Tyler model, all the teacher has to do is get through content without concern for the progress of the student.

CBE, has a slightly different model for curriculum development

Describe learning outcomes (what the student can do at the end of the course).
Decide how to assess it
Decide how to teach it

There are some significant differences between these two models. For example, the CBE model starts with learning outcomes and progress not to how to teach but how to assess. Developing the assessment first ensures that the teaching is consistent in preparing students for the assessment because the teachers know already what they are assessing.

When developing learning outcomes the need to be specific and practical. This is in contrast to goals which are broad and immeasurable. Learning outcomes should be mastered one at a time to allow the student to focus.

Focus of CBE

CBE also emphasizes the following

Authentic assessment-The assessment must be based on real-world scenarios. This allows students to develop skills for functioning in society.
Continuous assessment–Another term for this is formative assessment. There is no benefit to assessing students only summatively from the CBE perspective as this negates the incremental use of learning outcomes.
Demonstration of mastery-Before moving to the next step, students must show mastery of the current information.

The focus of CBE allows for learners to know where they are in terms of their progress.

Conclusion

From the perspective of some, the entire standards based approach to teaching is based on principles derived from CBE. Businesses also use this approach in developing training materials for their workers. The extent to which CBE has influenced education is deep and far reaching.

With its focus on breaking expected behaviors into small increments, CBE is very useful in assessing people and providing data. This is perhaps the strongest reason for the success of this approach.

Rapid Instructional Design

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Instructional design is a critical component of education particularly in the field of e-learning. Instructional design can be defined as the application of learning principles in order to support the learning of students. To put it simply, instructional design involves designing the teaching in a way that improves learning.

In this post, we will look at one example of an instructional design. We will look at Dave Meiers’s Rapid Instructional Design (RID).

Meier’s RID model uses learning techniques that speed up learning and includes a learning environment that emphasizes practice, feedback, and experience rather than presentations. RID is focused on active learning rather than the traditional model of passive learning through such examples as lecturing.

The RID model has the following four phases

Preparation
Presentation
Practice
Performance

Preparation

Preparation is about preparing the learner for learning. In this first step, the teacher would share the big picture of the learning experience. This includes state the goals and benefits of the learning experience. Other activities at this step are to arouse the interest of the reader in an appropriate matter and to deal with any potential problems that would impede the learning.

How this can be done varies. Often, beginning a lesson with a story or illustration can arouse interest. Dealing with problem students could be one way to deal with potential barriers to learning.

Presentation

At the presentation step, the learners are first exposed to the new knowledge and or skill. Whereas traditional teaching focuses on content delivery, the RID model focus on interactive activities and discovery learning.

A primary goal of RID is to use and incorporate real world phenomenon into the teaching. For example, do not only talk about math but develop lessons from the real world involving people and companies for the students. This enhances relevancy.

Practice

Practice involves having the students use whatever they just learned. This is critical as this allows them to learn through trial-and-error. As they receive feedback on their progress the students develop mastery.

Practice is easy in such fields as math, science, and even music. For more abstract fields such as critical thinking, theology, and philosophy. Practice takes place via discussion or through expressing ideas in writing. Demonstrating thought through communicating ideas verbally and in writing are forms of practice for more abstract subjects.

Performance

Performance is the application of the skill in a real-world setting. This is also known as an authentic assessment. How this is done is discipline specific.

In education, performance includes such activities as the student teaching phase of a new teacher. This allows the student to apply many of the skills they learned during their teacher training. In music, the recital serves as an excellent model of performance.

Conclusion

The RID model is just one of many ways to guide the learners of students. The value of this model is in the simplicity of its approach and the emphasis on active learning.

Beyond Teaching: Grow or What?

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You survive your first year of teaching, in fact, you have survived several years of teaching. You are by no means an expert but you know your way around the classroom and can get things done with the students. You have a few tricks that you know will work and occasionally you add a new one. At this point in your career as an educator you have two choices

Move into leadership (ie section leader, department head, vp, principal, etc.)
Continue in the classroom

These are the two choices ever teacher faces after overcoming the initial struggles of the classroom. The reality is that there is little room for career advancement beyond leadership opportunities. Either you continue teaching the way you do now, become a better teacher, or move into leadership. There are few lateral positions in education, especially in smaller less populated areas. If you lack passion for leadership the classroom could become tedious.

This partially explains why the best and the brightest are not attracted to a career in the classroom. There are few opportunities for expanded responsibility. Combine this with low pay, difficult students and parents and there is little to attract someone to a lifetime in the classroom. A few years in the classroom is good for the resume but a career? This is a hard sell for many.

Despite these concerns there are several ways to grow among some of the most common includes

Reflection
Action research
Collaboration with others

Reflection

Reflection or praxis involves looking over what you taught and deciding what went well and not so well. This type of thinking can happening in writing by keeping a journal and or through recording yourself while teaching. This allows you to see what is working and not working and to develop a plan for change.

Action Research

Reflection is in many ways one form of action research. Action research is the process of systemically assessing problems in the classroom and developing an action plan for change. This topic has been discussed on this blog before.

Collaboration with Others

There are many ways teachers can work together to grow. For example, peer teaching involves teachers who mutual observe each others teaching and provide comments for growth and improvement. Peer observation is a teacher watching the teaching of another educator. It does not involve both teachers watching each other teach.

There are also the traditional method of seminars, conferences, magazines and more that help teachers to learn from each other. Working together is critically important as teaching can often become a lonely experience with collaboration.

Conclusion

Many believe that teaching should be a life-long profession. However, this is naive. People should continue in an occupation as long as they are fully committed to it and draw satisfaction from it. It is better to be an excellent teacher for five or ten years than to be a terrible teacher for 25 or 30 years because literature states that teaching is a life-time profession. JK Rowling, George Orwell, Lyndon Johnson, and even Sylvester Stallon were teachers before moving on to other opportunities. There is no need to worry about the lives you could have touch as an educator as long as you have a positive impact on the lives you actually came in contact with.

Learning to Learn: Teaching Autonomy to Students

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For many educators, the primary purpose of education is to equip students to learn to learn and think for themselves. How this is done is not always clear. However, one goal is to help students to understand how they learn and to develop appropriate learning strategies that work with their character. This post will provide some strategies that promote learner autonomy.

Reflection

Reflection is about looking back on what happened and deciding what went well and not so well. This is an important step in autonomy in that students begin to understand what their strengths and weaknesses clearly are. However, it is not enough to define strengths and weaknesses. The next step is to have students develop a plan to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses.

For example, after completing a major project or assignment in any class, you can have the students write a 1-2 reflection paper in which they share strengths, weaknesses, and a plan to maximize strengths and deal with weaknesses. The purpose of such an assignment is not to rigorously mark it but to get the students to think about their own progress.

Another approach involves having the students develop a list of what they can do after a particular learning experience. Whatever subject is taught, the students identify what they can now do.This is a way of empowering the students to realize that they have actually learned something and can go forward able to reproduce these skills.

Provide Different Strategies

Autonomy is about choice. Therefore, providing various learning strategies for the students can play a role in developing autonomy. An example would be providing various ways to take notes. Students can learn how to develop cluster notes, a traditional outline, or some other method. After the students learn several different strategies they then choose the one that works best for them.

The opportunity for choice empowers students with responsibility. In addition, students will probably pick the approach that works best for them. If they do not, they also will get to learn that a particular strategy is not for them and they can make the decision to switch to different one.

Teaching Each Other

When students support each other’s learning it helps them to better understand themselves. Having students evaluate and comment on each other’s work is another method of developing autonomy. Evaluating is near the top of the cognitive domain and is useful in developing the thinking skills of students.

The common name for what I am trying to explain is peer-review. When students serve as teachers to one another it provides an opportunity to develop autonomous learning skills.

Conclusion

It is important that not everyone agrees with autonomous learning. Some people and many cultures expect the teacher to feed them the information. It is tempting to condemn this put it is better to remember that people view independence differently. For those who see that autonomy is important, this post provided some basic ways to approach this.

Tips for Lesson Planning: Part II

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Before developing a plan of instruction there are many factors to consider. This post will consider the following points…

Needs assessment
Syllabus
Outlining purpose

Needs Assessment

Before committing to any particular plan of instruction, a teacher must determine what the needs of the students are. This is most frequently done through conducting a needs assessment.

There are many ways to find out what the students need to know. One way is through speaking with the students. This provides some idea as to what their interests are. Student interest can be solicited through conversation, interviews, questionnaire, etc. Another way is to consult the subject matter of the course through examining other curricula related to the subject.

As an educator, it is necessary to balance the needs of the students with the requirements of the course. Many things are modifiable in a course but some things are not. Therefore, keeping in mind the demands of students and the curriculum are important.

Developing the Syllabus

Once the instructor as an idea of the students needs it is time to develop the syllabus of the class. There are several different types of syllabus. A skill syllabus focuses on specific skills students need in the discipline. For example, an ESL syllabus may focus on grammar. Skill syllabus focus on passive skills not active

A functional syllabus is focused on several different actions. Going back to ESL. If a syllabus is focused on inviting, apologizing or doing something else it is a functional syllabus. These skills are active.

A situational syllabus is one in which learning takes place in various scenarios. In ESL, a student might learn English that they would use at the market, in the bank, at school, etc. The focus is on experiential/authentic learning.

The type of syllabus developed is based on the needs of the students. This is important to remember as many teachers predetermine this aspect of the learning experience.

Outlining Purpose

Developing aims and goals have been discussed in a previous post. In short, aims lead to goals, which lead to objectives, which is necessary can lead to indicators. The difference between each type is the amount of detail involved. Aims are the broadest and may apply across an entire school or department while indicators are the most detailed and apply maybe only to a specific assignment.

A unique concept for this post is the development of personal aims. Personal aims are opportunities for the teacher to try something new or improve an aspect of their teaching. For example, if a teacher has never used blogs in the classroom he/she might make a personal aim to use blogs in their classroom. Personal aims allow for reflection which is critical to teacher development.

Conclusion

Lesson planning begins with understanding what the students need. From there, it is necessary to decide what type of syllabus you will make. Lastly, the teacher needs to decide on the various information required such as goals and objectives. Keep in mind that many schools have a specific format for their syllabus. In so, a teacher can keep the concepts of this post in mind even if the structure of the syllabus is already determined.

Textbooks in the TESOL Classroom: To Use or Not to Use

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For the past 35 years, there has been an interesting debate over the use of textbooks in English language learning context. Naturally, there are three camps, those who support the use of textbooks, those who do not support the use of textbooks, and those who believe it depends. In this post, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using textbooks as well as tips for those who want to use textbooks but with flexibility.

Advantages

Good textbooks have a coherent curriculum within them that provides all the essentials needed for teaching, such as activities, assignments, media and clearly written text. This is priceless information especially for those new to teaching who do not have the prior experiences and or resources to teach a class without a textbook.

Most students actually prefer some sort of textbook as well. It allows them to track their progress by seeing what they have done and what they still need to do. There is a sense of pace as the class moves through the text. Even if the student neglects to read the textbook it still serves as an anchor throughout the course.

Disadvantages

Textbooks can be ridged if they are stubbornly adhered too. This can become a serious problem if there is something in the approach of the book that the students struggle to understand. Even a great textbook may not be able to meet the needs of a particular group of students.

Textbooks can have other issues as well. The book might be expensive, it might be too heavy or big for students, and or the textbook might also lack user-friendly features.

For Those on the Fence

Some want to use textbooks occasionally, for those here are some tips below

Replace only parts of the book with what you want- Some teachers use pieces of a textbook while replacing topics that do not work for them or their students. This is a reasonable compromise between total rejection and acceptance of a textbook.
Modify- Sometimes, teacher modifies a chapter or topic within a textbook instead of replacing it. Perhaps they add another activity or replace an assignment. Other options include changing the order information is presented, adding to a chapter, and leaving information out that is in the chapter.

Conclusion

Textbooks are part of education. Some appreciate this while others are looking for alternative approaches. Teachers and students will need to work together in order to see how textbooks can benefit the learning experience.

Grouping Students IV: Pros and Cons of Groupwork

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Group work is another approach for having students complete assignments and task. A group is often characterized as anywhere from 3-8 students with most groups being in the 3-5 member range. As with other approaches to grouping, this one also has pros and cons. This post will explore the good and the bad of having students work together in groups

Pros

Here are some common advantages to group work.

Encourages collaboration and cooperation
Opportunity for decision-making
Opportunities for role-differentiation

Groups encourage students to work together and collaborate in order to achieve something. As they work together, the students are developing communication and cooperation skills. The students also are being given a chance to work on their overall social skills as well.

In groups, students need to make decisions about various matters in order to coordinate the completion of the task. This involves critical thinking as well as negotiating skills. Students need to maneuver this process in order to develop a plan for action.

Another benefit of groups is the opportunity to assigned roles. Preferably, every group experience calls on people to work on a team in which their strengths can be utilized. This is not always the case but in reality, people often work on teams according to their strengths. As such, groups that allow people to focus on tasks that take advantage of their talents is beneficial.

Cons

Some problems with group work include the following.

Organizational time
Risk of chaos
Student’s preference to work alone

Groups take more time to setup and get going. Students often have to move around and begin planning and discussing. Each group needs a little personal attention to get them focused and on the right track. After this, there is still lingering confusion over what to do even when the best teachers explain the assignment.

In a related point, group work brings chaos. Students are talking, in and out of their seat, and working on something that involves several people. This is in contrast to students sitting quietly in rows working on something. As such, many teachers are not comfortable with students working in groups. There is nothing wrong with not enjoying having kids in groups. However, a little bit of group work is an experience students need to become more versatile.

Just as some teachers do not like group work so do many students disagree with it. Many prefer to work alone, are shy, or do not like the noise. As such, the proper prescription is a little bit of group work without over doing it.

Conclusion

Group work is part of living in this day and age. Everybody needs to do it at least some of the time. It is important that teachers and students understanding the purpose and goals of group work before the process begins. This will help in reducing the impact of the cons of group work.

Grouping Students III: Pros and Cons of Pairwork

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Having students work in pairs is a classical learning activity in the classroom. As with other activities in the classroom, working in pairs has pros and cons to it. This post explores the advantages and disadvantages of having students work in pairs.

Pros

Below are some common pros to students working in pairs

Students working together require less guidance from the teacher
When students need help, the teacher works with several students at a time instead of one
Promotes collaboration and cooperative learning

Students who are working together can discuss and often figure out what to do without teacher intervention. Why would any teacher want to explain something he can have the students figure out? In pairs, students can teach each other and utilize the synergy that comes from working together.

When students cannot overcome an obstacle, the teacher is there to provide support. However, instead of working with only one student, the teacher is working with two students at a time. This reduces the amount of support needed significantly because as long as one student understands what the teacher says they can help their partner to grasp the information.

Pair work promotes collaboration and cooperative learning. These are critical skills that students need to compete in the world. As they work together they develop skills for real-world collaborative and cooperative learning.

Cons

To be fair, pair work is not always the best approach. Below are some disadvantages with pair work.

Noisy and risk of chaos
Lost of direction
Student disdain

Working in pairs can be noisy and loud. This can lead to chaos in the classroom. It will take serious classroom management skills to get students to stay the course and complete the task.

A second point that is highly related to the first is that students can lose direction when working in pairs. It is easy for them to start to talk or do anything not related to the learning activity. This can even apply to adult learners. Keeping students focused is another skill that a teacher needs when putting students in pairs.

Lastly, some students hate working in pairs. They may prefer to work with the teacher or alone. This can also be compounded if the student does not like who they have been partnered with. To successfully overcome this requires the teacher to be aware of the relationships and even the politics of their classroom.

Conclusion

Few would argue that students need to work together. The real question is how much? Some teachers require more pair work than others. The point is that pair work should be a part of the learning experience but not the only learning experience of any classroom.

Grouping Students II: Pros and Cons of Individual Work

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There are many different ways in which a teacher can group their students. One option is to have the students work alone. This post will look at the pros and cons of having students work individually.

Pros

Some of the pros of individual learning are the following…

Contributes to learner autonomy
Responsiveness to individual differences
Useful for transitioning from high stress experience

Individual work helps students to develop the capacity to learn without always leaning on others. This can hopefully lead to some sense of learner autonomy, which is a critical goal of many teachers. As students rely on their own resources it strengthens them in learning to learn on their own.

Individual learning is closely related to differentiated instruction. A teacher can plan distinct experiences for each student and respond to the needs of the students personally when individualize learning happens. This catered made experience is critical for many students

After a noisy whole-class or group project experience, individual work can be used as a classroom management tool to calm the students down and transition to another activity. For example, after a science lab activity that has the students out of their sits and talking and moving around, the teacher has them write a reflection about the experience quietly in their seats. The students are reflecting on the experience and they are calmly at their desks. After this, they transition quietly to the next subject. This is preferred instead going from one loud and active activity to the next with some form of cool-off transition.

Cons

Nothing is perfect not even individual learning. Below are some concerns with this approach

Lack of social cohesiveness
If teaching is individualized as well, it significantly increases the workload of the teacher.

When students work individually they are work alone. This means that there is little social interaction and camaraderie. This can be good or bad depending on the context. In many cultures, extensive individual work is not appropriate as students naturally want to work together. In other settings, it is individual students who struggle with this approach because of their out-going nature.

If the teacher makes an effort to personalize the learning of each student it can increase their workload a great deal. If the class is small it may be doable but in larger classes this could be a nightmare. Individualized instruction is usually the preferred model of teaching but this does not mean that it is the most practical.

Conclusion

All modes of teaching have times when they work and when they do not work. Individualized learning has a place in the classroom. However, it is finding a balance between these various styles that is critical to the success of the learner and the teacher.

Grouping Students I: Pros and Cons of Whole-Class Teaching

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Teaching the entire class at the same time has a place in education. There are times when it is most effective and beneficial to the students when they actually sit and listen to what the teacher has to say. Having said that, there are also many instances when this approach is not appropriate in learning. This post will take a look at the pros and cons of whole-class instruction.

The Pros

The following are some instances when whole-class teaching my be useful

When the teacher needs control
To increase a social cohesion
When it is preferred

When the teacher needs the power whole-class teaching is useful. This is most common when giving instructions, doing a demonstration, or explaining something that is completely new to the class. Other instances when whole-teaching is useful is when the teacher is presenting visuals or other forms of media.

Teaching to the whole-class is also beneficial in terms of social cohesion. In some cultures, doing things together is important. This is particularly true in collectivist societies. When everyone is listening together and laughing together it builds community. This is difficult for some to understand but it is necessary to be aware of this depending on the context.

Whole-class teaching could also be the preference of the students and teacher regardless of culture. Some students do not like to work in groups while others prefer the anonymity of being in a larger group focused on the teacher. For whatever reason, whole-class teaching works just because of the setting.

The Cons

Some problems with whole-class teaching are below

Passive, transmission of knowledge learning
Overly collective
Difficult for shy students

Whole-class teaching leads to the teacher transmitting knowledge to the students. This goes against active learning in which students participate in their learning. It is exceedingly boring for many people and does not help in retaining, understanding and applying new knowledge. Passive learning is not a way to make active learners who can do something with what they have learned

Whole-class teaching is also seen as overly collective. Everyone is forced to do the same thing. This goes against the idea of differentiated instruction which promotes having students do different things in the classroom at the same time. Students are usually heterogeneous in terms of their skills and abilities so it makes it difficult to support consistent use of only whole-class teaching.

Lastly, whole-class teaching makes it challenging for shy students to participate. Many students do not want to speak in front of the whole class as they do not like this kind of pressure. However, in small groups, these same students feel much more comfortable sharing their views. Therefore, occasional use of small groups, even in collectivists contexts, will allow all students an opportunity for fuller participation.

Conclusion

Whole-class learning still has a place in education. The question is how much of a place? The point is that a moderate approach to whole-class instruction is beneficial to students and the teacher. There are times when this approach is the best and there are many times when it does not work. It is best for the teacher to determine when to use this approach based on the needs of their students.

Giving Feedback on Written Work

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Marking papers and providing feedback is always a chore. However, nothing seems to be more challenging in teaching then providing feedback for written work. There are so many things that can go wrong when students write. Furthermore, the mistakes made are often totally unique to each student. This makes it challenging to try and solve problems by teaching all the students at once. Feedback for writing must often be tailor-made for each student. Doing this for a small class is doable but few have the luxury of teaching a handful of students.

Despite the challenge, there are several practical ways to streamline the experience of providing feedback for papers. Some ideas include the following

Structuring the response
Training the students
Understanding your purpose for marking

Structuring the Response

A response to a student should include the following two points

What went well (positive feedback)
What needs to improvement (constructive feedback)

The response should be short and sweet. No more than a few sentences. It is not necessary to report every flaw to the student. Rather, point out the majors and deal with other problems later.

If it is too hard to try and explain what went wrong sometimes providing an example of a rewritten paragraph from the student’s paper is enough to give feedback. The student compares your writing with their own to see what needs to be done.

Training Students

Students need to know what you want. This means that clear communication about expectations saves time on providing feedback. Providing rubrics is one way of lessen a teacher’s workload. Students see the expectations for the grade they want and target those expectations accordingly. The rubric also helps the teacher to be more consistent in marking papers and providing feedback.

Peer-evaluation is another tool for saving time. Students are more likely to think about what they are doing when hearing it from peers. In addition, students can find some of the smaller problems, such as grammar, so that the teacher can focus on shaping the ideas of the paper. Depending on the maturity of the students, it is better to let them look at it before you invest any energy in providing feedback.

What’s Your Purpose

Many teachers will mark papers and try to catch everything every single time. This means that they are looking at the flow of the paragraph, the connection of the main ideas, will also catch typos and grammatical mistakes. This approach is often overwhelming and extremely time-consuming. In addition, it is discouraging to students who receive papers that are covered in red.

Another approach is what is called selective marking. Selective marking is when a teacher focuses only on specific issues in a paper. For example, a teacher might only focus on paragraph organization for a first draft and focus on the overall flow of the paper later. With this focus, the teacher and students can handle similar issues at the same time that are much more defined than checking everything at once.

Personally, I believe it is best to focus on macro issues such as paragraph organization and overall consistency first before focusing on grammatical issues. If the ideas are going in the right direction it is easy to spot grammar issues. In addition, if the students know English well, most grammar issues are irritating rather than completely crippling in understanding the thrust of the paper. However, perfect grammar without a thesis is a hopeless paper.

Conclusion

There is no reason to overwork ourselves in marking papers. Basic adjustments in strategy can lead to students who are provided feedback without a teacher over doing it.

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