Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Best Practices
Chapter 8 of Best Practice: Today's Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools (Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde, 2003)offers seven structures of best teaching which include: small group activities, reading as thinking, representing-to-learn, classroom workshop, authentic experiences, reflective assessment, and integrative units. Some of these practices I have incorporated into my teaching on some level, but I was really interested in the concept of classroom workshop and how to creatively use this concept in high school within a 45 minute period. Two challenges I see in this approach for professionals new to the field include possessing a mastery of the course content prior to teaching the course if the teacher and students create the curriculum map for the semester, and classroom management issues with students who simultaneously work in groups, independently or one-on-one with the teacher. Maybe this process could be introduced to second and third year teachers who may be more familiar with the course content and more flexible in learning new styles before the traditional lecture approach takes hold on their practice. Another challenge to this concept is that unlike elementary schools where individuals remain with a certain grade level for some time, on the high school level, many teachers are frequently assigned different teaching responsibilities from year to year. It would be difficult to incorporate this process if each year the teacher is trying to become familiar with the course content prior to teaching and exposing the material to the students. This approach (which I really do like) would call for the administration of the school to strategically plan the length of time each teacher would teach a particular class. Barring attrition, this is easily accomplished if this is a goal for the administration. As we saw in the example of Delois Strickland, incorporating any new process into one's teaching practice takes several years to not only become familiar with the process, but to tweak it for greater student-centered learning, especially if the teacher is more familiar and comfortable with the traditional approach to classroom learning. I can see how all of these principles can really energize the students and the teachers for greater shared responsibility in the learning process.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
While I agree that comfort and command of course content is essential to good teaching and therefore to go student-centered teaching, and while I also agree that school leadership in the form of administration would need to be supportive of this method of instruction, I don't agree that it wouldn't profitably be used by teachers who taught differnet courses from year to year. At the heart of adopting these sorts of strategies, I think, is the comfort, self-confidence, and self-awareness of each individual teacher. That sense of self involves content mastery, but also humilty to not be an expert, to facilitate dynamic situations that can be more fluid and messy than a neat lesson plan, lecture notes, etc. I like that the authors recognize these concepts are no "magic bullets," and teachers need to adopt them at the pace and level with which they are comfortable to be authentic and successful.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed reading through Chapters 8 & 9 in Best Practice. I think that when I was in school, the classroom was not student-centered. It was more read/lecture and answer questions on what was read. There was not any real connection to the "real world" and how we could use the learned material away from the classroom. The Seven Structures of Best Practice helped to review, and also to become familiar with, ways of instruction that are experiential, expressive, reflective, authentic, etc. to make real student engagement happen in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteThe most difficult area in working with faculty is to have them see the need to do things differently in the classroom. Teachers need to make the connection between what is being taught and how that can be used in today's world. Once students see that there is a reason to learn whatever it might be that they are learning, it becomes more important to them. I can remember teaching graphing one year by following stocks on the stock market. This was to a 6th grade class. They fully understood how to read the stocks increase or decrease in value. They understood how the stock market connected to the real world. They had fun graphing the increases/decreases and at the end ofr three weeks, they were able to calculate their gainsd or losses. That was authentic teaching; students remember this type of learning.
I agree with John's point of view in terms of classroom workshop. My understanding of curriculum in a secondary school setting means that the course or subject has learning objectives and assessments, and this of necessity limits choices and improvisations. It is even more the case when common assessments are mandatory across classes in the same subject. I think that classroom workshops would be an excellent form of learning for some well-motivated and organised students, but I can think of many students over the years who require much more structure and direction.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote in my other blog I too I have been a bit intimidated by the whole work shop idea. To start I think time is a big issue in dealing with the workshop model in high school. 45 minutes is nowhere near enough time. My understanding of this concept is that we want to have a majority of our class time dedicated to the class doing something. I think science classes, or woodshop, or pe classes already use this workshop model. A good science teacher would not lecture more than allow the students to experiment with the concepts discussed. Nor would a PE teacher lecture about running laps, they would give pointers and let the kids do it. We can apply this idea to other subjects such as reading and writing. Children should spend a majority of the class period actually reading and writing while we coach them. I personally have always struggled with how to teach writing to little ones. (I hope I am not the cause of the bad doctorate writing) I have always spent most of my time telling them how to do it and then for the last 5 or 10 minutes have them try. I think the idea is to switch the proportion. 5 or 10 minutes of instruction 30 to 40 minutes of doing. I tried this the other day with my first graders, where I really just modeled how I would begin brainstorming characters and then write my story. I modeled and then let them play around with it. This time giving them free range to write about whatever they wanted (many of them chose star wars... weird) I had never seen the whole class so engaged in writing as I did that day. I let them know it was time for recess and they moaned! I think choice is a very important aspect of the workshop model, let them play around with the content you delivered in their own chosen way. I think if you can structure it for first graders you can structure it for high schoolers, give the right amount of time.
ReplyDelete