Analyzing and Improving Teaching - Essay Example

Teaching and analysis of teaching Teaching is an art that only gets better with experience. The first few months and years of teachingare important as the experiences gained during this period can makeup once mind to stay in teaching or to quit. Thus it is very important to plan and organize the tasks properly in the initial period to have a good teaching career. The most difficult time of all during the entire teaching period is the very first lecture because in the first lecture one doesn’t want to appear as a fool so one needs to prepare wisely. And in spite of that one can be always worried of the embracement caused by not being able to answer student’s questions. Every teacher wants to be liked and respected by the students. But one always need to keep in mind that liking and respect can never be forcefully achieved, one needs to earn it (Keachie and Svinicki 2006). So one may ask what makes the difference in these initial days? Well what’s important in the initial days is not the choice on interesting content but the ability to manage the activities of the class effectively. The new teacher who has techniques for encouraging class participation, and who gets the course organized in a proper way is more likely to get off to a good start. Although elementary and secondary teaching involves intensive interaction with youngsters, it is largely done in isolation from colleagues. This is especially consequential for new entrants, who upon accepting a teaching position in a school are often left to their own devices to succeed or fail within the confines of their own classrooms—an experience likened by some to being lost at sea (Smith and Ingersoll 2004). For a successful teaching for any given course there are three important aspects: a) Preparation before the beginning of the course b) Conducting the course and c) Following up with the results of the course. All of the three criteria’s are important. Usually teachers only follow the first two criteria’s and consider their job as done once they evaluate the tests. But what is also important is to understand what made the course successful and most important of all what went wrong during the course and how can the course be improved further. These minor details can make a difference between an average teacher and the best teacher. For a teacher the course does not start on the first day of the class, rather it begins way long before. Generally the teacher should start planning for the course at-least two months in advance. The goal that should be kept in the mind while planning for the course is that the overall course objective is not just to cover a certain range of topic but also to facilitate student learning and thinking. The goal is not to read out the material but to educate the students. And it is very important to realize that there is a big difference in talking about a topic and teaching that topic. Thus while designing the goal one needs to think about what will be meaningful to the students. Another important factor in the course is designing a syllabus. A syllabus usually contains a plan, with assignments that correlate with the topics discussed in the class. A syllabus should help student understand what to expect from a course. Also, constructing the syllabus will help teachers think about the practicalities of the course. What worked earlier and what didn’t, what is useful and what isn’t. This puts forward the next question: What should be in the syllabus? A syllabus usually contains a list of goals, list of chosen textbooks or a single textbook, a general schedule on when each of the chapters will be covered and of-course the related assignments (Keachie and Svinicki 2006). Once the syllabus is chosen, the next task at hand is how should the teaching be conducted? Should it be on the back/white board, or shall one use slides or transparencies? Initially they all seem to solve the similar purpose that is to teach. But one needs to be very important before selecting one of the methods of teaching. Perhaps for some lectures using a white board could be a cleaver idea and transparencies for some other. Sometimes one may focus more on discussing while involving the students and while at other times cooperative learning or role-playing may solve the purpose. Thus using different ways to teach can bring interestingness to the class. Well teaching effectively is not enough if the goal is to make student learn, apart from teaching, a teacher also needs to stress on the fact that reading is an important aspect of the education. Thus the teacher should make sure that students stress enough on reading the material. Thus to facilitate learning, choosing some material for reading is not enough, the teacher also needs to teach students how to read the material effectively. The most important and beneficial source of reading are textbooks. Though the student may collect information from the World Wide Web or through course packs, it’s the textbooks that deliver the best results. Thus the teacher should always encourage students to read the relevant course books for an increased learning. It is known that memory is affected by how deeply we process our knowledge. If one listens to or reads something then it is highly likely that that new knowledge will disappear relatively quickly if it is not processed in a proper way. What it means is that once some new knowledge is gained one needs to process it by discussing with others or talking about it or writing about it. These activities force the students to think more deeply about the new knowledge and thus help remember it for a longer time. That is, one can say that in discussion, students pay attention and think more actively. Discussion helps students in several ways such as (Keachie and Svinicki 2006): a) Discussion helps students learn to think thus giving them practice in thinking b) Helps students learn to evaluate the logic of the topic c) Develops motivation for further learning d) Help students articulate what they have learned e) Helps the teacher to get prompt feed back on student’s understanding of the topic. The most common way of teaching that is followed worldwide is lecturing. In this process the teacher gives a talk on a specified topic for certain duration of the time and the students takes notes. Effective lecturers combine the talents of scholar, writer, producer, comedian, entertainer, and teacher in ways that contribute to student learning (Keachie and Svinicki 2006). Lectures have survived even after the invention of prints, Internet, television and computer. Thus, one may ask if the lectures are the effective method of teaching? If so then what conditions make it so effective? Another related question that arises is are lectures better than class room discussions in anyway? Active participation in lectures and discovery-based laboratories helps students develop the habits of mind that drive science. According to Handelsman et al., most introductory courses rely on lectures and cookbook lab exercises that are not highly effective in understanding or reasoning (Handelsman, Ebert-May et al. 2004). Well it is know that the students learn better when they talk about it, when they discuss about it. Thus discussion methods are superior to lectures in student’s retention of information after the end of a course; in logical reasoning of the course, in development of problem solving abilities related to the course and in the motivation of further learning. Similarly prints offer advantages over lectures. The lectures are conducted at a pace most suitable for the lecturer. Thus some students may find it too fast while the rest may find it too slow. Thus they may loose the track of the lecture and may end up not liking the topic at all. On the other hand if they follow prints they can go at their own pace. They can always turn back to read the previous material etc. In spite of other alternatives to lectures such as discussions and prints, lectures have survived during the course of time. This is due to the following advantages associated with it (Keachie and Svinicki 2006): a) Presenting up-to-date information b) Summarizing material scattered over a variety of sources c) Helping students read more effectively d) Focusing on key concepts, principles, or ideas. Thus it’s always beneficial to give lectures and help students learn in more organized fashion. One should keep following points in mind while formalizing a lecture: a) Using Examples: Examples are very important during the lecture. They help students relate what they are learning with the practical situation of day-to-day life. Thus while preparing lectures it is very important to have examples for every topic covered. b) Periodic summaries within the lecture: When the lectures are too long, students often loose track of what was covered in the beginning of the lecture. Summarizing at regular intervals help them remember what happened in the course of the lecture. c) Checking student understanding: Talking non-stop for two hours is equal to not talking at all if the teacher doesn’t know if the students follow what is being taught. Thus it is highly necessary to ask students if they followed what is being taught and to give them time to ask questions or doubts on each topic covered. Doing this will also raise the possibility to have discussions in the class thus promoting learning. d) The conclusion Conclusion is probably the most important part of the lecture as this solves the very purpose of teaching. By concluding the lecture properly one can make sure that the aim of the talk has been passed on with the right meaning to the students. Very often lectures give very little time for conclusion. One should make sure that there is enough time remaining to conclude the talk. Once the course has finished students start preparing for the tests. For students it is the only important aspect of taking a course – to get good grades. Tests are usually considered as a way to evaluate if the students have learned something? On the contrary, tests can be used to evaluate the continued learning curve of students. Thus the tests should be conducted more often, regularly during the entire course period. Tests solves following purposes when designed properly (Keachie and Svinicki 2006). a) Tests facilitates learning for both teachers as well as students b) Non graded intermediate tests provide feedback to both teachers and students c) Teacher should check the assessment methods against the goals. d) Some goals such as motivation or skills can not be measured by conventional tests thus parallel tests can be designed for those goals e) Peer assessment of one another’s papers helps develop assessment skills and improves performance f) Just one final test can’t help learning; many intermediate tests should be conducted at regular intervals to assess learning in a better way. Thus learning is more important than grading and tests and other assessments should be both learning and evaluation oriented. And the teacher should make sure to avoid assessments that promote anxiety and competition. One of the most important responsibilities of a teacher is to avoid cheating under all circumstances. The main aim of a test is to evaluate the progress of the course. And if the student cheats on the test then the test is more or less meaningless both for the student and for the teacher. Then one may ask why would a student cheat? This is mainly because in the current world the focus is more on the grades than on the learning curve. And thus, one may go to any extent to get a better grade. There are several ways to cheat on the test, some of them are (Keachie and Svinicki 2006) a) By passing on the information to the neighbor b) Using notes written on clothes, paper, cards etc c) Peeking into the neighbor’s test d) Storing messages in the cell phones, calculators etc e) Accusing teacher of losing the test while the student have never handed in any f) Paying money to someone else to get the assignment done g) Copying the material for a assignment without acknowledging the source The best cure for cheating is prevention rather than a punishment (Keachie and Svinicki 2006). To scare students off cheating, the teacher can inform the students beforehand that they have to orally present the paper themselves. Also, the teacher may design very course specific assignments so that it gets increasingly difficult for the student to find anything similar to copy from. During the tests, the cheating can be simply stopped by having a large hall and placing students at a greater distance. Teacher professional development affects the overall quality of teaching. Thus for a teacher it is important to focus on the professional development. Usually there are programs conducted by the schools and universities in teacher professional development (Borko 2004). Teaching is both intellectual and social activity. Teaching helps build a society of well-educated, literate people who are capable of bringing a change. Teaching also gives a sense of satisfaction to the teacher for giving something back to the society. Teaching helps teachers confront something more complex than the teacher is accustomed to and to face master challenges. For a teacher, each class is different, each student is unique and each course is a challenge. The more they teach, the more they find to learn themselves. Teaching offers great potential for continued vitality, growth, and satisfaction. There is however always some room for improvement. The improvement happens through feedback-practice loop. After every course, the teacher receives the feedback from the students. Teacher can use that feedback in a useful way and practice on the week points. This helps in gaining better performance in future. Methods of teaching differ in their difficulty. As discussed earlier, there are several ways to teach a topic thru discussion, lecturing, role-play etc. Each of these methods holds a certain level of difficulty. Some of these methods work better for a certain topic than the rest. In the beginning of a career it is good to follow a more traditional way of teaching and then slowly diverge into more uncommon but promising methods of teaching. A teacher should always look for new ideas to teach. As the generation progresses, students will have a completely different expectations from the way the teacher. Thus its important for a teacher to stay updated by reading, hearing, discussing and experiencing newer ideas with colleagues. In order to improve the performance, the teacher should always get feedback from students, colleagues and from the faculty (Keachie and Svinicki 2006). Different schools evaluate teachers differently. Teacher’s knowledge is typically measured using variables such as courses taken, degrees attained, or results of basic skills tests. This is in sharp contrast to another group of education scholars who have begun to conceptualize teacher’s knowledge for teaching differently such as using teacher’s ability to understand and use subject-matter knowledge to carry out the tasks of teaching (Hill, Rowan et al. 2005). Although the scholars are not sure at this point of time about how to evaluate the teachers, it is more or less the teacher’s job to have some enthusiasm about learning to teach and to understand the students properly. References Borko, H. (2004). "Professional Development and Teacher Learninng: Mapping the Terrain." Educational Researcher 33(8): 3-15. Handelsman, J., D. Ebert-May, et al. (2004). "Scientific Teaching." Science 304. Hill, H. C., B. Rowan, et al. (2005). "Effects of Teachers Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching on Student Achievement." American Educational Research Journal 42(2): 371-406. Keachie, W. J. M. and M. Svinicki (2006). Teaching Tips, Houghton Mifflin. Smith, T. M. and R. M. Ingersoll (2004). "What Are the Effects of Induction and Mentoring on Beginning Teacher Turnover?" American Educational Research Journal 41(3): 681-741.  Read More