The Educator in Theory and in Practice - Assignment Example

The Educator in Theory and in Practice Being relatively new to the process of teaching and educating, it became necessary to analyze and review considerable volumes of information about teaching styles and practice. Having no practical access to large groups of students, currently, identifying a sample of youths to participate in an educational experiment became necessary. In order to be an effective educator, it was first important to understand the stage of cognitive development that is most applicable to certain groups of young students. For the purpose of this teaching experiment, several youths were selected between the ages of ten and twelve, a group known to be in the stage of development referred to as the concrete operational stage. This stage is characterized by a strong growth in understanding abstract concepts and these youths are able to distinguish logical solutions when problems are proposed. Through research, as a method of strengthening personal teaching abilities, it was discovered that this age group begins to shed their egocentric style of thinking (coe.uga.edu, 2008). Egocentric thinking involves having only a grasp of information as it personally pertains to the youth, which is quite common with students of younger ages. This group of youths, those in the concrete operational stage of development, was selected so that a broad variety of different teaching tools could be used to ensure a higher level of retention and learning. A small sample of students, consisting of three youths, was selected to take part in this educational experiment. Each child was given the opportunity to either accept or reject participation in the study. This methodology was chosen so as to appeal to each youth’s lingering sense of egotism and also to establish initial trust with the educator. Building excitement and motivation to participate was quite important as part of a cooperative, trust-building strategy to gain both student attention and keep them focused on the experiment and/or tasks at hand. For the purpose of the study, it was determined that students would be taught the simple concept of volume and liquid measurement. This provided the students with hands-on learning materials, allowing the instructor to use creative colors to keep the experiment interesting for a group of youths that are often easily distracted by the social environment or other environmental surroundings. At a personal level, it was realized that a strength in teaching is the ability to use motivational psychological strategies to build commitment and unity in group learning. Research materials have identified that in order to gain full student attention, it becomes necessary, oftentimes, to appeal to a student’s personal needs. For instance, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a respected psychological model, identifies that in order to maximize potential, a student requires a sense of belonging with the educator working towards developing a sense of self-esteem and confidence. My personality is dynamic by nature, with a sense of charisma and light-heartedness that is vital especially when working with a group of students easily unmotivated when presented information or concepts that are not considered interesting. As an educator, this personality strength enhances the learning process considerably. A personal weakness in teaching is a personal tendency to become too creative and abstract, which appeals to my own learning styles related to ingenuity. For youths just exiting a stage of cognitive development where minor self-centeredness is common, it is important to understand how to blend creativity with logic without overwhelming the students with too much information. As an instructor, it is his or her responsibility to remain focused on satisfying the mandated curriculum first and ensure each youth’s comprehension of what is being proposed. My personal learning style, the abstract methodology, can sometimes serve to undermine simple comprehension. This is something that requires additional work in a practical environment, with large groups of diverse students, to develop properly. This particular experiment, involving volume and measurement instruction, was perceived by students to be quite interesting (such as with using different food coloring varieties in the liquid measurement tools). However, it was clearly mandated to the students that the goal of the experiment was comprehension of what was being taught, therefore there was an air of authoritarian always present so that students would respect me as an educator first and a social friend second. This seemed to build quick respect for the experiment. As part of the volume instruction, I had to first create a series of learning objectives for the students, essentially a checklist of learning outcomes that were desired as a result of the learning lessons. Because my own personal strengths are not necessarily in measurement, there was first a need for personal review of these concepts to ensure that I was equipped with proper knowledge of these concepts in both mathematics and in visualization. Realizing that students will require a blend of both verbal and non-verbal learning, the instructor relied on several educational textbooks for young students that clearly define volume and measurement. “Texts should visually come alive for the reader. Students should be able to form a mental picture about the story while processing the text language” (readwik.com, 2008, p.3). With this knowledge, I was able to select several textbooks with interesting visualizations, graphs, and pictures to make the learning process more interesting. Most students in this stage of cognitive development are still attracted to these visual elements, therefore they were necessary to include in the experiment. I blended oral reading with verbal teaching of the chosen texts, so as to help students build a sense of confidence and self-esteem about learning and being able to express themselves verbally and effectively with the instructor and their student peers. The very first phase of the experimental design was to familiarize the group with one another, giving each the opportunity to identify themselves and give their peers a personal example of their experience with math and in learning about liquid volume. Using psychological concepts such as Maslow’s hierarchy, this was the first stage in setting the stage for a comfortable learning experience with students who might not necessarily be comfortable with group learning. Secondly, copies of textbook graphs (those most visually appealing and easy to comprehend) were created as hand-outs to reinforce verbal learning from the instructor. Hand-outs that reinforce previous learning materials, and as a tool for review of learned concepts, was determined to be the best method for students in the concrete operational stage. In this stage of growth, students are able to grasp these methods and make sense of charted or graphed data. For the purpose of the experiment, a hands-on section of learning was developed that involved several beakers, rulers, and even calculator tools to assist students in understanding the mechanics and mathematics of volume measurement. Youths are often more motivated to learn when they have hands-on tools to give them practical application of concepts in a real-time environment. They were allowed to experiment with different liquid volumes, add their own colors to the liquid, and discuss their findings with their peers. By giving this tactile opportunity to learn, students who were not able to comprehend through verbal instruction made noticeable strides in comprehension after engaging in group work using real-life measurement tools. This was also determined as the best method for familiarizing students with technology as a tool to enhance learning and understanding. “Instruction should begin with content and experiences likely to be familiar to the students, so they can make connections to their existing knowledge structures” (Prince and Felder, 2007, p.4). With this in mind, the instructor realized that students are likely to have more interest and build better comprehension when they can relate new information to their own knowledge about similar concepts. As another self-confidence building strategy in this experiment, the students were given an opportunity to publicize their skills in mathematics calculations so that other students could witness their skills and knowledge related to subtraction, multiplication, and addition. Further, a very brief initial survey was constructed asking questions about lifestyle in order to identify a common knowledge base that was shared by the students chosen for this teaching curriculum on volume and measurement. Outdoor activities and sports were highlighted as topics of interest with all of the students, therefore this theme was incorporated into the learning process to make the material and lectures more engaging. For instance, when the students achieved noticeable understanding of volume concepts, they were given stickers with footballs and other sports-related ideas. Their interest level grew exponentially, easily noticeable through body language and posturing, when they received small-scale rewards that were equal to their personal interests. All of these teaching methods were blended together and distributed strategically, based on reward for student learning as well as timed appropriately as comprehension became more apparent. Verbal teaching and lecturing was followed by visualization with texts and hand-outs, followed by reinforced public knowledge exchanges with their peers and the instructors, and finally the reward structure as a means to reinforce trust with the instructor and satisfy student need for approval under Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. “Hundreds of research studies show that students who participate in cooperative learning experiences tend to earn better grades” (unisanet.unisa.edu.au, 2009, p.6). This knowledge about the success of group learning reinforced that the instructor’s chosen methods of high involvement between the students was valid and should produce results. After the brief experiment was completed, students were again surveyed to uncover their personal beliefs about how the teacher blended the different teaching strategies. To test comprehension of the volume and math concepts, students were given a final exam with a section that involved solving a volume problem with one of their peers. This method of cooperative learning, using a survey with a ratings scale from 1-10, was rated with an average total of 8.2, this meaning students gave very high marks to how they were instructed including verbal, visual, and group learning methods. It was further clear that using concepts from psychology had managed to build a higher level of trust and confidence with the students. One student, at the end of the test, made a special point to show the instructor how he had learned, independently, how to competently use the calculator and was highly impressed with himself and excited about learning more in technology. This trust-building effort on behalf of the educator was reinforced with an physical embrace from one of the students, showing that the style of teaching had made a very positive impression and had created confidence in the youth where none might have existed before. Above all other styles of teaching, the students seemed to appreciate the group work and found higher levels of measurable comprehension through these activities. An educator must also be non-biased and realistic when performing a self-assessment of their teaching and educational skills, especially true when working with young students with a tendency for distraction. Even though this particular experiment tends to paint somewhat of a rosy and picture-perfect teaching methodology, the experiment and the chosen learning tools did propose some difficulties. Because of the high volume of group activities that were designed, students began to favor these activities and would often show non-verbal signs of dissatisfaction when the group work ended in favor of verbal lessons from the instructor. Just through simple observational efforts, it was clear that students were becoming un-motivated about comprehension when they were instructed to break away from peer interactions. As an instructor who genuinely wants comprehension and retention to be the first objective, in the future the teacher would reduce group activities by a margin of approximately 50 percent. Students became reliant on their group efforts and showed signs of boredom on several occasions when the instructor relied heavily on lecture instruction or self-reading exercises directly from the chosen texts. The largest learning lesson from this chosen teaching curriculum is to appeal much less to the students’ needs for socialization as it does, often, tend to cause conflict with more traditional teaching practices such as reading and verbal lecturing. References coe.uga.edu. (2007). “Piaget’s theory of cognitive development”. Retrieved July 16, 2010 from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/piaget.html coe.uga.edu Prince, M. and Felder, R. (2009). “Inductive teaching and learning methods: Definitions, comparisons, and research bases”. Bucknell and North Carolina State Universities. Retrieved July 16, 2010 from http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/InductiveTeaching.pdf Readwik.com. (2008). “Direct Teaching Methods”, p.3. Retrieved July 15, 2010 from http://www.readkwik.com/Direct%20Teaching%20Method.pdf unisanet.unisa.edu.au. (2007). “Learning styles: general teaching strategies”. Retrieved July 16, 2010 from http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/lsproject/pdf_documents/teach_strat.pdf Read More