Random Thoughts

The question of what makes someone a good teacher is an important one.  It is something I have written about before.  Today in on an email list someone included a link to a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell, Most Likely to Succeed.  It starts out talking about football, making a solid connection to teaching:  No matter how good someone looks in college, there are no guarantees about how they will perform in the “pros”.  He talks about a study done by folks from the University of Virginia, where they videotaped teachers and classrooms, charted what went on and “graded” teachers on their performance.  It is just like what the the football scout did at the beginning of the article.

What they have found is not surprising to me, but I think it is worth talking about.  If nothing else, this is important to talk about:

Of all the teacher elements analyzed by the Virginia group, feedback—a direct, personal response by a teacher to a specific statement by a student—seems to be most closely linked to academic success.

They say that yes-no feedback is the most typical feedback in the classroom and that it “provides almost no information for the kid in terms of learning”.

When we, the teachers, are the ones with all the knowledge, when we are at center stage, yes-no feedback is sort of natural.  We are dispensing that knowledge to our students, and they have to get it “right”.

Teacher: What is the capital of Pennsylvania, Nancy?

Nancy:  Philadelphia?

Teacher: No, that’s wrong.  Susie, what’s the capital of Pennsylvania?

Although I haven’t thought about it in many years, writing this I remember a time when just that very thing happened. I was in 5th grade, and my mother was in the classroom for some reason.  The teacher, a nice old man, was quizzing us on the state capitals.  I was asked the capital of Pennsylvania.  I don’t remember now if I said Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, but I know I didn’t say Harrisburg!  I was embarrassed, of course.  My mother later asked me how I could have missed that one.  (She is, after all, from Pennsylvania.)  I didn’t learn the capital of Pennsylvania that day.  I didn’t really learn that until many years later when I lived in Pennsylvania myself.  And except maybe for those few years, I have never had any reason to know what the capital of Pennsylvania is.

The researchers Gladwell talks about say feedback should provide a chance for the student who was “wrong” and for the rest of the class to learn. They talk about tying what goes on in the classroom to the kids’ lives.  So how could that teacher have handled the situation differently?  He could have asked me if I had ever been to Pennsylvania.  I would have told him I had been there just the summer before.  He could have asked me where I went while I was there.  I probably would have told him we went to Philadelphia, at least.  He could have spent 30 seconds or so talking about Philadelphia, explaining that it was not the state capital.  Then he might have asked other students if they had ever been there.  The answer probably would have been no.  He would then probably have had to ask anyone else if they knew what the capital was, and someone would have known.  I would have felt less stupid in class that day because I had some knowledge and information to share with the class.  And, because I was really thinking about it, I probably would have learned that very day that Harrisburg was the capital of the state of Pennsylvania.

Gladwell says:

Educational-reform efforts typically start with a push for higher standards for teachers—that is, for the academic and cognitive requirements for entering the profession to be as stiff as possible. But after you’ve watched Pianta’s tapes, and seen how complex the elements of effective teaching are, this emphasis on book smarts suddenly seems peculiar. The preschool teacher with the alphabet book was sensitive to her students’ needs and knew how to let the two girls on the right wiggle and squirm without disrupting the rest of the students; the trigonometry teacher knew how to complete a circuit of his classroom in two and a half minutes and make everyone feel as if he or she were getting his personal attention. But these aren’t cognitive skills.

I couldn’t agree more.  You can’t teach teachers to do this in a course in a college of education.

Gladwell goes on to talk about apprenticeship programs as a possible solution.  But of course, as with all possible solutions, there are some people who won’t like it.  I think we have, in effect, a type of apprenticeship program already.  Look at the teachers who leave the field within a few years because they discover it isn’t what they want to do for the rest of their lives.  But by then they are discouraged and disillusioned and, I would imagine, feel bad about themselves in the process.

I have had people in colleges of education tell me that they work with some people who just “get it” right off the bat and others who struggle throughout their “training”.  Somehow there must be a way to work with those two groups of students differently.  Maybe those who struggle could begin to “get it”.  And those who “get it” could either finish sooner or go one to learn about more and different possibilities.  But that would require changing — really changing — the way we educate future teachers.  And like all major reform to education, chances of that happening seem slim.

Mike Rose has had a great impact on my thinking as an educator.  When I read his latest blog post about educational reform and accountability, I was struck by these words:

Though “qualified teachers” are praised in public documents and speeches, teachers are often pegged as the problem. And classroom knowledge is trivialized. Teaching or running a school is characterized as just not that hard. And the field of education in general is bemoaned as bereft of talent. I’ve heard these phrases. The sad and astounding fact is that at the state and federal level there is little deep understanding of the intricacies of teaching and learning involved in the formation of educational policy.

As an educator, I agree with Rose.  If education is bereft of talent, it is because of the lack of support that teachers feel every day.  I know way too many teachers at the K-12 levels who have quit or are considering quitting or have considered quitting because they just feel like they can’t take any more.  They are micromanaged at every turn.  What intelligent, educated individual would choose to face that environment every day?   Fortunately for our nation, many of them do.  But how much longer can they take it?  Education has to change or it really will be as bereft of talent as some people think it is already.

I invite you to read the entire post.  It is well worth your time.

Jo’s post A Passionate Teacher? got me thinking this morning about passion, again!  I have written about it before, a long time ago, and not everyone liked my use of the term, but I still think that we, as educators, have to be passionate bout what we do.  We have to be passionate about our students.  We have to be passionate about learning.  If we aren’t, our students can tell in an instant.  Is it any wonder, then, that they are less than passionate about school?

Jo has been reading The Passionate Teacher: A Practical Guide by Robert L. Fried.  He talks about the “Game of School”.  Jo quotes him as saying:

‘The particular offence of playing the Game of School lies in the disengagement of our intellect and our feelings from tasks that deserve to be taken seriously: tasks like writing, reading, thinking, planning, listening, researching, analyzing, performing, applying, evaluating. We do harm when we reduce these acts of intellect, creativity and judgment to rote exercises, perfunctory deeds or meaningless gestures.’

I see students in the university who have “succeeded” in playing the game of school, but they cannot succeed in university work.  The expectations are different, and the students aren’t prepared.  More importantly, though, I think they just want to find out the rules for the new level of the same old game so they can get through it.

I was talking with a colleague yesterday about her developmental writing students.  She brought them into the language lab a few weeks ago so they could try our grammar software.  She then offered them extra credit if they would come into the lab and work for 10 minutes on their own time.  Not a single one has taken her up on it. They haven’t taken responsibility for their own learning yet.  They just want to get through it so they can do whatever comes next.  This instructor wants to make learning more meaningful for them, wants to give them the opportunity to get something real out of her class, but she doesn’t seem to be having much success.

I am trying to find a way to make my classes more meaningful for my students.  They are really pretty motivated, so there isn’t a real problem with them doing work.  But I want them to be more engaged than they are.  Part of the problem, I think, is that they would rather be studying in their majors than ESL.  The obvious answer, then, is to make my classes even more content based than they are.  The challenge is in finding the best way to do that when my students are studying a variety of majors.   I did a decent job this current semester, I think, but I want to do better.

So back to passion… Yes, I have passion for teaching, for my students, and for education in general.  And I am proud of it!

I was taking with someone the other day about the whole “Sage on the Stage” / “Guide on the Side” question.  He said that he felt it made light of his knowledge and expertise.  At the time, I didn’t have any good response, I don’t think, but Darren Cannell’s post on the subject has given me what I need.  He quotes a 1998 article by Jamie McKenzie, who says that a ‘Guide on the Side’ will be:

circulating, redirecting, disciplining, questioning, assessing, guiding, directing, fascinating, validating, facilitating, moving, monitoring, challenging, motivating, watching, moderating, diagnosing, trouble-shooting, observing, encouraging, suggesting, watching, modeling and clarifying.

… the teacher is on the move, checking over shoulders, asking questions and teaching mini-lessons for individuals and groups who need a particular skill. Support is customized and individualized. The ‘Guide on the Side’ sets clear expectations, provides explicit directions, and keeps the learning well structured and productive.

It seems to me that it is more challenging to be the guide on the side than the sage on the stage.  Anyone can get up there and deliver a lecture which provides little opportunity for students to ask questions.  Anyone can hand out an assignment and then sit back and let students work on it by themselves.  But it takes real expertise to be able to give each individual student what she or he needs, to help each student learn.

What interests me about this discussion, though, is not whether or not my expertise is being denigrated but rather whether or not I am meeting the needs of my students.  I think that there are times when it is appropriate for the instructor to instruct, to dispense information to students.  But those times have to be followed by students using that knowledge — or attempting to.  And that is when the teacher switches from sage to guide.  After circulating and assisting individual students, the instructor may see a pattern in the problems that students have had and may need to offer clarification to the whole class, going back to the sage role.    I guess I don’t think either role should be the only role of an educator, but I definitely think it is important for the guide to be the predominant one.

So now I think I will have a better response the next time someone raises the issue.  But I hope no one ever does again.  I hope it is becoming so accepted and commonplace that no one would think to question it.

Darren at Teaching and Developing Online had a link to an eSchool News article called These traits make online teachers successful.  It is one of those articles where you have to be registered and sign in to read the second page, but it is free, so you might want to do it.

The article reports on a presentation at the 14th annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning that was held last week.  The presenter was Bill Phillips.  According to the article,

He said all four demonstrated the “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” (Chickering & Gamson, 1987), which are:

- Encouraging student-faculty contact;
- Encouraging cooperation among students;
- Encouraging active learning;
- Giving prompt feedback;
- Emphasizing time on task;
- Setting high expectations; and
- Respecting diverse talents and ways of learning.

The online teachers also

exhibited what Phillips called “swift trust,” a term taken from the military. “You have to exude authority … and gain students’ trust from Day One or before,” he explained, noting that all four instructors he observed shared this characteristic.

They did this by sending students a note to students before the course started, introducing themselves and telling them them what was expected in the course.  He said the teachers

were all effective writers, used humor judiciously, spent long hours online, provided a lot of feedback, and were caring, compassionate, flexible, creative, and organized. In addition, they created a lot of redundancy–that is, they posted directions and reminders in many places throughout the online course environment, to make sure students understood their assignments and what was expected of them.

From my own experience as an online instructor, I know how important these last things are.  I am online a lot.  I check the course site at least twice a day.  I post directions and suggestions lots of places inside the course.  I have discovered that students are very selected about what parts of the site they look at, so if something isn’t posted in several places, some of them won’t see it.  I try to give them lots of feedback, both in writing on the website, in personal messages  through the site, and also orally through Skype conferences.

I love teaching online.  I want to do more of it.  But I also want to improve my face to face teaching, too.  And I think some of these additional qualities that make for a successful online teacher also make for a successful face to face teacher.

The article is interesting.  I suggest you read it if you are even remotely interested in online education.

I spent the day with a great bunch of teachers from Clovis Community College, just down the road (or more accurately, up the road) from Portales.  I was invited to join the ESL instructors for a professional development day.  I had a wonderful time getting to know them and learning from them.  Although their program and mine are quite different, I have taught a lot of adult ESL and really love it.  And I have always found that there is a lot to be learned from other teachers, regardless of the grade level or even the subject matter they teach.

I hope that this day will help us to forge strong bonds between our programs.  And I look forward to meeting with them again.

Scott McLeod has an interesting post entitled Low ability teachers, low ability students? . He cites evidence that leads him to assert that

the percentage of teachers with lower academic ability increases in schools over time. The brightest go elsewhere.

He then goes on to demonstrate that this adversely affects education in this country. Finally, he turns the discussion over to the rest of us, saying

Let’s assume that, generally speaking, these studies are correct: 1) smart people are less likely to stay in teaching (thus resulting in a concentration of teachers with lower academic ability), and 2) the academic ability of teachers impacts student learning outcomes. Now what?

Now, what? How do we keep the brightest teachers? One answer, I think, is to allow teachers to actually teach. Teaching is a very creative activity. When bright people are allowed to be creative, I think they are happier. When they are told that it is the third Thursday in March so they have to be doing X, they are denied the opportunity to be creative. And they are more likely to become unhappy.

But that isn’t going to solve the whole problem. What else can be done? If these “facts” are true, we need to do something.

Ewan’s post today has me thinking about influence. He talks about the small group of

… good teachers sharing new ideas about how we can do our jobs better.

We all know who they are. Ewan himself is one of them. But then he goes on to discuss two other ideas. The first is:

It’s not how influential you are…

Ewan says that us regular people can also become influential by being passionate about an idea to our friends and colleagues. So it seems to be as much about passion as influence. He says:

Get some regular folk together and you have a chance that your idea hits the mainstream.

I think that is what is happening with the use of social media in schools. I wonder how many of us really blog or use wikis because Will Richardson says its a good thing to do. A lot of us, I’m sure. But I know more examples of people who have been influenced to blog by watching their colleagues do it. Because that is where the support comes on a daily basis.

I have noticed in my own life that I read fewer and fewer of the most important bloggers and more of the regular people bloggers. Some of the “influential” bloggers that I read are ones I have been reading since before they were so influential. But more often than not, I get really great ideas from regular people who are passionate about what they do.

Ewan also says:

If being influential isn’t important, wherefore professional organisations?
Does this stand up in an age where anyone with ideas that society can grasp can take on an influence of their own?

This is also an interesting idea to me. I find myself not very interested in what my large professional organizations can do for me. Because I don’t see that they can do much for me. On a more local level, yes, professional organizations can help me, but an international or national level organization seems too far removed from me to be of much benefit. The influence of large groups comes from sheer numbers. And that makes it hard to create a sense of passion about anything but increasing the size and influence of the organization.

Influence is a tricky thing. It is probably true that we need “influential” people and organizations. But I don’t believe we should abdicate responsibility to be influential in our own spheres — however small they might be. In the long run, the most influential people are those who just go about their lives doing what they can to make the world a better place.

Miguel’s response to my post about a good teacher provided more food for thought. He wrote:

But quickly, I believe that we’ve set teachers up to atrophy that creative engine of their’s. Experience teaches me that it doesn’t atrophy, but that you can lose confidence in your own ability…creative juices flow strong as ever, you just don’t think they’re there.

First of all, I think Miguel is very right about the creativity existing long after we have confidence in ourselves. I think of my own experience and know that. As a child, my brother was the artistic, creative one and I was the smart, studious one. I never thought I could be creative at all. But as time passed (and as we discovered my brother was smart and could be studious, too!) I realized that I was as creative as he was. But it took a long time for me to believe that.

I think this is really true for teachers. Teaching is a creative art. Every day we have to go in the classroom and respond to our learners and their needs. We have plans, the broad outline of the painting, but the details must evolve. That is where the creativity comes in. As teachers, we do this on a regular basis. We start a lesson, see it isn’t working, and find a new way to present the material. I think that most of us do this even when we have a very rigid curriculum that we have to follow — or maybe because we have a very rigid curriculum. It requires a great deal of creativity to make that kind of curriculum work.

But we do start to lose confidence in our abilities to be creative when people are second-guessing us, when we have to be too accountable.

Miguel also said:

Reflecting on instructional practice is the catalyst for change, not what you use to accomplish it…however, being connected via blogs and wikis helps accelerate that change tremendously.

I agree with that statement, of course. The connections that we make online can give us ideas we might never have had on our own. We are constantly challenged by the people we read and the ones who read us. We are inspired to action by the success of others.

Change is not easy. If our institutions are not open, innovative places, it is hard for us to find support for change there. The online community meets that need. I still struggle with the question of how to actually bring about the change I want, I but I know that there are people out there who will give me advice, who will let me learn from their successes and their mistakes.

Thank you all.

Thanks to Ewan’s del.icio.us feed, I came across this article from the BBC about good teachers. Researchers were asked to pool their findings in an attempt to answer the question, “What makes a good teacher?” The results were interesting.

One researcher, Professor Patricia Broadfoot, was reported to have said that

the key ingredients of good teaching included: creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and fairness in the classroom, providing opportunities for “active learning” and humour to encourage pupil engagement, making learning interesting, and explaining things clearly.

According to the author, another researcher, Debra Myhill, reported that

The crucial ingredient… was a teacher’s ability to reflect on his or her own performance and then to change it.

and that

teachers should neither passively comply with government initiatives, nor should they point blank refuse to implement them. Instead they should “adapt them creatively”.

A third researcher, Mary James, said that

the teacher should “promote the active engagement of the learner”.

and the author stated:

She noted that teachers liked to be given practical guidance on how to improve their teaching, yet what they really needed to develop was their own judgment of what works and what does not work in their own teaching.

The author of the article, Mike Baker, then goes on to say

The big question now is whether – after 20 years of being told exactly what and how to teach – there are enough teachers ready to be “creatively subversive”?

Also, after years of being told in precise detail how to teach, will teachers feel ready both to devise their own way of teaching and engaging students and also constantly to evaluate and adapt their own teaching methods.

These questions are good ones, I think. I have seen my K-12 teacher friends struggle with mandated curricula that, in some cases, tell you what page you should be working on if today is January 29.

I think, though, from talking with other teachers, from reading the blogs of some really great teachers like Darren, Clarence, Jo, Graham, Eric and a bunch of others that there is, indeed, hope. There are a lot of good teachers out there. And those of us who aren’t as good as we would like to be have tremendous opportunities to learn. We can all learn from each other.