Matching Strategy with Teacher Style (EDU 6526)

This week’s module on direction instruction and cultural literacy reinforced my belief that instructional strategies can only take a class so far – the engagement of students is often more a result of the teacher. As we moved along through the Survey of Instructional Strategies course, we studied many strategies that essentially opposed the traditional approach of direct instruction. Even members of the class posted comments regarding their bad experiences with direct instruction in history classes. Yet their concerns don’t really seem to be about direct instruction, as it is the engagement with material. My guess is that most students (at least college age or older) have experienced at least one professor or teacher who used direct instruction and kept the class enthralled in the topic. My point is that the strategy itself isn’t flawed – it is the combination of the wrong strategy at the wrong time with the wrong teacher.

I advocate for teachers at least trying to use as many instructional strategies as possible. This variety keeps the class’ attention and keeps a teacher thinking of new ways to introduce content. At the same time, most teachers should hone in on the strategies that work for them the best. With this said, teachers must have an idea for how the classroom should generally look like on a daily basis. I enjoy the approach of Mortimer Adler and the “Paideia” program. The emphasis on values and ideas that people face throughout history is a perfect approach for our Collegio curriculum at Seattle Prep. As an integrated course of English and History, we teach from the perspective of big ideas, themes, and essential questions. This makes more a curriculum that allows students to connect ideas from the 17^th century with those from the 21^st. History no longer becomes a classroom of facts, dates, and names. It becomes a room where ideas are discussed based on time periods and context.

Character Education (EDU 6526)

This week’s readings and reflection in Survey of Instructional Strategies focused on character education and its place in our schools. As a teacher at a Jesuit, private school, character education exists in nearly all, if not all, aspects of Seattle Prep. From athletics to ASB to academics, the mission of the school is to create “men and women for others”. This can ONLY be accomplished through character education. While not all teachers have this same luxury, it is as important for us at Prep to create strong, compassionate young people in spirit as well as academics.

I think that for many teachers, morals don’t need to be taught. In fact, I think many are scared, so to speak, to teach morals because of their connection with organized religion. In the public schools, this enters a territory of uneasiness. Therefore, many teachers revert to the cliché that values are “better taught than caught”. C.S. Lewis and some other philosophers agree in “it is more effectively communicated by informal means through the implicit example of a teacher’s kindness, visibility of community role models, and the actions of moral exemplars perceived through great literature” (Williams). Yet, no matter whether one is teaching in a private or public school, the character education aspect should be included in the regular curriculum.

How does one accomplish this? As we discussed in the forum this week, teaching citizenship and moral decision making can help teach character education. I believe that I can include students in making choices about lessons, timing of quizzes, and even homework load. When the students are forced to defend their decision, they learn that while having choice is part of a democratic society, so is justifying one’s decision. Lastly, I teach moral decision-making through presenting both sides of a situation (which works great in a Social Studies course) and letting students pick. They, again, must defend their choice with specific evidence. Through these type of situations in class, I am helping teach character, as well as trying to model it in my own life.

The Classroom Environment (EDU 6526)

This week in Survey of Instructional Strategies the online discussion centered around uniformity versus variety. How do we get students and parents invested when as teachers we teach to one style or to the masses? This may just be the millionaire dollar question. As classes grow in size and time shrinks quickly, the one on one time with students seems to go by the way side. Not to mention that in many public schools teaching to the test is necessary (or at least feels that way) since funding and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) are at stake. Yet many feel that students get disengaged and disinterested quickly when this is the case.

I feel that because of these issues it is essential to create a classroom where personalities, emotions, and the variety of intelligences can find time to shine. This isn’t to say I do it perfectly or make every kid happy all the time, but I do work hard at making it a reality. In many ways the best way to tell if students feel comfortable enough to let their personalities be a part of the classroom environment is how much they are willing to risk. Obviously this refers to safe risk-taking behavior in a classroom where a student may ask a difficult question or feel ok with struggling to understand something in front of the class. It may be acting out a scene from a novel. It may be group work. It can be a lot of things, but I know my students are engaged when they feel that way. Yet I can’t let them get goofy; I must keep them engaged in content not just in the class. This is where the variety of strategies and tapping into different learning styles comes into play. Letting students work on a visual representation of a historical event or acting out a scene from history gets students interested in material beyond my “normal” assignments. The more I allow students to be themselves and feel safe doing it, while varying my assessments and instructional strategies, the more my classroom environment will feel comfortable to all.

Cooperative Learning – Not Just for 1st Graders (EDU 6526)

Despite the fact that cooperative learning reminds some of kindergarten play time, in reality it proves to be one of the more influential and challenging instructional strategies that a teacher faces. No matter which age group a teacher uses cooperative learning experiences, there are challenges with socialization (both too much and too awkward). Yet in spite of these difficulties, the reward gained for student engagement and achievement wins out when deciding whether or not to use cooperative learning in a high school classroom.

Many of my lessons follow a format of me introducing a topic with some content followed by work individually that is followed up in cooperative learning groups of some kind. This often looks like pair work, but can many times be up to four members in a group. As the lecture states this week, there are many potential pitfalls to watch out for in using cooperative learning experiences. When the groups get too large (which I have done before), there are students who simply will not participate. Assigning tasks for each member can alleviate some of this, but it still makes it hard for a quiet kid to participate when there are even five or six members in a group. Additionally I find that my role in setting up the cooperative learning, as well as monitoring can greatly change the success or failure rate of a lesson. In other words, the more clear I am with my instructions, often times the better the work groups will produce. While this seems fairly obvious, I don’t think it can be overestimated. Secondly, the more I am physically present near groups by walking around the room and checking in, the better work they produce. Sometimes this comes about because they see me near them and they ask a question. Sometimes it is simply because they know they can’t screw around.

More often than not my cooperative learning involves the jigsaw. This works well in history as I can divide up a document or provide multiple primary sources for students to answer questions about or analyze. They then learn much more as a group by hearing from all members. As Dell’Olio and Donk state in Models of Teaching, “Rather than focusing on rote memorization of facts, her students are working as historians to construct the meaning of their documents contextually” (Dell’Olio, 270). Thus the jigsaw does not allow students to be passive. In order to truly participate, students are forced to use higher level thinking skills. Because of this and because of the social interaction it causes, I strongly support the jigsaw in high school history classrooms. Yet it is also very clear from my experience that I must have a very active role for the cooperative learning experience to be successful. This isn’t a time for passive teachers either.

Attention Students: Does it Matter What I Call It? (EDU 6526)

When I began my teaching career I was literally thrown into the fire. With a teacher stepping away in October of the school year, they needed a history teacher and they found me. Only……I wasn’t a history teacher nor really a teacher yet. I worked at the school, understood teenagers and taught one senior Economics course. It proved to be enough at the time and through hard work I became a respected, full time teacher at Seattle Prep. Yet despite my confidence and ability as a teacher, I simply didn’t come strapped with all the knowledge a certified teacher did. So it comes with this limitation that I really enjoyed this week’s work with advanced organizers in Survey of Instructional Stratgies.

In many ways I used advanced organizers at different times in my classes. I never called them that, thought of them as that or really fully understood what I was doing. Yet I found ways to take the seemingly unrelated to students and connect it to new material. I bridged the gap between the lives they live and the history I want them to know. This is what advanced organizers can do. My only critique of them comes from the semi-hypocrisy of David Ausubel and the authors of the Models of Teaching text. The text states: “Ausubel’s definition of advance organizers does not include strict operational guidelines for constructing them” (Dell’Olio, 394). At the same time Ausubel seems to give a lot of criteria, as does the PowerPoint lecture, of what advanced organizers ARE NOT.  While I understand we want to classify what these exactly are, it seems somewhat trivial to even worry about what they are or are not. The goal of an educator – in my opinion – is to challenge students to think critically and to be engaged in the material. I want to make these students better people for themselves and for the world around them when they leave my class. If I do that through a personal story, advanced organizer or joke, it doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t want to spend time worrying about the labels and whether I actually am using an advanced organizer. I want my students to love learning and advanced organizers can help me. Yet I won’t spend time worrying whether I matched the criteria correctly. I will only worry if I got those kids engaged in the lesson.

Concepts in the Classroom (EDU6526)

What needs improvement? More higher level questions for class discussion. Or….provide opportunities for critical

Bloom's Taxonomy

thinking. These comments stood out to me in my classroom observations over the past few years as a Collegio (integrated History and Engligh) teacher at Seattle Prep. While I flourished in many ways and students enjoyed my style, the challenge continued to be finding ways to push those students to grapple with higher level thinking. How do I move beyond content and into concepts? This question riddled many teachers and in fact, still provides struggles for many with years of experience. Hence this “radical” approach to thinking was the central focus of last week’s module in the Survey of Instructional Strategies course.

Professor Tracy Williams highlighted in the lecture PowerPoint how the idea of teaching concepts or themes can benefit students regardless of curriculum. She stated: “while content may change from unit to unit and from year to year in a curriculum, the themes remain as conceptual points of reference. The themes have the power of ideas, and ideas are the mortar which holds together the curricular building blocks” (Williams). This is Collegio at Seattle Prep – or at least after we revised the curriculum this summer. In my junior Collegio with the focus on American History, we take essential questions and a theme for each unit and it builds upon the previous unit. In many ways, we stick with the question of what it means to be an American and who gets included in the definition? As we move from the Revolutionary Era to the Civil War we start to see very clearly that the North and South view the definition differently and that African-Americans are not included. Then the students get to wrestle with the theme of power (politically, militarily, economically and socially) and how that influences the definition. The units are not about names and dates; they are about ideas and concepts.

A Water Class or Concept Class?

This continues with my senior course called Ecology, Economics, and Ethics: The Global Water Crisis as we teach students to become advocates of change. The course features the issues surrounding water, but it isn’t really about that. We could teach the course on hunger, disease, religion, forgiveness or any other multitude of topics. The theme is how do seniors in high school learn to combat the system and become agents of change? How do they advocate for the disadvantaged? We simply use the content to teach those skills. This is concept learning at its best and it makes me very proud to be a part of it.

Innovating Beyond EALRs (EDU 6526)

This week’s readings and discussion on the inductive model of teaching and innovation in relation to Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs) in the state of Washington seems to have polarized the class in many ways. Many teachers in our group seem to yearn for the chance or freedom to use inductive learning as created and developed by Hilda Taba (Dell’Olio), they feel stifled by curriculum documents, school districts, and above all EALRs. Others seem to think that the EALRs simply provide a guide that we can follow in order to teach the students. In fact, we can use inductive teaching techniques and ideas like those of Charlotte Mason’s to reach our students and ultimately reach those EALRs.

I struggle with the balance between these two viewpoints that seem to be emerging in our discussion group. As a teacher at a private school that attempts to stretch students beyond the “normal” limits in the classroom, I am given the autonomy to use innovative teaching models like those introduced by Taba. I spend a lot of time in my classroom emphasizing critical thinking, thus inductive teaching works very well for me. As Dell’Olio and Delk state in Models of Teaching, “During Inductive Model lessons, teachers can assess the quality of students’ critical thinking and then use this information to design additional lessons to further specific skills” (Dell’Olio, 170). Yet as a private school teacher, I get the sense from this group that I am lucky. I don’t get the same kind of scripted curriculum and pressure to conform to it that some other teachers seem to face. In this same idea, the EALRs cannot be our ultimate guiding force in the classroom. We must teach learning and critical thinking and then we will reach the EALRs. Charlotte Mason states: “Teachers deprecate their office when they do the work of learning for the child by preparing lessons that have been diluted, predigested, and are void of thought… meals of sawdust.  The work of the teacher is secured in preparing lessons with ‘prophetic power of appeal and inspiration.’  The communion develops from mind to mind, and the teacher acts as guide, philosopher, and companion.” (Mason). In order to be these companions we cannot focus on that end goal of EALRs – we must use innovative teaching techniques as describes in this week’s reading in order to to inspire and prepare. It is essential.

References

Dell’Olio J.M.. & Donk. T. (2007). Models of Teaching: Connecting Student Learning with Standards. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Effective Teaching: Not One Philosophy or Instructional Strategy (EDU6526)

As we wrap up the first week in Survey of Instructional Strategies, the class readings and discussion provided a great overview of what it means to be a good teacher. Although it may not have been originally designed in this manner, I interpret this information to be all the various sources that lead to good teaching. So what does this mean? I believe that there isn’t one instructional strategy provided by Marzano that should be used much more than any other. The key to good teaching is using the variety of strategies effectively to engage students in material and push them to think critically, especially at the high school level. In the same way, a teacher should pick and choose aspects of the various philosophies of education as outlined in Jeanine M. Dell’Olio and Tony Donk’s book Models of Teaching. To stick exclusively to one type of philosophy does not make an effective teacher who makes a positive impact.

In reflecting on my three years of experience as a Social Studies teacher at Seattle Prep, I can see my own philosophy embedded in almost every philosophy outlined in the Models of Teaching text. There are times I find myself sticking to the academic rationalism approach (Dell’Olio, 29) and ensuring students understand content, especially with my freshmen taking Western Civilization. However, I rarely stand at the front and lecture. I tend to look to the maieutic method while providing questions and cues as Marzano states in his text Classroom Instruction that Works. As both texts state, higher level questions provide students with the opportunity to analyze information and come to their own conclusions on significance (Marzano, 112, Dell’Olio, 30). This is vitally important in a history classroom. I refuse to allow my students to be passive learners. I constantly ask them “so what”? Why does it matter that Sparta treated women better than Athens when comparing city states in Greek civilization? Why does it matter that the North won the Battle of Gettysburg?

At other times I look toward the cognitive processing model of teaching students how to learn or how to think (Dell’Olio, 31). In many ways, this is essential to a Jesuit education. We strive to graduate students who embody the profile of a graduate at graduation which means they are intellectually competent, open to growth, loving, spiritually alive, and committed to justice. For students to reach this profile, they must learn how learn not just content. This is essential. At the same time, I believe I must develop positive, healthy relationships with students in my classes. This fits right in with the self-actualization philosophy in which I take into account the affective domain or feelings and beliefs of my students before I ever reach content or skill development (Dell’Olio, 37). And the list goes on and on. To be the most effective teacher possible, I cannot limit myself to one philosophy or one instructional strategy. I must utilize them all at the right moments so that my students are positively impacted as much as possible. I do this by listening, being attentive, asking questions of students and other teachers and being open to growth myself. It isn’t a static process; it is ever dynamic and I love every minute of it.

References

Dell’Olio J.M.. & Donk. T. (2007). Models of Teaching: Connecting Student Learning with Standards. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D.J., & Pollock, J.E. (2001). Classroom Instruction that Works. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.