What makes great teaching?
When I think of what makes great teaching my mind goes right away to what a teacher could do to be the best at their job. On the other hand, my mind goes to other people like parents teaching their children how to potty train, for instance. Of course what we learned outside of school is different from what we learned in school, however, there are some similarities when it comes to how we approach the topic.
What makes great teaching?
First of all I do not think there is a right or wrong way on how to teach but there are better strategies that one could take to accomplish the results that are desired. These strategies are not solely for teachers. I think they could also be used at home or any other kind of learning environment.
Not going to lie but this question feels like one of those surveys that teachers usually give out or ask directly to students by the end of the school year. I was one of those students that would not say much and I still am :( but I do see how certain ideas can make a great difference. Okay now to answer the question. I think what makes great teaching is by creating an environment where students feel that they belong. This can be done by breaking gender binary views, instead of a teacher saying “can I have big strong boys help me carry some textbooks to the classroom,” one could simply say “can I have some volunteers…” The way we word things or how we structure certain learning activities can really change how a student feels when it comes to participation. Not sure if it was this class but I read this article where a teacher took some of his most brilliant students to an important talk. So basically, what happened was the students wrote down all the questions that they had and tried to hand the notes to the teacher for him to ask the questions instead of them. Now that I remember more clearly I don’t think it was this class but the students were afraid to speak up because of their language barriers. Note, that’s another issue that many students have besides gender inequality.
I think that it is also important to be open to I guess “mistakes” that we may encounter when teaching. We are not superhuman or a computer software that knows everything. What makes great teaching is allowing learning to grow at its fullest potential. From what I've experienced in the education system as a student it can get repetitive when we continue to learn about the same old stuff. It starts to feel like they want us to represent this “image” of a good citizen, but what about us as a human being? Do not hold anything else besides effectively getting a good grade on an exam?
A video that I will never forget thanks to this class is called “Reality Pedagogy” where the guest speaker Christopher Emdin creates an analogy of how we tend to shy away from talking about students’ experiences. He expresses the issue in a way that we are carrying this boulder up a mountain and once we get to face the students we let drop back instead of forward. What makes great teaching is placing the information that we hold into practice. There are plenty of strategies that we could use to allow these kinds of “controversial” conversations to grow. It’s all about culturally responsiveness. Who are we teaching this information to? Who are they? And how does this information affect them?
That is all, thank you!
ReplyDeleteHey Guadalupe! The approach you took to this post was refreshing because I have not heard this perspective before. Whenever I think about teaching, I only think about it in a classroom setting. But you pointed out that there are parallels in teaching inside and outside of the classroom. The setting may be different but some of the practices and goals are the same. The point you made about making students feel comfortable in the classroom is so important. If the student is in an environment where they feel they are not valued or cared about, they are not going to want to hear what anyone has to say. Students should be able to express who they are in the classroom without any shame. And if peers within the classroom try to make them feel shame about who they are, we as the teacher should advocate for them and let others know that making people feel like they are not accepted will not be tolerated. Thank you for sharing the analogy about teaching and the boulder. It is important that we use what have learned when we teach our future students so that they can benefit from the culturally responsive practices that a lot of us did not get when we were in school.
Thank you for your comment! :)
Delete