Chapters 9 and 10
Presented By:
Bill MacLellan
Lana MacLellan
Rick King
Victor Asongwe
Opening Activity
On the next slide you will find many synonyms for teaching. Please review the list, and jot down the five words that, to you, best represent your teaching practices.
Synonyms for Teaching:
Advise, alter, ameliorate, better, brainwash,
break in, brief, care, catechize, coach, communicate, condition, convert, convince, cram, cultivate, culture, demonstrate, develop, direct, discipline, drill, draw in, draw out, edify, educate, enable, encourage, enculturate, enlighten, exercise, explain, expound, facilitate, feed, form, forward, foster, further, give lessons, grill, ground, guide, hone, illustrate, imbue, impart, implant, improve, inculcate, indoctrinate, induct, influence, inform, initiate, instill, instruct, interpret, lead, lecture, mediate, mentor, model, nourish, nurture, occasion, open eyes, persuade, point out, pound into, prepare, profess, proselytize, ready, rear, refine, reform, remediate, school, sharpen, show, support, tell, train, tutor.
Synonyms for Teaching:
Advise, alter, ameliorate, better, brainwash,
break in, brief, care, catechize, coach, communicate, condition, convert, convince, cram, cultivate, culture, demonstrate, develop, direct, discipline, drill, draw in, draw out, edify, educate, enable, encourage, enculturate, enlighten, exercise, explain, expound, facilitate, feed, form, forward, foster, further, give lessons, grill, ground, guide, hone, illustrate, imbue, impart, implant, improve, inculcate, indoctrinate, induct, influence, inform, initiate, instill, instruct, interpret, lead, lecture, mediate, mentor, model, nourish, nurture, occasion, open eyes, persuade, point out, pound into, prepare, profess, proselytize, ready, rear, refine, reform, remediate, school, sharpen, show, support, tell, train, tutor.
Activity Two: Jamie
Please listen to the following role play activity.
Be prepared to consider this scenario throughout the presentation!
Discussion One
What can we say about Jamie’s initial terror – that is, her inability to feel part of this situation.
What about her eventual success?
9.1 Conceptions of Teaching
“Teaching is not about what a teacher does, it is about what happens to the learner.”
Teachers develop a strategy whereby we have various conceptions of teaching (think 5 types of teacher)
The Different Families of Thought: (page 159)
Mystical-Religious vs. Rationalist-Empiricist
God
Religion
Transcendent
Existence / meaning
Most teachers would focus on this
Mystical-Religious vs. Rationalist-Empiricist
In earlier times, these were seen as complimentary. Both were considered necessary to the development of the whole.
Rewrite: Mystical - Religious
AND
Rationalist - Empiricist
Mystical-Religious knowledge:
BIG QUESTIONS
Socrates: “An unexamined life is one not worth living”
Theme: humans were once a part of a grand, unified whole but are now separate from that unity
Teaching becomes the drawing out / drawing in what’s already there– the recovery of that unity (comes from inside or outside).
(nurturing, fostering, tutoring)
Mystical-Religious
Belief that humans are evil – the teacher must draw the learner into the beliefs and social systems that are deemed to be “good”
In other words, drawing the learner into the truth
(induction, indoctrination, rector, master, professor, lecturer)
Discussion Two
How might mystical – religious conceptions of teaching be used to interpret Jamie’s experience?
(Jamie was fated to become a teacher, she was doing what she was meant to do; what is the “right” way to do this job)
Rationalist – Empiricist Conception
After the Enlightenment of the 1600s:
Mass communication through print media
Rise of Capitalism
Industrial Revolution
Scientific Revolution
Urbanization
Democratization
European imperialism
* Triumph of scientific reasoning over mystical - religious
Rationalism Empiricism
Products of the mind
Mathematical proof
Truth constructed through impeccable logic
Activity Three
Please listen as Isaac Newton brings us through 2 short lessons.
Lesson One: Calculus
Lesson Two: Light, gravity, motion
Isaac Newton
Pop quiz:
Was he a rationalist or an empiricist?
He was BOTH!
Calculus – rationalist
Light, gravity, motion – empiricist
Rationalism
Teaching rationalism – mentalist theories of learning, controlled curriculum, linear, incremental, sequenced, frequent testing.
(explaining, telling, instructing, structure, directing)
Empiricism
Teaching empiricist – behaviourist theories of learning, conditioning individuals, frequent testing.
(conditioning, training, correspond)
Discussion Three:
What might a rationalist – empiricist perspective suggest about Jamie’s experiences of learning to teach?
(becoming a teacher is developmental; fear = inexperience; effective teaching = acquiring/deploying technical competencies; individual sets and achieves goals)
3 Interpretivist Conceptions (Coherence Theories)
Constructivisms (individual understanding)
Social constructivism / Constructionisms (social collectivity)
Cultural Studies and Critical Theories (culture)
Constructivism
Offers little direction for teachers
Pays attention to prior learning
Has rich, focused experiences
Teacher prompts student towards interpretations
(facilitating, guiding, enabling)
Constructionism
Interest in interpersonal processes, social norms and cultural tools
Focus on how individuals become integral part of collectives
Teacher frame: human interactivity – teaching is incidental
Jamie – what’s going on is indirect, accidental.
(mediating, mentoring, modeling, initiating, enculturating)
Cultural and Critical
Argue educators have an ethical responsibility to be attentive to social structures, prevailing norms
Teacher frame: empowering, liberating, giving advice and advocating
Learners question existing structures and create new, liberating ones.
(giving voice, advocacy)
Discussion Four:
How might an interpretist perspective on teaching be used to interpret Jamie’s experience?
(fear = remembering schooling, society’s view of teachers – framing her experience; confidence = reframing view)
Participatory Conceptions
We are biologically enabled and culturally conditioned to teach.
The biological influences human learning
Human learning influences the biological
Teaching is maintaining and expanding on what is known
(improvising, occasioning, conversing, caring and engaging minds)
Discussion Five:
How might a participatory perspective on teaching be used to interpret Jamie’s experience?
(classroom = collective – teacher and student; this moment for Jamie is a culmination of biological, historical, dynamic and interacting parts. She managed to create the collectivity in her classroom.)
Engaging Minds: Changing Teaching in Complex Times
Chapter 10
Teaching Challenges
Inclusive Education
Concerned with the accommodation of difference in the classroom.
Oriented by the question of how ALL children might be meaningfully included in formal education.
Students doing well take on leadership roles.
Students achieving at lower levels receive better access to emotional, social and academic supports.
Inclusive Education Two Categories
Philosophical ( Why do it? )
All children can learn
Any child can benefit from education under appropriate circumstances.
Differences among children treated rich sources of possibility NOT something to be overcome.
Inclusive Education Two Categories cont’d
Pragmatic ( How to do it? )
Well-informed teachers
Carefully conceived IEP’s.
Access team of professionals.
Adequate classroom support.
Ongoing teacher development.
Schooling Structures
Schooling structures should adapt to the particular needs of and variations among children.
This could entail flexibility around:
Pacing
Curriculum
Physical access
Social organization
Pedagogical methods
Community participation
Healthy Relationships
“Strong component of the inclusive education movement is the creation and maintenance of healthy relationships across all groups associated with the schooling process…” ( Engaging Minds, p. 176).
Students
Parents
Teachers
Other community members
Community Oriented
Orienting premise that the community is stronger when difference is embraced rather than merely accommodated or tolerated.
Community sensibility evident in the classroom.
Selection of texts dealing with issues of community
Direct engagement with issues of difference
Activities that build community in classrooms
Prompting students to ways of helping one another
Critical Pedagogy
Revolves around issues of power, privilege and domination.
Interrogate the beliefs and practices within schools specifically and society more generally with a view toward enacting alternatives that are less oppressive and more empowering.
Critical Pedagogy
Begins with the premise that there is no such thing as a neutral educational strategy.
Formal schooling instrument of conformity.
Integrates young learners into:
Prevailing logics
World views
Mythologies
Wisdom
Explanatory systems
ideologies
Conscientização Paulo Freire
Translated as “consciousness raising”
“Approach to education concerned with noticing and uncovering oppressive political and cultural structures, coupled to an imperative to take action against such structures” (Engaging Minds, p. 179)
Conscientização Paulo Freire
Main pedagogical strategy
Turning language onto itself
Learners critically examine conventions that frame their experiences.
Examine their own complicity in those conventions.
Begins with one or more identifications such as nationality, cultural norms, religion, gender expectations, social class.
Help learners recognize problematic aspects of these identifications.
Critical Pedagogy and Good Teaching
Oriented toward ‘making the familiar strange’
Challenge what is taken-for-granted as normal
Normal replaced with normative or normalizing.
Discourses of normality “sometimes synonymous with discourses of power” (Engaging Minds, p. 181)
Discussion Six:
In what ways does our current curriculum challenge the feminine, masculine, cultural or multi-cultural “norms”?
Critical Attitudes
“Education is seen as both a site of struggle and a means to effect change” (Engaging Minds, p. 182)
Concerned with the “hidden curriculum” and it’s impact upon “interpretation that support inequities and perceived injustices” (Engaging Minds, p. 182)
Many discourses of critical pedagogies:
Post-colonial
Indigenous
Feminist
Queer perspectives
Post-Colonial
Emphasis upon economic dimensions of schooling.
Focused more on countries who are or were subject to colonial rule.
Concerned with issues such as:
Conflicting world views
Revitalization of indigenous knowledge
Cultural reparation
Anti-racisms
Hybridization of knowledge domains.
Indigenous
Strong focus on the recovery and preservation of traditional knowledge of native cultures.
“Human knowing is enhanced when a diversity of languages and cultural sensibilities are allowed to find expression” (Engaging Minds, p. 183)
Attention to place, sustainability and traditional lore.
Feminist
Seek to “understand how education is organized by and contributes to culturally determined gender roles and dynamics” (Engaging Minds, p. 183)
Focus on:
Masculinization of curriculum
Feminization of teaching
Gender differences in subject and career areas
Queer Pedagogy
Desire to understand how educational matters have been not only sexed but how they have been heterosexed.
“how assumptions of normality associated with straight and (usually) male identities pervade educational policies and practices” (Engaging Minds, p. 184).
Critiques of Critical Pedagogy
“Critical pedagogy is rooted in the same sorts of rationalists assumptions that underpin the repressive myths it seeks to interrupt” (Engaging Minds, p. 185)
Some critical pedagogues “seem to be well removed from class and other struggles owing to the professional and material benefits accrued from their academic work” (Engaging Minds, p. 185)
Teacher Identity Formation
Personal identity always evolving.
Events such as new city, switching careers, becoming ill can alter personal identity.
Becoming a teacher can also alter personal identity.
Especially so for student teachers.
Discussion Seven:
Do we sometimes feel challenged by our jobs? In what areas?
(Classroom? Curriculum? Government? Environment? Students? Cultures?)
Teacher Identity Formation: Student Teachers
Work across two different settings, host school and university.
University seen to challenge popular assumptions and tradition.
School seen to maintain what is established, not to interrupt it.
Teacher Identity Formation: Student Teachers
University seen as places of theory
Schools as places for practice
OR in negative terms
University offer impractical theory
Schools champion un-theorized practice.
Discussion Eight:
If you were the decision makers in education:
what would you change?
How can we re-frame our current problems?
How can we reframe the roles of teachers?
What should be taught in school? Can we challenge the current curriculum?
(healthcare, caring for elders, morality…etc)
Reference: Engaging Minds/Teaching in Complex Times by Brent Davis, Dennis,
No comments:
Post a Comment