Exploring Methods of Teaching and Learning

       When I began this journey through the course, I had no idea what to expect.  I have gone through an enormous learning curve.  Learning to navigate the website, course requirements, and expectations was overwhelming at first. I was frustrated, tired, and I cried a lot. As I reflect on the experiences of the last 8 weeks, I realize that after 30 years of teaching, I have truly once again become the student, instead of the teacher.  Teaching is an incredibly complex endeavor—one that requires intelligence, knowledge of one's content area, creativity, passion for student learning, and ongoing commitment to professional growth and student learning to be successful (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).  I never want my performance to plateau and am grateful for what I have learned.  I learned that there are some things I have mastered over the years, and others are new to me.  

What Went Well

       I realize that I am definitely a warm demander.  In my years of being a classroom teacher I have been known as a teacher who engaged and inspired students.  I varied my teaching strategies and assessments to fit different learning styles and made my performance expectations clear. I set high standards, interacted meaningfully, created an oasis of safety and respect, used every minute wisely and expected my students to do the same.  I helped students develop deep knowledge and connected learning with real life.  I also maintained these same traits as I worked with Kenia, my English student during this course.  These are things I do well, but there is much more to learn about being a great teacher.  

New Concepts That I Learned To Implement

       While working with Kenia, my Spanish speaking student, who is learning the English language, I learned new touchstones that will help me be a better teacher.  I enjoyed implementing the following new concepts into my teaching: 

1. Using standards to guide every learning opportunity takes the guesswork out of what to teach.  It is actually comforting to have that part of the plan decided.  I used Common Core and TOEFL standards to base my lessons on. 

2. Having Kenia set her own personal learning goals helped set the stage for her to begin the learning process and give concrete reasons for why this learning was important to her life. Touchstone 2 focuses on the importance of students setting personal goals for each lesson.  To help reinforce this touchstone, I designed a goal oriented rubric for Kenia.  She then took a pretest, and graphed her results and we discussed her learning goals related to our English learning sessions.  All three documents are attached below:

 

 

 

 

   

    3.    I loved the idea of being a teaching "coach" and will use this concept in all future classes. 

    4.    Using a series of formative assessments to regularly check for understanding was a new 

           idea for me. Using this type of feedback to encourage effort, determine understanding, and 

           knowing when to reteach was the biggest change in my teaching mindset.  I really found it 

           exciting and actually a relief to realize how many ways I could use nongraded formative 

           assessments. Seeing how effective the assessments were was very encouraging.  Watching 

           Kenia enjoy completing the assessments was motivating. Kenia and her sister, who is also 

           learning English, did some peer teaching together and were "pair share" partners.  Kenia     

           created English dialogues as one of her assignments, showing me how well 

           she was understanding our lessons.  Questions helped me gauge her understanding as well.  

           We had short quizzes, listed new words from memory, did a matching game, and practiced 

           new words and phrases.  We also used the following formative assessments:

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

            "Got it" "Still thinking" "Reteach"                                   Traffic light charts

 

  What I Would Have Done Differently & How To Ensure Effective Implementation Of The Touchstones

1. I would have spent more time discussing goals, especially short term goals to ensure that long term goals are reached.  

2. I would have arranged to go to her house more often for classes.  Since we are not in a typical school setting and she is not receiving a grade for our lessons, it was easy for her to cancel learning appointments in favor of other university homework or family plans.  This made it impossible to complete some of the planned lessons.  Connecting her effort and goals to our lessons more often could have had a positive effect on her attendance.   

   3. I had intended to have Kenia retake the pretest and graph her new results over the old results.  She wasn't able           to come for that particular lesson.  We will still do this, but I had hoped to have those data to present here.  

   4. If I were to do this again, I would choose a larger group of students and have them dedicated      

       to helping me with this course.  This would ensure I had students every time and I would 

       have had more experiences, more data, and more opportunities to help students learn.  

     

I would like to reread the entire book one more time, to fully grasp the mindset being expressed by Goodwin and Hubbell.  I was an excellent teacher who learned what worked by experience, but I was "old school" and many things are different now.  As the world continues to change and as students have unlimited access to on-line information, teaching must also change.  Will Richardson, an author and TEDtalk speaker, believes that our current school model is based on 150 year old methods that developed when the school classroom was basically the only source of educational knowledge (Richardson, 2012). That has changed and with it, teachers must change.  These 12 touchstones will help take me and my teaching skills into the future.  

 

References

 

Goodwin, B., & Hubbell, E. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: A checklist for    

       staying focused every day.  Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & 

       Curriculum Development. [Bookshelf Online].

Richardson, W. (2012).  Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and 

       Information Are Everywhere.  TED Conferences.  Kindle Edition.