Teaching Methods

This was an essay written to reflect my beliefs in teaching methods.

I believe very strongly that a teacher’s character and personality influence his pupils’ learning experiences immensely. A student under an unassertive teacher will not be inclined to learn, while a student under a hostile teacher will be too pressurised to learn properly. A teacher who cares, is friendly and yet firm, will ensure learning in his pupils.

I am also a teacher who tends towards behaviourist and direct teaching methods. I have used reinforcements and direct teaching effectively for six years, and my students (both soldiers in the Navy, training for electronics, and Primary Six students in Sunday School, learning Bible Knowledge), have shown signs of learning and retention even without all those constructivist learning theories. I must admit I do incorporate some elements and branches of constructivism in my teachings, but behaviourism is still by far the major stem and root.

To investigate if a teacher is effective in his teaching, we need to examine a few factors. We need to investigate how the teacher brings across the lesson, and how he motivates the students to learn. We need also to examine how the teacher ensures that the students learn, especially if they may have individual differences.

Personally, I believe a lot in teacher enthusiasm and animation. Our children are growing up in a generation where television and multimedia rules the world. They need to feel entertained, and it is surprising how much they can absorb when they are being entertained by the television. Animation on the part of the teacher gives a more entertaining lesson overall, and will result in more of the lesson being learnt. Lessons that are boring to the child will result in a lack of motivation to learn on his part.

In bringing across the lesson, enthusiasm was shown throughout the lesson. Enthusiasm is not something that can be faked, and a teacher’s interest in his lesson shows in the way he carries himself, in his tone of voice and his choice of words. Plenty of choral answers and shouting were expected, creating a “fun” atmosphere among the students.

It is very difficult to show how enthusiastic the teacher was from a written case study (as we can not hear the tone of voice). Perhaps animation is the best way to show enthusiasm in a case study. I “formed a woeful expression”, “waved two fingers in the air”, “raised an eyebrow”, “raised” my voice “in an expectant manner”, “rolled” my eyes “up with a look of mock despair”, and “winked and pointed to the ground”. When it is time to be serious and to learn, I assumed a serious expression. It can be very difficult not to learn when you have so many visual cues to focus your attention on!

Motivating the students to learn, especially those who seem not willing, can be a demanding task. Fortunately this was not a major problem with the 4F class. In general, the class was willing to learn, and the tasks were definitely well within their capability – this lesson should have been taught to them during Primary One or Two, according to the scheme of work.

In this case, motivation to learn to form up within 10 seconds was by reinforcements. In this case, it is not too clear what type of reinforcers push-ups are. To say it is a privilege to get the teacher to perform push-ups would be stretching the definitions a little, though it is clear they love to “beat the teacher”, to get the privilege of seeing him doing the push-ups instead of them for once.

Peer approval could also be one of the minor reinforcers for this case. Since success at avoiding punishment (or getting the teacher to do it) depends on everybody, and failure could get a student chastised by the rest of the class, the students are motivated to perform.

On further reflection, adult approval may also have played a major role as a reinforcer. It is interesting to note from the experiences of many teachers that students love to answer to the challenges of a teacher they love, to get his approval. Since the challenge in this case is to “beat” him by successfully completing the task, the motivation to achieve is there.

The cognitive learning needs are also motivators in this case. The students are challenged to “prove” they are able to achieve the learning goals, and to control their circumstances (“The teacher will do the push-ups, not us!”). These challenges spurred them to prove their ability.

The setting of attainable goals also proved a motivator. The goals are specific (form up within 10 seconds), immediate (upon the whistle) and moderately difficult (it only requires more teamwork and better strategies, and is within their cognitive ability). Since they are able to measure their achievement level each time, they are motivated to strategize to come up with better means to achieve by themselves.

To ensure learning, the classroom atmosphere is very important. As was mentioned before, enthusiasm and animation created an interesting classroom climate. In addition, the students were sure I would not scream at them for mistakes, since my admonitions were often made in a gentle manner (“berated her gently, with an upraised index finger”, “chided gently”). I was also free with my praises and smiles (they must be heart-felt – it is no use faking them!). All these contribute to a safe and secure climate conducive to learning.

My expectations of them were also very clear. I will not accept lack-lustre work (“I am sure you can do better than that”), and I set a clear standard within their reach. This was communicated to every one, including Darren. Acceptable classroom behaviour were reinforced (Lavaniah’s case – “I will call on you when it is your turn to speak”). The class has especially learnt to catch the nuances that tell them the level of acceptability of certain actions (folded my hands and waited, changing of tone, catching them in the wrong act and immediately admonishing them).

Another aspect of ensuring learning is the asking of questions and the eliciting of feedback. This was done in both choral and personal form. The choral answers emphasise the points to the class, without threatening those who may not have understood. When individual answers are required, I would make myself as non-threatening as possible, and to encourage for both correct and wrong answers (in this case study, there were no wrong answers given, but I do encourage my students to try and praise them for the effort if they were wrong!) It is possible, however, that the answers can be given without understanding, even for individual answers.

The best way of ensuring learning therefore, in this very practical lesson, is to get the students to actually perform the required items. When the students could not perform, feedback was given, and certain strategies were given to them in a direct teaching form. I do not let them “discover” the strategies for themselves, though if they do incidentally or accidentally discover some new strategies, I will not stop them from using them. If these discovered strategies are wrong, though, I will correct them to make sure they learn from their mistakes.

Scaffolding was minimal throughout this lesson. Perhaps the closest to scaffolding I did was to give them the strategies they needed to complete the task, bringing them beyond the zone of proximal development (all of them are within the zone of proximal development for this lesson). Indeed the strategy given them, together with some I suspected were unconsciously used, enabled them to form up within time and complete the task.

This lesson is group based, and thus has very little opportunity for individual learning and scaffolding. In any case, at no time did any individual students show signs of not following, though I was somewhat worried about the daydreaming habits of Darren. I ensured he was listening by singling him out for a question, and he was surprisingly able to answer me. Since he has proved that he was listening, I did not want to probe further, save to remind him (and the class) that I know what is happening around them.

On reflection, Dinesh, though he has caught on to the strategies I taught, apparently did not catch on to its spirit. He would get his bunch of friends to be close to him (“look for the closest person”), and form up with them. I should have clarified further the spirit behind the strategy I taught (they should look for the nearest person, whether he is in your clique or not). At that moment though, I thought it should be all right, since he did manage to perform even without using exactly the strategy I taught him to the letter (showing creativity?).

In ending, it is very interesting how a teacher’s attitudes and his treatment of the class have such a tremendous effect on their learning. It is also interesting how much the affective domain can influence learning in the cognitive domain. My students learn because they are inspired to, and because they love the teacher who teaches them.

I may have the best lesson plan, have the best strategies and scaffoldings, or even the best lesson materials. But all these can be reduced greatly in effect if I were to be unassertive (“Never mind – he will not do anything to me even if I do not do my homework!”), or hostile (creating a fear of learning in them).

Again, if the classroom climate creates a sense of boredom, the motivation and inspiration to learn will also not be present. The teacher who addresses the impact of media on today’s children will be able to command their attention, to make them learn.

To conclude, I would like to mention again my perspectives on my teaching style. I know many constructivist theories have tried to address perceived failures in behaviourist teaching styles by their style of teaching. I personally believe that as long as the teacher is humanist, even behaviourist theories will work, and work as well in imparting knowledge and the love of learning to our pupils.