Approaches to teaching

There are many common approaches to teaching and they tend to develop as teachers gain experience.  

When teachers start out, especially in Maths, a text is your best friend.  It helps with sequencing, pacing, depth and the hidden elements/assumed knowledge of a syllabus.  There is a lot to do. By reading a few texts treatment of a topic, the main elements can be drawn out and students are given sufficient practice to get by.  Link it together with some worksheets and the occassional activity that is broadly linked to the topic (Kahoots are the current tool of choice) and a class won't get too bored with the approach.  Teaching is predominantly aimed bottom/middle with some end of chapter extension work.  Teachers are generally time poor, trying to cope with a variety of demands on their time whilst trying to demonstrate their enthusiasm and confidence.

As time passes, dependence on the text becomes less, the teacher evaluates where the class is at the start of a topic via some form of formative assessment, teaches the content that the syllabus indicates and provides practice to the class, balanced by the capacity of the class - developing its work ethic, revision strategies, collaborative skills and appreciation for learning.  The focus is reasonably narrow to ensure that the main ideas are cemented in for the next topic, making teaching a bit stop/start.  The difficulty level may shift from topic to topic based on the strength of students but the content taught is basically the same across the class.  Teachers are still time poor, but time spent is more effectively on the tasks chosen, the ability to collaborate is significantly higher and the search for efficient partnerships with other teachers begin, typically for resource sharing and assessment writing.

Ultimately the teacher can teach each topic without the text, gains a feel for where the class is at (usually based on time to complete initial tasks) and a lesson becomes a journey through the topics bridging from one idea to the next, creating a picture in the mind of the student of mathematics and establishing the elegance and wonder of mathematical process and solutions.  The text is used only as an example of how increasingly abstract concepts taught can be applied widely, providing opportunities to explore and journey in ever wider circles bridging between different branches of mathematics.  Focus is given to the individual needs of each student and the method of teaching is adapted as required. The skill of the teacher is ensuring that main concepts are well understood, changing the order of learning if required, but ensuring flow/engagement is maintained during learning.  Collaboration becomes more effective, reflecting on effectiveness of learning in different contexts, not just looking at resource sharing.

Many times when a student complains about a teacher, it is that they are familiar with a particular style of teaching, have adapted to it, were doing better and are finding it difficult to evolve to a new style.  All three styles above can support high and low achieving students within acceptable parameters, but the responses of students will be different.

Understanding where a teacher is in their own learning journey assists with setting fair expectations and areas for reflection.  Judgement by others should be suspended with understanding taking its place, being patient as each teacher moves through their current level of learning towards teaching competency.

 

Deficit Based Approach

 A deficit based model from a quick Google search could be defined as:

"The deficit model of teaching, in which the teacher provides the learning to make good a deficit, stands in direct contrast to the belief that the teacher's role is to draw out learners' tacit knowledge and understanding through questioning and facilitation." Oxford Reference, 2020.

It's a model that has been prevalent in teaching from inception.  We teach, we tell kids what they can't do.  It's in contrast to a model where the focus is for the teacher to assist students understand the required information, develop a skill to complete a task or how to assimilate a concept within their existing conceptual framework and where it is not understood, diagnose and work with them to rectify the ommission.

When working with teachers with disgruntled parents, I am most interested in how well a teacher knows the student.  If they know their friendship group, can tell where they sit in the class, can describe their demeanour, provide an accurate guide of their recent performance, talk about the positives of the child, it's a fair indicator that the student may not be telling the full story to their parents.  In these cases the solutions required tend to be quite simple, are behaviour management related and easily remedied.

If a teacher is unaware of these things and can only describe what the student is not doing, it rings immediate alarm bells that this situation may need further investigation.  These tend to be the cases of high ability or at least capable, underperforming students where a disconnection has occurred between the teacher, family and student (my specific area of interest).  It can also be an indication that the teacher has defaulted to a deficit model and needs assistance to reconnect with their student.

In these cases it is important to let the air out of the situation, let everyone be heard and then gently guide the conversation back to what can be done to assist the student find success.   It is not sufficient to say they are underperforming and set a goal of, "student will improve their grade by 10% by Term 3" unless it also says how they should achieve the goal.  Goals set should be guided by the teacher with measures that are likely to reach an achievable outcome together with an aspirational goal.  These measures should observable;  processes, techniques, habits or revision that will be checked that they have been done and then measured for success against the goal.

If the student does what the teacher indicates and does not achieve success, they will lose confidence in the ability of the teacher.  It is very important that whatever measure is set, that the probability of success is high.  Often the measures initially set by a teacher are not specific, not measureable and have no way to ensure that the student is doing it correctly.  In these cases they are very likely to fail with blame deflected to the student.

A recent case I was working on:

Problem: The student was writing a persuasive text rather than the required informational text.  

Deficit Feedback to student: Student is not specific when stating her solution. Language used is not appropriate.

Alternate Response: Understanding of an informational text requires additional attention. Revisit an  informational text with the student and contrast it with a persuasive text. Student to construct an informational text as a formative assessment, to be discussed and annotated with the teacher.

Problem: Level of detail is insufficient in written response.

Deficit Feedback to student: Response is full of waffle and preparation is insufficient.

Alternate response: Student would benefit from further developing her mind mapping techniques.  Student to construct a mind map for next task and compare her response with a student that is highly capable in this skill.  Student to submit next mind map created before constructing next written article.  Student to construct a glossary of terms before next essay and review with teacher before next task.

and so on.. It is a different way of thinking and requires the responsibility of teaching to be firmly with the teacher working with the parent and student.  With a reflective, timid, hardworking student in particular, asking them to self reflect and inform the teacher what they need to do is an intimidating, frightening and pointless task only likely to raise anxiety and lower performance further.  This may in some cases remove the student from the care of the teacher (thus allowing the teacher to focus on other things) but is not in line with department policy on high care, high expectations.

     

New Term blues

I try not to take a term for granted.  Teaching children is a privilege I may not always be capable of delivering to the level required.  13 years of each term - am I going to make it to the next term - am I good enough to do this well?  Should I hand it over to someone more capable?  At the end of each term, a sense of relief, but we can feel tired and a bit jaded.  The first week of a break is recovery and recharging the battery during the second week starts the readiness process for the following term.

Ego usually kicks in and says "yes I am more than good enough/ready", but not always.  It only takes a bad result or a poorly handled situation to start that internal conversation of have I been promoted beyond my ability and I should I step aside for someone that has more natural ability and doesn't have to work as hard to get similar results. 

It's a rare term when I return after a break and think - I'm ready and let's get into it.  It's usually a mix of trepidation, knowledge of what needs to be done and concern about what could arise as we enter the door.  This can reduce the enthusiasm that needs to be present at the start of each term after a break.  I'm mindful of the blues as it can infect a team with negativity and reduce it's ability to be flexible and agile but this anxiety is also what leads to high performance!

Term 3 is a pressure cooker and week 8 is the most difficult week of the year - a time when the pressure is at its worst - ATAR, grumpy kids, assessment due.  Teachers start thinking that being promoted or seeking greener pastures is preferable to increasing demands and behavioural concerns.  The silly season starts with a merry go round of teachers changing between roles and schools.  With these changes comes more pressure on leaders to keep teachers in front of classrooms and maintaining delivery standards.  It's no wonder that leaders at the start of the term can have a few more wrinkles than before the holidays.

The main message here is that even the most outwardly confident leaders have doubts about the direction they are taking, can lack confidence and are constantly reviewing how they should deliver.  As much as they are trying to support you, they need to know that you believe in what they are trying to achieve and require this belief to make things happen.  This is true from mentoring a peer all the way up to the Principal.

Any change a leader does is bound to upset someone - getting everyone to agree is a difficult/pointless task as it often leads to "good enough solutions" rather than optimal ones, the compromises required to make everyone happy negate the benefits sought (and the change is often better abandoned than pursued).  The pursuit of a goal can stress the belief in a leader when the status quo requires less work than the improvement sought, a status quo likely gained as it made life easier for teachers but is not in the best interest of students.

Thank goodness that HOLAs still teach - without the positive feedback from students it is sometimes a  thankless task.  

Screencasting, blended and flipped classrooms

Blended classrooms and flipped classrooms were quite the fad for a time.  I've had a bash at both and find blended classrooms to be vastly superior to flipped classrooms, with neither more effective than standard classroom teaching with a whiteboard and text.  My interest has always been in underperforming students and ICT is one of the tools I use with them, typically not exclusively but as a part of a bigger solution and generally not for initial instruction. 

Where technology replaces a teacher, it usually fails abysmally to overcome engagement, gaps in learning and pastoral care issues that are the bread and butter of today's classroom.  

Despite this, I have produced over 200 5 to 10 minute videos over the last two years for students. Each might get watched 8-10 times per year. Speaking with a local publisher that came to visit, he asked why bother?  There are hundreds of teachers producing resources and few being utilised, where is the return for effort?  I didn't argue, but did smile.  I think, on this, I have cracked how this IT malarky is useful in the classroom.  It's not rocket science but has taken 13 years to realise.

Let me make this clear.  As the main teaching tool, first point of introduction to a topic, generally speaking, a video is a poor teaching tool.  For disengaged or students that lack the ability to learn independently, it is useless.  In both of these cases, intervention is required by the teacher to engage students before any meaningful learning can occur.

What ICT can do is address many of the secondary issues faced in a classroom and promote higher levels of success.

- Students that are absent due to illness have access to the learning for the day
- Students can use ICT as a revision tool prior to assessment
- Students can use ICT to revisit the material taught and gain depth to their understanding by re-examining difficult parts
- ICT can extend the reach of a classroom by providing assistance outside of class time
- ICT improves my teaching as I have to think prior to presenting to the class how I wish to introduce the topic
- ICT can assist me recall from year to year how to best teach a topic

- ICT provides feedback on parts of the course students are finding difficult (more students tend to watch)
- ICT provides an avenue for having a second crack at teaching a concept when I haven't connected fully during class
- ICT provides avenues for discussion about how I teach and how a topic can be taught (particularly useful for working with new teachers)

- The assistance given to students is in the form that I teach (as opposed to tools produced by others) and in the form I will later assess to the level required by the WA Syllabus.

- Parents access the videos to ensure they are teaching using the method required to the level required.
- ICT is another avenue to show that I care about my students.
- ICT is an opportunity to revisit syllabus dot points 
- ICT removes student excuses for not completing or understanding work.

- ICT actively, repeatedly models how to deconstruct a text and use a worked example.

Addressing the publishers issue, if a video takes 10-15 minutes to create and only 8-10 students look at it,  it is a good use of time.  With 200 videos available, that's 800 individual interventions that would not have occurred otherwise.  Each successful intervention raises confidence and reduces disengagement (which can be important with students on the edge of disengagement).  

Intervention one on one during lunch time is a more common intervention, but much less efficient.  Even every lunch, 50 per term would only be 200 interventions.  If the recordings are utilised for more than one year that could double or triple their effectiveness.

It's important to realise that I say to students that they do not have to watch them (unless under covid lockdown and it is the only teaching instruction available from me) and they do not include all that is taught in class - it is a support for them, not a way for me to get out of teaching (avoiding the complaints being made about universities).

If you would like to see some of the work I have done, it's all on Youtube here and some on Prezi from the link on the right from a long time ago before my interval in admin.