LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to the class was a chemistry problem and approximately half the class got it correct. I then asked the class to offer their views on what problems they might encounter in their lives. This led to a discussion on the various types of problems that first years (13 years of age) might typically encounter including exam questions, and to how to do away with teachers they didn’t like.”

      “I then explained what a heuristic was, and outlined the steps in the heuristic class to them. We went through the steps in the heuristic and ‘solved’ the problem already given to them. One of the pupil’s (Jordan) thought that four and five were the same, or at least there was not much of a difference between these two steps. Some of the others in the class said that they already used these steps and it was just stating the obvious. They were then set a second problem which they solved by themselves in class, using the heuristic. However, I am not totally convinced that they actually understood the heuristic to the problem. I think that maybe some of the pupils may have grasped the idea of a ‘plan of action’ in order to solve a problem, but the rest have not realized the significance of the heuristic and have not used it to help them solve the problem.”

      “Although the pupils seemed to enjoy the discussion of problems in general (which were not subject related) they did not appear willing (or maybe able) to apply the heuristic. I don’t think this lesson was the most successful lesson I have ever taught.”

Exhibit 2.1: Two reports from student teachers on what happened in their classes when their students were taught a problem solving heuristic.

      (a) “In conclusion, I wish to say that the whole exercise was a very interesting process in which I learned something new about educational theory, my subject, my students, and myself. I feel that this single small experiment was an imperfect attempt to assess the theory on concept teaching, and with the benefit of hindsight I could probably design the lesson plan (and perhaps the test) so that it better assisted the attainment of behavioral objectives. The theory seems to be correct-perhaps useful is a better word—but I would hope to conduct experiments in the future using controls to arrive at a stronger verification.”

      “The second reading (Howard) appeared to offer little to alter the fundamental theory on the use of examples and non-examples and rather offered refinements on its use, in addition to some other techniques (use of metaphors and concept maps) to embellish it. From this I infer that the idea of using examples and non-examples has held its own over the years, and it is in my own teaching practice that I will have to investigate the value of the theory further. This will certainly require a restructuring of my approach to lesson planning as the methods that I have been using hitherto have been based more on intuitive feel than hard facts and experimental evidence.”

      “The most exciting prospect is that the classroom can be approached as experimental laboratory in which to apply, test, and evaluate ideas on how to improve students learning. The challenge to me as a teacher is to become active in being experimental and open to changing my preconceived or un-thought through attitudes on how to do things.”

      (b) “After reading Howard I would not have been afraid to use metaphors in the lesson. I was unsure of beginning the class with connecting percentages to decimals and fractions, but like everything else in mathematics everything is interconnected and cannot be understood until the lower steps have been mastered. At the end of the class they realized that percentages, fractions and decimals represented a part of a value and could tell the difference between them. I am familiar with students taking the incorrect aspects of the metaphor in learning a concept and I am conscious only to use metaphors with great care only after discriminating between the analogy and the new concept. I like the idea of concept mapping as this would allow me to work out at what stage the students are at and it could help me start at their level instead of having to make assumptions all of the time. If they didn’t understand what I was presenting I would have a logical plan to refer back to. Likewise if they already knew what I was doing.”

Exhibit 2.2: Extracts from the evaluations of lessons given by graduate student teachers in (a) science and (b) business mathematics in which they were asked to test the validity of specified research on the teaching of concepts using examples (see Journey 10). After they had completed their study they were given a chapter from Howard, R. W. (1987) Concepts and Schemata. An Introduction, London Cassell, and asked to take it account when writing their final evaluation.

If student is substituted for child(ren) in the above it will be seen to apply equally to higher education. It seems to me to be akin to Newman’s “philosophical habit of mind” which is continually developing the skill of criticism, and is surely what Elliott means by practical reflection [10]. Newman wrote, “[…] a philosophical cast of thought, or a comprehensive mind, or wisdom in conduct of policy, implies a connected view of the old (the teachers prior understanding) with the new” (the result of what happened in the class); “an insight into the bearing and influence of each part” (the students and the teacher) “on every other; without which there is no whole and could be no center. It is the knowledge, not only of things” (students and teacher), “but of their mutual relations. It is organized and therefore living knowledge” [11].

One reason why trainee graduate teachers want their training programmes to concentrate on giving them tips for teaching rather than on theory, is that they come with years of experience of having been taught in one way or another. During that time they are forced to make judgements about what constitutes good teaching, and what does not, on the basis of that teaching. They acquire their own theories of effective teaching, and some of the theories that teacher trainers might propose may bring about cognitive dissonance [12].

One criticism of the idea of connoisseurship is that connoisseurship is about taste, and critics often disagree about taste. Therefore, evaluations should be based on empirically based knowledge [20]. But assessors may well disagree about a particular teacher’s performance. A check list such as those that are often used may not grasp the teacher’s performance as a whole. The key is the success or otherwise of the class in achieving its objectives, and the teacher’s willingness to change, if change is perceived to be necessary.

There is also the problem that a particular theory may not be easily transferable to a particular class. Therefore, the function of the practical component of teacher education should be to enable beginning teachers develop their own theories of teaching and tacit knowledge through guided practice in which they evaluate a range of instructional strategies and theories. This can only be achieved by some kind of “research” which enables teachers to “discover that the classroom is, or should be, a challenging research laboratory, with questions to be pursued, data to be collected, analyses to be made, and improvements to be tried and evaluated.” In that way the status of university teaching should also be raised with the development of a scholarship of teaching, so thought K. Patricia Cross [21]. James Trevelyan, a distinguished engineer goes one step further and argues that “it is helpful for many engineering faculty to understand that teaching expertise can help their research as well as classroom teaching” [22]. I will explain in Journey 3 how I asked my graduate student teachers to evaluate a range of theories and strategies of teaching, and so reflect on and develop their own theories.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

[1] Rokeach, M. (1960). The Open and Closed Mind. New York, Basic Books. 11

[2] Heywood, J. (a). (1989). Learning, Adaptability and

Скачать книгу