Task 1.2 Views of Teaching

What are the similarities and differences between your views of teaching and your teaching practice?

How do you view teaching? What is your main role as a teacher?

As a classroom teacher in a rural college of year 7-13 students and teaching a wide variety of subjects to different levels my role of a teacher does change.  I personally believe that I am not the holder of all knowledge and I can not be the expert on everything.  Knowledge changes, especially where digital technologies and the www are concerned. My belief in teaching is around exposing students to experiences that they may not be exposed to in other areas of their life.  We are educating students for a world of the unknown, and as a teacher, I believe that we need to provide learning experiences that will help them develop into confident life-long learners.

Identify examples of typical teaching activities and the implied relationships between you (as the teacher), the content you were teaching, the values/ideals involved, and the learners?
Were your actions consistent with your stated views?

In Food Technology, my role is much more transmission during theory lessons because it makes life easier within the constraints of having students for a set length of time and needs to incorporate both theory and practical.  Although I do expect students to collaborate and participate in discussions and share their points of view.  It is a subject which I struggle to incorporate an effective blended learning environment.  Although I incorporate digital tools as often as I can. However in saying that, nurture and development are always part of who I am.  The students are encouraged to develop their skills and knowledge of food products in order to develop their own technological outcome with a partner and take ownership of the process.  When I reflect on my teaching in a practical situation, I do spend a lot of time questioning them with opened questions and getting the students to develop their knowledge and understanding further. This fits into the Cognitive learning view (Pratt, 1998). Although I can see that when we are completing a practical lesson there are times where my expert knowledge help the students have a product they can eat (just can't say if it is palatable).

In mathematics, (a subject I enjoy) I spend a lot of time developing the confidence of students who have not enjoyed math previously.  This is evidence of the Nurturing learning view as described by Pratt (1998). I make it my mission to spend the year trying to change the attitudes of the learners and develop their mathematical understanding. I would spend time finding resources,  both online and off, that would allow students to move from the concrete to the abstract, as many students had limited understanding of the number system or many of the mathematical concepts we covered.  Although in math, I found it my opinion that there was no point moving on to another topic until students understood what it was that they were learning. However, the last time I was teaching math, I went on a professional development course in Papamoa and I started seening more relevance for mathematical integration.

In Digital Technology (my most favourite subject), I have found that the students look at me as the expert and I believe it is my role to encourage students to take risks and learn about things they aren't so comfortable with or not yet been exposed too. Online technologies are not used well in other classes (I do wish this wasn't the case though) as I always see so much more can be done than the current practice.  Depending on what year level I teach I do think I do draw from different perspectives.  My main idea is to develop the students knowledge and understanding and provide an environment where they are encouraged to takes risks, learn by doing and understand how the given technology/application works (Google Docs, Web searching, coding, image creation - vector and raster, Website creation, iPads, etc).

What I struggle with is the confines of NCEA, (and there is a big difference between unit standards and achievement standards) it is rather prescriptive on the outcomes. I'm pretty sure there has been times where I have had to say to my seniors that "we just have to suck it up and carry on", especially when students are becoming disillusioned about the requirements. In saying this though, the students are provided opportunties to explore with programmes and add their own creative touch to their work.  There are some where I spend the whole year building their confidence.

In year 10, I find I make links to the wider world and other subjects, this is because they need to think carefully about where they are going the following year and beyond and their choices.  For juniors, I usually set up the students to complete tasks more at their own level to work through and I feel it is my job to assist those who require it.  There is a lot less transmission in these classes, as doing whole class study can be quite frustrating (although I do do it at times).

In Social Science last year I spent a lot of time developing the students' confidence in their ability to learn in a new context.  These students were initially used to the transmission aspect, and I found that because I worked more in the developing aspect that the students initially found the transition difficult.  One unit we did involved the students researching one aspect of sustainability that they decided they were interested in.  I found that I felt guilty if I hadn't spent time with students who were more independent learners (there were some very demanding students in that class who struggled with the concept of independent learning which I found was to the detriment to other learners especially to the low quiet achievers), and would ensure that I caught up with them the next lesson.  I do remember the discussions we had over the need to look after pond life, I kept posing questions and was adamant that we didn't need them.  The students spent a lot of time developing their own opinions and 'tried to change my mind' which is reflected in Pratt (1998), p 45. I can also relate to the comment that it is difficult for the teacher to develop assessment which demonstrates how the students knowledge and understanding has changed.  I do wish that assessment could be based on the key competencies rather than stating the curriculum level students are working at.

Even in writing this I can identify that my strengths appear to be in developing and nurturing what I was initially understanding is how/where apprentice appeared to fit in.  But if I understand it correctly, as a facilitator I do believe that I do not hold all the knowledge and that there can be experts in our classrooms that we can all learn from.  And at times, those experts are the least expected.  As we move towards a more collaborative view of the teaching and learning process, it is important to recognise the developing strengths of our students in both skills and knowledge.  If we want them to develop leadership skills, we need to provide opportunities to practice the skills involved in leading.

Pratt, D., & Associates. (1998). Alternative frames of understanding. In Five Perspectives on teaching in adult and higher education (pp. 33-53). Malabar, FL: Kreiger.