How To Be an Effective Teacher - Essay Example

?Teaching reflection Project Details “Learning is finding out what we already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, and teachers” (Khurana 2012). This is a quote by Richard Bach and which was proofed to be correct by the teaching experience at Rishworth High School. Rishworth High School is an independent co-educational school in Halifax (UK) with very affluent children. The school offers a broad-based education for learners aged 3-18 years and it has a population of 493 students, 99 of whom are boarders. The school’s curriculum is broad with an attractive range of subjects at each phase. Psychology is offered in the A-levels. The project was a 1-hour lesson targeting 17-year olds. The lesson was on obedience to authority. The lesson was mainly based on Milgram’s work and this was related to similar studies carried out by Hoffling (1966) and Bickman (1974). Milgram conducted an experiment in which a person acting as a teacher was to administer shock to learners for giving wrong answers. From the results of the study, Milgram suggested that the best setting for determining whether a person is obedient or not is a social setting. From the study, it was found that a researcher on a white lab coat was found a powerful determinant in urging the teacher to administer shocks. Preparation for the Lesson The practical part of the project was based on a lesson plan developed prior to the lesson. The topic was selected from the syllabus and a lesson plan drawn on it. In compliance to the ideas of O'Bannon (2008), the lesson plan developed was a detailed description of the instructions for the particular lesson. It clearly outlined the learning objectives, expected learning outcomes, teaching-learning activities, teaching resources, assessment methods and the work schedule for the various activities that took place during the lesson. All the objectives for the lesson begun with a verb as outlined below. To understand and define the concept of obedience. To understand and evaluate Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience. To understand and evaluate two other relating studies such as Bickman (1966) and Hoffling (1974). Resources required for the achievement of the lesson goals were identified and appropriately acquired. In identifying these materials, students who needed extra help to achieve the learning objectives were considered and extra resources availed for them. For example, two international students were poor in English language and from their teacher’s report, they were expected to achieve a grade D. To help them, these students were given worksheets with extra hint and extra information to help them complete the tasks. Examples of these were reminders of the definitions of the terms validity, reliability and ethics. These were listed for them as follows; Validity: Does the test measure exactly what it proposes to measure? Reliability: How stable, trustworthy and consistent the test is in measuring the same thing each time. Ethics: Consider, consent, deception, harm to the participant (physical/ mental), and option to withdraw. These were helpful to them especially in evaluating the three studies. Carey (1978) explains that a lesson should not begin on a very serious note where a teacher directly goes to the lesson content. Instead, the teacher should try as much as possible to ensure it begins on an interesting note, using activities that are related to the topic as well as those that are not related to the topic. This was accomplished successfully through the starter activity designed for the lesson. A starter activity is arguably the most interesting and important part of the lesson and replaces traditional ways of starting a lesson; handing out assignments and taking the register aloud. A starter activity captures the student’s curiosity and interest, prevents early learning disruption by engaging and involving all learners from the outset, links to previous learning and sets the scene for the lesson (Wintersgill 2007). An interesting aspect of the lesson was a starter activity which comprised of fun activities. The activity was related to the lesson in that the starter activity was a game with psychology vocabulary meant to strengthen the student’s terminology in psychology. It begun with kinaesthetic learning where all students were required to take off their shoes before settling down. After developing the starter activity, ways of assessing the students using both summative and formative types of assessments were established. Formative assessment refers to formal and informal assessment processes employed during the learning process. It involves qualitative feedback by the students during the lesson and focus on the student’s performance or progress and content of the lesson (Huhta 2010). To accomplish this, questions to be answered by the students while the lesson progressed were formulated. On the other hand, summative assessment monitors educational outcomes at the end of a lesson or topic for the purposes of external accountability (Black & Wiliam 1998). The summative assessment was formulated in the form of questions that students after the topic. Concerning the topic taught during the lesson, the students had learned a lot and a good indication that learning had taken place was demonstrated when at the start of the next lesson, the teacher did a quiz about Milgram and obedience. The students all scored highly including the two lower ability students! A good seating arrangement was developed for the lesson. Horsehoof arrangement was chosen for the lesson because this seating plan facilitates group work and ensures a good communication between and among the teacher and the students. It encourages class discussion and ensures a good visibility of all students by the teachers to avoid students hiding behind others as it encourages non-participation and inattentiveness. Skowron (2006) describes a lesson plan as a detailed and step-by-step outline of when, how and how long activities will be done during a lesson. Having identified the tasks to be accomplished during the lesson, pacing was done. This is where each of the lesson tasks is assigned specific durations. The Actual Lesson The actual lesson began with a starter activity which involved asking students to remove their shoes as they entered the classroom. We asked the students to arrange their shoes at the front of the classroom before sitting on the seats that held their name tags. This was followed by a game called nanny’s basket which involved playing with words. The words were introduced in such a way that they progressed from simple to hard-to-remember words. Psychology words like cognitive, hippocampus, memory were used. In order to consolidate vocabulary that the students had previously learnt, the nanny’s basket game was followed by another interesting activity. Students were made to stand and recall what they had learned as psychology students. They were so say “As a psychology student, today I revised....” Those students who made a mistake would sit down awaiting a second chance. This made the lesson begin in an interesting way while facilitating a recap of the things learned in the previous lessons Right from the start, student differentiation was done as suggested by Wong (1998).It was decided that strong students would be paired with weaker students. Being a new topic, the lesson did not need a direct revisit of concepts learned in the previous lesson. The starter activity was followed by a brief introduction in which obedience was defined. In this part, students were asked to write down a definition of obedience in their own words on their whiteboards then lift up the boards. One student would be allowed to read out their definition to the rest making this part of the lesson more interactive as students were thinking and writing down their thoughts before getting being given the actual definition from Oxford dictionary. In the introduction, students were given real life examples of destructive obedience in history such as Hitler and the Nazis, the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, People’s temple mass suicide, and the slaughter of 1 million Armenians in Turkey in the early 1900s. This was followed by a systematic introduction of the concepts obtained from Milgram’s (1963) study of obedience and other related studies. The ideas of Hoffing (1994) and Bickam (1966) were chosen for this lesson. Lively activities including watching a video on Milgram’s experiment were included in the study. During the lesson, independent and group learning were utilized. Some of the activities were individually done and others were done in groups. For example, arguing the pros and cons of the three studies on obedience was done in group. There are four sensory modalities that are used for acquiring information namely Visual, Aural, Read/write, and Kinesthetic (VARK). Visual is the preference for information displayed through visual aids like diagrams, graphs, charts and symbolic arrows. A greater percentage of information learned through visuals is retained. Aura/auditory is the preference for information that is spoken or heard, Read/write is the preference is for information displayed through words while Kinesthetic is the preference for information acquisition though practice and experience. The lesson utilised a multimodal approach to learning given that the teaching of the concepts involved the combination of all these modalities Reflections “The job of a teacher is to excite in the young a boundless sense of curiosity about life, so that the growing child shall come to apprehend it with an excitement tempered by awe and wonder.”- John Garrett (Khurana 2012). This is what happened at Rishworth High School. The teaching experience was not only successful but very educative and interesting. The lesson began on a very humorous tone and all the students actively right from the beginning because of the range of activities chosen for the starter activity. This kind of introduction was important in ensuring that all students felt fully included and welcomed in the lesson, especially the weak students. It also created in them some intrinsic motivation to learn as they wanted to know what they were going to be taught from the interesting lesson. The more the activity became interesting, the more students became freer and eager to learn and the same attitude was transferred to the rest of the lesson (Lesh et al 2000). The starter activity designed for the lesson was important in introducing the central concept of the topic without the students’ knowledge. As noted, the activity started with the view of a practical experiment –an experiment on Milgram’s concept and related studies. The school rules required all students to be appropriately dressed when in the school compound especially during class lessons. The floor was not also very clean. However, the students did not question or dare disobey our order requiring them to remove their shoes. The teaching experience confirmed the importance of a lesson plan. It was a powerful guide on how to teach the topic of obedience. It also confirmed that compiling a list of learning objectives before the lesson is very important to the teacher as well as the student. As stated by Salsbury& Melinda (2008) and Stiggins et al (2006), the learning objectives were helpful in focusing the lesson instructions/teaching and defining the learning outcomes. They also helped to organize, clarify and prioritize learning to ensure education took place in systematic manner. In this way, the lesson was able to progress from easy to more difficult concepts. The lesson objectives enabled the students to evaluate their own learning progress and encouraged them to take personal responsibility for their own learning. Matheson (2010) explains that having noted the learning objectives, each of them will aim at realizing them. When these objectives were combined with scores for formative assessment, the students were seen to gain more control and self-regulation of their learning as observed by Butler &Winnie (1995). For example, they aimed at improving on some aspects like definitions and getting the key words. In addition, the learning objectives specified the endpoint of engaging with a given set of learning activities (faculty.londondeanery.ac.uk .2012). It is without bias to state that the lesson objectives formulated met the criteria described by Bloom et al. (1956). According to Bloom, the individual outcomes of a learning experience should relate to one of the three domains namely cognitive/intellectual skills and knowledge, affective/feelings and attitudes, and psychomotor/physical skills. The objectives of the particular lesson related to cognitive skills because they involved a recall of what was learned without theneed to demonstrate them physically. Most important is that the objectives were SMART meaning they were specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound as described by (Thompson 2007). Specificity was seen where the objectives were direct to the point and measurability was seen where the objectives were designed in a way that the students could demonstrate and prove that the objectives had been met. Evidently, a lot of consideration on time was done to ensure that the objectives were those that could be achieved within the 1 hour period. Assessment is important in knowing the level at which the teaching goals have been achieved and a combination of formative and summative is used to accomplish this (Black et al 2003). For this teaching experience, formative assessment was particularly important to the students. It helped them to monitor their performance as the lesson progressed. Without this, it would have been difficult for the students to identify areas they need to request for more clarification on before the teacher moves to another concept. Formative assessment was equally important for the teachers. Before the lesson, the teachers picked out on some teaching methods, activities and resources they thought would help them deliver the content best. For this teaching experience, the method, activities and resources were effective because the formative assessments conducted indicated that the learning objectives were being achieved successfully except for the two poor students. If the formative assessment revealed that the lesson objectives are not being achieved, then assessment results would have been important in giving tips on how to modify the current teaching and learning activities to enhance student attainment (Crooks 2001). Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick (2005) and Marzano (2003) state that instead of focusing on test scores, formative assessments enable teachers to focus on the detailed content of what the students are learning and what they have learned. During the teaching experience, formative assessment was important in fine-tuning student focus and teaching instead of just identifying which students were not meeting the expected standard as is done by summative assessment. It identifies the exact problem of the students and because of that, it helps in identifying the most relevant remedial activities. Rather than moving on with the lesson as a class and ignoring the two poor students, the class was split into two, one group contained a larger proportion of the class while another group contained the two students who needed extra attention. Two of the teachers attended to the two students and explained to them the concepts of the Milgram experiment in a way and at a pace that enabled them to grasp the concepts. The rest of the class moved on with the lesson and looked at the two related studies as explained by Bickman (1966) and Hoffling (1974). The lesson therefore catered for individual differences. Scholars arguing in support of this learning approach/one-to-one teaching state that giving more attention to students with special needs enables these students to retain more material than when taught at the same pace as the rest of the class (Hocutt 1999)..However, this type of attention requires a trade off as indicated by the counter argument given by some scholars. One of the counter arguments is that such a consideration takes away the time and attention of the teacher from the rest of the class thus the majority will lose for the benefit of the few. The weak students will not be able to cope with this speed while the strong ones will get bored. This type of grouping also motivates the weak students to think and search for answers than to wait for the strong students to tell them the answer. In support of a counter-argument suggested by Smith & Throne (2010), the grouping was changed after some time to obtain a mixture of weak and strong students in one group in. According to Smith & Throne (2010), this kind of mixing is done in the hope that the strong students will encourage and assist the weak ones. The lesson also revealed a lot of things that can improve one’s professionalism as a teacher. Most of these are tips concerning the choice of assignments that provide maximum benefits to the students during the lesson. Some of the important points noted as requiring a lot of consideration include the amount of time that students will use to complete the assignment. Biggs (1999) states that this should be well timed to ensure responses to questions do not eat into learning time. Feedback was offered to both the students and teachers involved. The students were asked to close their eyes at the end of the session and answer questions on how much they were stretched, they would put 10 fingers up for very stretched and none for not at all. There were two sources of immediate feedback for the teachers. The first was a group watching who rated the teachers as excellent. The second was the supervisor who said the teachers were “the best group they had seen in two years.” Future plans The assignments given enabled the students to learn more about the concepts taught during the lesson. However, most of them did not encourage students to practice the concepts on their own. Improvements for future lessons will include assignments that encourage personal practice of the concepts and its essential skills through independent research. In this topic for example, the students would have been required to design their own experiment that looks like that of the Milgram, Hoffman and Bickman , record and report the results, and relate them with the theoretical concepts. This would give them an opportunity to practically track their own progression. Technology played an important role in the lesson. Various technologies were used to facilitate easier learning and communication of ideas for example Mimio Wireless Tablets. These tablets allowed students to write and save their work on and the teacher can access what they are writing at any point during the session. ipods, and ipads were also useful. These were used compose a song about all the concepts learnt on obedience and sing them out to the class. A projector was used to project the video on Milgran’s experiment to make it more visible and more captivating compared to when all the students were to strain to observe it from a small screen. Conclusion The role of a teacher is to help students to realise the things they know and inform them what they do not know. This requires that a teacher should be highly skilled on lesson preparation, setting of learning objectives, planning lesson content and availing resources. The learning atmosphere is also a powerful determinant of learning outcomes. Basing on this, a good teacher should be conversant on how to make create a positive, supportive and the use of interesting learning-related activities. Given the already set syllabus and its time, a good teacher should properly plan and budget their lesson time. Good pacing ensures that the lesson content is coved on time and all learning objectives are achieved successfully. Recommendations Encourage and facilitate team teaching: to allow students with special needs to be accommodated and ensure high achievement rates. Provide more teaching-learning resources for all subjects: to allow for a better and easier grasping of content by all students. Introduce more assistive, teaching, instructional and information technologies in teaching; to boost the way content is delivered to students. Reference List Biggs, J. 1999. Teaching for Quality Learning at University (pp. 165-203). Buckingham, UK: SRHE and Open University Press Bickman, L. (1974). 'The social power of a uniform', Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 85, 87-92 Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., &Wiliam, D. (2003) Assessment for Learning: Putting it into practice. Berkshire, England: Open University Press Black, P. &Wiliam, D. 1998."Assessment and classroom learning".Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice5 (1) Bloom, B., Engelhart, M., Furst, E., Hill, W., &Krathwohl, D. 1956. Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals; Handbook I: Cognitive Domain New York, Longmans, Green, 1956 Butler, D. &Winnie, P.1995. Feedback and self-regulated learning: a theoretical synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 65(3), 245-281 Carey, L. 1978. The Systematic Design of Instruction.(1st Ed).Scott, Foresman. Glenview Crooks, T. 2001.The Validity of Formative Assessments.British Educational Research Association Annual Conference.University of Leeds faculty.londondeanery.ac.uk .2012.Writing learning outcomes or learning objectives. Available at http://www.faculty.londondeanery.ac.uk/e-learning/setting-learning-objectives/writing-learning-outcomes-or-learning-objectives[Accessed 5th April, 2012] Hocutt, A. 1999. “Effectiveness of Special Education: Is Placement the Critical Factor?” The Future of Children , (1), pp 77-102 Huhta, A. 2010."Diagnostic and Formative Assessment". In Spolsky, Bernard and Hult, Francis M..The Handbook of Educational Linguistics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. pp. 469–482 Khurana, S. 2012. Inspirational Quotes About Teacher A Note of Appreciation for the Unsung Heroes: Teachers. . [online] Available at http://quotations.about.com/od/teachersday/a/teacherquo4.htm [Accessed 20th April, 2012] Lesh, R., Hoover, M., Hole, B., Kelly, E., & Post, T. 2000. Principles for developing thought-revealing activities for students and teachers. In A. E. Kelly & R. A. Lesh (Eds.), Handbook of research design in mathematics and science education (pp. 591-645). Lawrence Erlbaum.Mahaway, NJ. Matheson, D. 2010. Learning objectives.[online] Available at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/medical-school/tips/aims_objectives.html[Accessed 5th April, 2012] Marzano, R. 2003. What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: ASCD Milgram, S. 1963. 'Behavioral study of obedience', Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378 Nicol, D. & Macfarlane-Dick, D. 2005.Rethinking Formative Assessment in HE: a theoretical model and seven principles of good feedback practice.Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education O'Bannon, B. 2008."What is a Lesson Plan?".Innovative Technology Center.The University of Tennessee. Salsbury, D. & Melinda, S. 2008. Lesson Planning: A Research-Based Model for K-12 Classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall Smith, G. & Throne, S. 2010. Differentiating Instruction in the AP Spanish Classroom. [online] Available at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/courses/teachers_corner/50531.html [Accessed 5th April, 2012] Stiggins, R., Arter, J.A., Chappius, J. &Chappius, S. (2006). Classroom assessment for student learning: Doing it right-using it well. Portland, OR: Educational Testing Service Thompson, J. 2007. First Year Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-To-Use Strategies, Tools & Activities For Meeting The Challenges Of Each School Day (J-B Ed:Survival Guides). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Thompson, D. 2010. Do full inclusion classrooms benefit everyone? [online] Available at http://www.helium.com/debates/260221-do-full-inclusion-classrooms-benefit-everyone/side_by_side?page=2 [Accessed 5th April, 2012] Wong, Harry K. (1998). The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher. Mountainview, CA. Harry K. Wong Publications. Read More