Interesting ideas well presented as usual. I've always hated the expert/novice dichotomy since even after 28 years of teaching, I kept coming across those who 'knew' something that I didn't and age or experience were not necessarily determinants of their knowing. As well, the teacher-student interaction seemed to work better as a natural dialogue than a monologue.
I always appreciate hearing your thoughts Mark, thanks for sharing!
Shows the importance of humble leaders, who are open to their colleagues.
Interesting comment re: dialogue. How do you think a natural dialogue could be achieved in a modern classroom, considering the rather rigid structures that teach work within?
'Rigid structures' is exactly what's wrong with classrooms. They get in the way of good teaching and student engagement with consequent effect on student improvement. No-one benefits from rigid classroom structures. For the last 15 years of teaching, I had the credibility to be allowed to design a curriculum that allowed other teachers flexibility, and it showed with our department having consistently better than average results, esp. among the lower achievers. That design however, was already starting to be questioned at regional level, and I had to argue it's value and validity a number of times. Dialogue was a part of the classroom because students were working on their own projects mostly and my job was to teach, check, guide, listen, reframe such that they developed the appropriate understandings at their level.
Some great thoughts here Mark (apologies for the late response!). What I'm finding is that considering that busyness seems to be the default position of the school, time for dialogue and exploration with our students needs to be intentionally embedded within curriculum and scope and sequence documents for it to actually happen. I find that we (including myself!) tend to default to "getting on with it", rather than engaging with deeper reflection on our practice to consider the specific needs of our student cohorts.
Yes. your response is a fine example of how the systemic structures get in the way of good teaching. If the systemic structure called a 'syllabus' was not so rigid nor demanding of content coverage, something I had arguments about regularly with regional office, we could allocate time to discussion. I found that when assessment included, eg, a debriefing or interview component, discussions were more forthcoming. Even if the syllabus changed tomorrow, many teachers would still try to make things busy because that is a safe approach. Teachers have forgotten because of rushing, how to simply engage students in their own education. Regarding the idea of content coverage, if the content was framed as concepts to be built up, it seems to free up time. Concepts can be developed through multiple contexts, and multiple concepts can be covered within one context.
Interesting ideas well presented as usual. I've always hated the expert/novice dichotomy since even after 28 years of teaching, I kept coming across those who 'knew' something that I didn't and age or experience were not necessarily determinants of their knowing. As well, the teacher-student interaction seemed to work better as a natural dialogue than a monologue.
I always appreciate hearing your thoughts Mark, thanks for sharing!
Shows the importance of humble leaders, who are open to their colleagues.
Interesting comment re: dialogue. How do you think a natural dialogue could be achieved in a modern classroom, considering the rather rigid structures that teach work within?
'Rigid structures' is exactly what's wrong with classrooms. They get in the way of good teaching and student engagement with consequent effect on student improvement. No-one benefits from rigid classroom structures. For the last 15 years of teaching, I had the credibility to be allowed to design a curriculum that allowed other teachers flexibility, and it showed with our department having consistently better than average results, esp. among the lower achievers. That design however, was already starting to be questioned at regional level, and I had to argue it's value and validity a number of times. Dialogue was a part of the classroom because students were working on their own projects mostly and my job was to teach, check, guide, listen, reframe such that they developed the appropriate understandings at their level.
Some great thoughts here Mark (apologies for the late response!). What I'm finding is that considering that busyness seems to be the default position of the school, time for dialogue and exploration with our students needs to be intentionally embedded within curriculum and scope and sequence documents for it to actually happen. I find that we (including myself!) tend to default to "getting on with it", rather than engaging with deeper reflection on our practice to consider the specific needs of our student cohorts.
Yes. your response is a fine example of how the systemic structures get in the way of good teaching. If the systemic structure called a 'syllabus' was not so rigid nor demanding of content coverage, something I had arguments about regularly with regional office, we could allocate time to discussion. I found that when assessment included, eg, a debriefing or interview component, discussions were more forthcoming. Even if the syllabus changed tomorrow, many teachers would still try to make things busy because that is a safe approach. Teachers have forgotten because of rushing, how to simply engage students in their own education. Regarding the idea of content coverage, if the content was framed as concepts to be built up, it seems to free up time. Concepts can be developed through multiple contexts, and multiple concepts can be covered within one context.