Advice for New Teachers
The following is the result of years of observing novice teachers. While originally intended for Secondary Social Studies/History Teachers, I believe most of the advice applies to almost all new teachers.
How to Avoid the New Teacher Blues:
Ten Recommendations
About four years into being a teacher educator I realized there were certain
observations I was making over and over again, no matter who the student teachers were. As I thought about it, I decided I needed to try to impress upon these young educators the necessity of keeping certain simple, fundamental ideas in mind all the time. They are not complex theories or even “bag of tricks” methodologies. In hope of injecting some humor into presenting it to them, I constructed it around a “Top Ten” list, a la David Letterman. Here’s what it looked like, followed by a brief explanation of each of the items.
Bil’s top Ten Recommendations to New Teachers
1. Use the board (and various other media).
2. Script Questions and remember Wait Time.
3. Help each other learn content and reduce it to notes and questions.
4. Make kids responsible for taking notes.
5. Content = answers: What are the Essential Questions?
6. Do some critical analysis of the texts you’re using with your students!
7. Kids First: activate prior knowledge; ask, ask, ask them before
plowing ahead --- what do they already know?
8. Listen to them; process what they say; wait & synthesize; then proceed.
9. Clarity: with directions, expectations, etc. Rubrics help here. Being
clear in your own mind about what you’re doing is also a major help....
10. GREASES as an analytical tool --- it will help you and the kids.
PLUS:
Remember: Students as Workers (not you.)
Basic Essential Questions:
1) How do you know?
2) Whose point of view are we seeing/hearing?
3) What causes what?
4) How might things have been different (what if . . .)?
5) Why should we care? Who cares?
1. Use the Board (and various other media)
With all we know today about learning styles, modalities, multiple intelligences and so on, it is always striking to see how many novice teachers forget to use the black(or white)board. During our summer session in our laboratory high school we spend quite a bit of time impressing upon our students the need to put an agenda and objectives on the board before every class begins (we use the acronym ROAR -- Routine, Objectives, Agenda, Relevance -- to try to get them to think about classroom practice). Since they are observed every day during the summer session, they get into the habit --- or so we think. Invariably, when they go out in the field and start their student teaching, it is not at all unusual to watch an entire class without the student teaching touching a piece of chalk, writing on an overhead, projecting information through a computer screen. The importance of remembering that many students (I was one of them) need to see what’s being talked about or discussed cannot be stressed too much.
A cautionary note: the other side of this coin is the young teacher who covers the whole board with work in a totally random or haphazard fashion. The other important lesson we try to teach is that the board should be well-organized, so it makes sense to students. You cannot simply write on it wherever you stop walking and then, maybe later, “connect” the ideas/concepts/facts with some system of arrows or lines. Again, there may be some abstract random learners who won’t have a problem with that, but the concrete sequentials will, as will the concrete randoms and abstract sequentials. In other words, learn who your students are and work in ways that help them learn.
2. Script Questions and remember WAIT TIME!
“Let’s have a discussion,” says the young teacher, who then proceeds to start the class off by asking, “So, what did you think of the reading?” The room falls silent for almost ten seconds and the young teacher often launches off into what (s)he thought of the reading. End of discussion, usually.
We really try to have our students develop the habit of scripting the questions they will use in class each day, whether it’s a discussion, some variety of guided practice, a review of text reading or whatever. Learning to create an “arc of questions” (Dennie Wolf’s term) which moves students from lower order to higher order thinking is an important skill to develop and the sooner young teachers get into the habit of scripting questions this way, the better their classes go.
We also need to remind student teachers that ten seconds is not a very long time. We advise them to wait at least thirty seconds (and, yes, watch the minute hand on the clock in the room, if it has one). Some student will invariably “crack” the silence before the thirty seconds is up, as students are not used to --- and are often uncomfortable with ---silence, too. Again, this is a habit we try to instill in all our novice teachers; wait, wait, wait.
3. Help each other learn content and reduce it to notes and questions.
It is not unusual for student teachers, particularly in Social Studies/History and Biology, to feel like they don’t know enough content to teach their students. That age-old belief that the teacher has to know ALL the answers is still pervasive, and our student teachers are not immune to it. This recommendation suggests that student teachers can actually learn along with their students. For example, I was an American Studies major asked to teach the Latin America section of our Global Studies course. While I knew a little about the area I certainly wasn’t any expert, which is what I let my students know early on. But I told them that we’d all be closer to being experts by the end of the course. By structuring student-centered, student active research projects, which started with some simple brainstorming, we were all able to learn about Latin America. Once our brainstorm was turned into a template of questions and notes (Where is……? Population? International status today? etc.), students could then be assigned specific countries to research and then they would teach the rest of us about that country. Each student, or team of students, became experts on a particular nation and were then responsible for making sure the rest of us learned about the most important aspects of that place.
I’m sure the same predicament holds true for biology teachers, who couldn’t possibly be experts on every area of the ever-expanding field. So, why not turn it over to the students and let them teach all of us? In the process they’ll hone their research skills, their writing skills, and their presentation skills. Novice teachers can’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.”
4. Make kids responsible for taking notes.
Once students reach middle school it’s not uncommon for a class (almost any class) to start with the instruction, “Take out your notebooks.” Students dutifully do so and the teacher then says something to the affect of, “Okay, get ready to take notes.” Student teachers, having been through this drill countless times themselves, often issue the same instructions to their classes. The problem, however, is: do kids know how to “take notes?” Who taught them, and when did they learn? I’ve asked this question in quite a few school districts and very often discover that no one has worked with students on how to take notes. Not that there’s one way to do it but how often have we seen a class where one student is doodling throughout the “note-taking” presentation while another is writing down every word on the board or trying to transcribe the lecture?
This recommendation is about getting student teachers to actually check student note taking skills and to help students learn how to do it. Each student can have his or her own style, that’s not the problem. The problem revolves around --- why are they taking notes, what will they be used for in the future, and will they legible, intelligible, and useful in the future? So, when we ask our student teachers to make kids responsible for taking notes, we are also instructing our student teachers to be responsible in making sure their students learn how to take notes that are useful. That may mean more than a quick “check” in the grade book as you cruise by the open notebook on the desk. It may mean you will have to collect notes/notebooks and give students useful feedback about how effective their note taking is.
5. Content=Answers: what are the Essential Questions?
This is something I learned from Grant Wiggins and it connects to recommendation number three. Again, many Social Studies/History and Biology teachers are overwhelmed by the amount of content they believe they’re being asked to teach. And, very often, following the models they have seen in their own careers, they either plow ahead teaching chronological history or they start at Chapter One in the Bio textbook. What I try to get the student teachers to think about, as Grant suggests, is that the content contains the answers. Therefore, what are the questions we need to formulate to actually engage the students with the content?
For example, in American History, if the Constitutional Period and the Federalist Era are the content we have to study, what are the important questions we should be raising? I would think we would want to know “answers” to questions like: Does the writing of every Constitution require compromises? Whose voices weren’t heard at the Constitutional convention? Could America have developed a multi-party system of government? Why did some people believe a Bill of Rights was essential for the new government? By starting this unit with these questions and asking students to pursue the answers, we allow the student teacher to learn how to coach his/her students, rather than simply be a transmitter of information. This means approaching curriculum design from a perspective of inquiry, not content transmission, and it means students will have to become active and engaged learners. This is not an easy lesson for student teachers, but it’s a very important one.
6. Do critical analysis of the texts you’re using with your students.
Too often textbooks, particularly in Social Studies/History and Biology, are seen as the curriculum. And new teachers feel obliged to plow through because their cooperating teachers do or their older colleagues do. There’s the age-old problem of “covering” the curriculum (the textbook) rather than thinking about how to engage students in critical thinking and problem solving. What this recommendation is focused on is encouraging new teachers to work with their students on learning how to navigate through a text.
Before assigning chapters to read and questions to answer (which are usually at the end of the text), new teachers could do the following exercises with their students to introduce them to a form of critical analysis. #1: Who wrote the text and what can we find out about the author(s)? #2. Look at the table of contents: is there a particular arrangement of concepts, ideas, facts, etc. and what might that tell us? #3. What kinds of pictures, graphics, maps, tables, and charts are in the book? How might those be used to help us learn? #4. Closely examine the pictures, graphics, etc. Can we categorize them, beyond what the book has already done? (For example, how many pictures of men? Of women? Of people of color?) By conducting exercises like this, before even reading a page, the students have been attuned to critically consider the book and won’t necessarily look at it as “the curriculum” anymore but as a source or reference book which might have biases, misinformation, or omitted information.
This is also a good time to introduce students to techniques like SQ3R. That is,
survey the text. Skim through the book looking at pictures, graphics, bold print, chapter titles, and the like and develop a set of questions you (the student) have about the text.
Next, read an assigned portion and then recite what you have gleaned from the content, particularly in relation to your questions. Finally, review the process and make note of what you have learned. What new knowledge have you acquired? How important is it and why? What knowledge did you already have and how important is that?
Using these simple approaches to reading a text can make a world of difference for student learning but, as important, can focus the new teacher on creating curriculum and instruction which is focused on active student engagement and knowledge construction.
7. Kids first: activate prior knowledge. Ask, ask, ask students what they know before plowing ahead with assignments and lessons.
Here’s another historic problem we have in education. That is, assuming that students are empty vessels who show up with nothing in their heads, no experience in the world, and certainly no background in whatever subject we are teaching. Particularly because of the stress that time pressure puts on teachers, and new teachers more than veterans, there is a sense that we have to “dive into” the material and “get through it” or we won’t “expose” the students to what they need to know. (“Exposing” students to material is what I think of as the “Disease” mentality of education. If we “expose" them to it, maybe they’ll “catch it.”)
It’s important for new teachers (and veterans as well, actually) to recognize that their students bring a world of knowledge into the classroom. And it is imperative that the teacher find out what students know and to what degree or extent they have control over that knowledge. Years ago I was teaching a unit on the Renaissance to some 9th graders and was astounded that they knew the names of a number of famous painters. It was only after asking a few questions that I discovered their knowledge base was the Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles (who were named Michelangelo, etc.). Nonetheless, it gave me an entry point into the topic, just as Tupac Shakur’s Makaveli could do so for studying the political aspects of the same era.
The point is, it’s important for a teacher to ask questions, to activate prior knowledge, and then to proceed with teaching material. It not only makes the students responsible in an immediate way, but allows the teacher to find out where there might be gaps in student knowledge and also to discover that there are areas that needn’t be “covered” because the students clearly know the material.
8. Listen to them: process what they say, wait and synthesize, then proceed.
Another persistent problem in classrooms is that teachers dominate the air space. That is, teachers do most of the talking, very little listening, even less hearing and students quickly become disengaged and/or bored. This recommendation is connected, in some degree, to recommendation #2 about Wait Time.
As with Wait Time, it is difficult for new teachers to bear the sound of silence in their classroom. While they don’t want their classroom to be noisy and chaotic (because it means it’s “out of control,” a topic for another time and place), the thought of no voice filling the air every minute is fairly unbearable to the new teacher.
In the same way, having seen a model for many years in which the teacher’s voice is the dominant one, and the only one that has authority (particularly over the subject matter), new teachers fall into the trap of talking a great deal, asking fairly superficial questions, listening to a brief student response, and then proceeding with what they were going to do or say anyway.
This recommendation suggests a different approach. That is, it suggests that teachers actually ask complex or open-ended questions and then genuinely listen to the student response. And then (and, again, this is a very difficult habit/pattern to break), think about what the student said in relation to what is being studied before saying a word. This is a teaching skill that has to be consciously learned if it is to become a habit, but it is an invaluable skill that will benefit the students and the teacher immeasurably.
9. Clarity --- with directions, expectations, instructions, etc. Rubrics can help here.
Being clear in your own mind about what you’re doing is the most important first step here.
It is not easy to give clear directions to students. It is not as simple as just saying, “Copy the notes from the board and write one good paragraph in response to the conflict between x and y.” Some students need to see those directions. Other students need to hear it several times and several different ways. Others may have questions about the notes.
Most people who become teachers were either very good students or, at the very least, really liked school --- and probably felt pretty successful at it. That’s fine. But it doesn’t mean that every student in front of us has the same attitudes, abilities, inclinations, intelligences, or talents we might have. They have their own, to be sure, and we need to consider that when we ask them to engage in any variety of tasks. It’s not enough to ask, “Is that clear?” because some poor student who might not be clear probably thinks (s)he is the only one who isn’t and may not feel secure enough to ask for clarification.
Ask someone to repeat what the task is going to be. Have students tell you what they think it is you’ve asked them to engage in. Find ways to make sure everyone understands what’s going on before proceeding. It won’t take a huge amount of time to do it, particularly if one considers the amount of time it takes to un-do a class’s work when students haven’t been clear about their task.
10. GREASES as an analytical too. It will help you and the kids.
This recommendation is particular to Social Studies/History, but I would encourage teachers from other disciplines to think about creating an acronym like this. The purpose of the acronym is to focus students on those concepts that are pervasive in the study of the discipline. In this case GREASES represents: G for government, R for religion, E for economics, A for art/architecture, S for science/technology, E for education, and S for social/cultural values. We’ve actually added another G at the beginning, for geography, so the G-GREASES model is a tool that provides students with a way to examine any culture at any point in history through inquiry driven questions. As important, when the acronym is introduced it demands that we investigate, with our students, what each of these concepts means and represents. Aside from establishing some common ideas about the concepts, it allows the teacher to find out not only what students already know about the concept, but also what set of beliefs may surround the concept, what values the student brings to it, what questions does (s)he raise about it. So, aside from providing an analytical tool that can be used over and over again, it activates prior knowledge and provides the teacher with insight to his/her students.
Using the G-GREASES model, students could be asked to compare present-day China with dynastic China. Or with contemporary South Africa. Feudal England and feudal Japan could be compared and contrasted. And on and on. It’s a model that provides structure with enormous flexibility and is based on students constructing knowledge around it.
The PLUS items: Students as Workers and Essential Questions.
These are recommendations that come from the Common Principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools, a national reform group started by Theodore Sizer in the mid-1980s. The first aphorism, in its entirety, is “student as worker, teacher as coach,” and the concept is a very important one for a new teacher to consider. If we look at what a coach does when working with athletes (or a music or art teacher, too), it is not just about transmitting information about the sport (or piece of music, or painting). Any information is going to be put to use actively by the students/athletes so that the transmitted information has meaning. So, yes, there might be drills and, yes, there might be “chalk talks,” but there will always be student performance and application of knowledge and skills in demonstrable ways. When considering curriculum design and methods of instruction, new teachers need to focus on the students being the workers, constructing knowledge for themselves, if significant learning is going to occur.
Essential Questions were mentioned in recommendation Number Five, above.
The ones included at the end of the Top Ten list are five generic questions that can be applied to any variety of subjects. Essential questions have no one right answer. They go to the heart of the discipline or subject matter. They engender other questions. They don’t have a “yes” or “no” answer. If teachers look at the five generic questions listed here, I’m sure they would be able to make direct connections to whatever content is being taught in their class.
The first question is one we should ask students on a regular basis: How do you know? Where’s the evidence of knowledge the student can produce? Can (s)he explain it, write it, diagram it, sing it, dance it? The second question is related to recommendation Number Six (about critically analyzing a textbook): Whose point of view are we seeing/hearing? This is a critical thinking skill which students should be using on a regular basis, to consider bias, point of view, exaggeration, propaganda, and so on. Question three, “What causes what?,” can be applied to any number of subjects at various points in the curriculum. Whether it’s explaining the reasons for a war, the unfolding of a plot, the reasons for a chemical reaction or an ecological disaster, “what causes what?” leads students to critically investigate the material before them. “How might things have been different (What if?)?” Again, this is a question that will push students to think deeply and, often, creatively. “What if Native Americans ‘discovered’ Europe?” “How might things have been different if Darwin wasn’t published?” “What if Robinson Crusoe were a woman?” Finally, “Why should we care? Who cares?” There is a need for relevance in the curriculum. Ideas and content needs to be connected to the students’ lives for it to have deep and lasting meaning. Why should we care about what we’re studying? Who does care about it? Discussions around these questions on a periodic basis are important and enlightening.
So, that’s the Top Ten Recommendations for New Teachers, plus some additional advice. The hope is that it’s useful and helps some new (and maybe even veteran teachers) provide their students with meaningful and exciting learning experiences on a regular basis.
Well, the top ten proved pretty useful but teaching, as we know, is a complex task, particularly if you want to do it well. As a result of more observing, more thinking, and more reflecting I found my self putting together a “next-ten” list to supplement the first. Once again, these are focused on very practical. nuts-and-bolts ideas about making a classroom an effective learning environment that will engage all students in authentic work. So, here they are, once again followed by brief explanations as to what’s important about each and how to avoid pitfalls connected to each.
Bil’s Next Ten Recommendations to Student-Teachers
1. Planning, planning, planning is KEY!
2. Sequencing & pacing is crucial.
3. Remember your audience: they’re kids.
4. “Getting to the Activity” is NOT the most important thing.
5. “Getting Through the Lesson Plan” is NOT your goal each day.
6. Ask the students: Why are we doing this? Why do you think
I’ve asked you to do this?
7. Inquiry & kids’ learning is what drives our teaching.
8. It’s okay to be assertive and directive (at times...)
9. If kids (or you) haven’t done a lot of Group Work they need
structure, help, and a slow process.
10. Nothing beats experience.
******************************************
Cooperative/Collaborative Group Work ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
(according to David & Roger Johnson)
1. Positive Interdependence
2. Face-to-face Promotive Interaction
3. Social/Communication Skills improvement
4. Individual Accountability
5. Processing Skills (de-briefing)
1. Planning, planning, planning is KEY!
On the surface this seems all too obvious. But planning, as any good teacher will tell you, is what makes or breaks a class. And good planning can be hard to come by, particularly if good habits around planning are not developed during one’s early years in the classroom. We try to teach our students to focus on what it is you want students to know and be able to do at the end of your class/unit/course, and then “plan backwards” from there, always keeping your outcomes in focus. This is easier said than done --- and it’s particularly difficult if a new teacher has more than one preparation a day and if they have to deal with 100 students or more. Nonetheless, those are all the reasons that careful planning --- and particularly well-focused planning --- is ultimately crucial to the success of the class. And “success” in this case is that the students are able, at the end of the class/unit/course, to produce evidence (in any variety of forms) that they have at least made progress toward, if not mastered, the stated objectives. Let’s be clear about those outcomes, too. They are not, “Students will learn about the Civil War,” or the like. What will the students know and be able to do with the knowledge of the Civil War they will acquire? And how will that show us that they have, indeed, learned something? So planning entails not just thinking about content to be “covered,” but also considering skills work for students and appropriate assessment measures. While it entails a great deal of work initially, the sooner the new teacher can get into the good habit of planning carefully, the more s/he will be able to be “creative,” in his/her planning. With experience, the teacher with the good planning habits finds teaching more and more enjoyable and satisfying.
One final note on planning: I have to include this because I watch it happen several times every semester. A student teacher will prepare an excellent lesson and show me the plan before class begins. S/he will then put the plan down on her/his desk and never refer to it again. It’s easy to get caught up in the dynamics of classroom life, focusing your energy and attention on the students. If you’ve put notes on the board, they may well help guide you through the lesson. But unless you periodically check your written plans, there’s a good chance you may leave something out that could have made even a good class better. More importantly, it may have resulted in more genuine learning by the students. So, along with developing the habit of good planning also remember to develop the habit of reading your plans on a regular basis during the class you’re teaching.
2. Sequencing and Pacing is crucial.
Sequencing and pacing has to do with choices a teacher makes about what material to teach when, and for how long. These are, of course, very important decisions and, again, must be made in light of what the desired outcomes are for student learning. One of the great roadblocks to student learning, historically, is that in teacher-centered classrooms, the teacher very often spent longer amounts of time teaching those topics which s/he liked most and knew best. If we focus on what students should know and be able to do, however, it totally influences what we teach, the order in which it’s taught, and the amount of time taken with each topic. Therefore, decisions about sequencing and pacing are crucial to student learning. This may mean approaching curriculum with a different perspective than has been used in the past, because the focus will be on student learning, not on simply “covering” material.
So, when teaching history, for example, teachers may decide not to teach the course chronologically. There is no evidence, in fact, that students learn history better when it is taught chronologically. Therefore, if a teacher wants to make sure his/her students actually learn to think critically about historical problems and be able to interpret historical events from their own point of view, the traditional, chronological approach may not be the way to go. As a result, themes, topics, documents, etc may well determine the sequencing and pacing of the history course. If teachers commit to a project-based curriculum the decisions about sequencing and pacing are crucial. Some material will be “left out,” in the interest of student learning. Remember, the focus is on what students need to know and be able to do, not on what the teacher needs to “cover.”
So, it may be that a history teacher wants to make sure his/her students can wrestle with serious historical problems. That means the students are going to have to be presented with those problems, with primary and secondary sources, and with a project that challenges them to do research, to write (and re-write), and to publicly present their findings. How long will that take? In what order should materials, content, and directions be presented? What is the teacher’s timeline in actively engaging the students? The same could be said for teaching students to wrestle with real mathematical or scientific problems or working with literature or a foreign language. The point is the teacher must focus on what it is students need to learn, and make sequencing and pacing decisions based on that, not on what needs to be “covered.”
3. Remember your audience: they’re kids.
Another problem I have watched new teachers struggle with over the years is remembering that the students they are dealing with are kids. Kids with lives. Kids with families. Kids who come to school to see their friends, to play sports, to sing in the chorus and play in the orchestra. Kids who don’t necessarily think that what you’re teaching is the most important thing in their lives.
People who become teachers fall into several categories. Many are people who have loved school and done fairly well in it. Others are people who love their subject and want to “share” that with other young people. To a lesser degree, there is a group who move into teaching for the security and benefits and stability (and the summers off and vacation time). The focus here is on the first two groups, because in their early years of teaching they can be oblivious to the fact that their students do not share their interest or enthusiasm.
It is not uncommon for new teachers to be perplexed by their students’ lack of interest in the subject they’re teaching, as well as the students’ seeming uncaring attitude about school. It’s important for new teachers to study school culture, and the history of school culture in the United States to really appreciate what they are dealing with.
Since the advent of the large high school in the early 1960s, schools have more and more become impersonal and seemingly non-caring places for young people to be. Combine that with the basic design of schools, which revolves around sorting and
selecting (based on Frederick Taylor’s “efficiency studies” in the 1920s – creating the “factory model” where “managers” are high-tracked and “workers” are low-tracked) and
the behaviorist power and control structure, and schools are not particularly inviting places except for that top ten percent who reap the benefits of the system (why do teachers love teaching the Advanced Placement courses?). Because new teachers have very often been people who liked school, were happy there, and succeeded pretty well, they do not easily relate to those students who they probably had little contact with when they went there! As a result, several things can happen, many of which are not good --- for the new teachers or his/her student.
Too little time is spent in teacher preparation programs getting new teachers to think about whom their students are. And, because the new teachers are caught up in either liking school, or believing their subject is so important to teach (because they love it), they fall prey to blaming the students for not loving what they’re trying to teach. But that’s not the case.
Think about what the average sophomore in high school’s schedule is like. A history course (probably World Cultures or Global Studies), a literature course (maybe World Lit, but probably Western Lit or British Lit), a math course (Algebra or Geometry), and a science course (chemistry or biology), plus a foreign language, phys. ed., art or music, and maybe an elective, plus lunch. What adult goes through a day like that? What adult can claim mastery over a schedule like that? Plus, what’s the connection between one subject and another? How does a 15-year-old make sense of this cascade of content? And why should they care? What’s being done, from class to class, to genuinely engage the student in the various subjects? So, given that you have to attend school if you’re 15 years old, why should you care? And here’s where the new teacher hits a logjam. S/he cares about the subject, or loves being in school --- why don’t the kids? Well, because they’re kids. Their world is not the world the new teacher (or even the veteran teacher) exists in. It is not one that is intellectually engaged in the subject, or even sees school as important to their lives. That doesn’t mean that’s a good thing. But it also doesn’t mean that it’s the kids’ fault! The system isn’t set up in a way that tells kids they’re important, that their education is why all the adults have showed up each day.
What’s important here is for the new teacher to recognize what the school culture is that the kids, and the teachers, exist in. A recent article in Educational Leadership, based on a study from Harvard University, points out that new teachers receive little or no help from their districts, their experienced colleagues, their administrators. They are left to their own devices, for the most part, to survive their early years in teaching. And a major component that is lacking is understanding who their clientele are. Beyond that, particularly in urban schools, all they are likely to hear is that the students are the problem, that the students aren’t like the kids who “used to be here,” etc.
We have a crisis in this nation and it involves an aging white faculty working with a diverse student body they don’t know, and don’t care to know. In the process, young teachers become jaded through the influence of the veterans who have been worn down by a system that is not teacher-friendly. The bottom line, however, is that the students are blamed for the ills of the school. Why? How? Because the adults get to set the terms of how schools operate. As a result, it somehow becomes the students’ fault that the system isn’t working. And here’s where new teachers need to step back and gain some perspective. They need to remember that the school is supposed to be there to educate
the students. It’s not about controlling their behavior or tracking them into the “appropriate” level. New teachers need to be able to separate themselves from their own love of school, or their subject, and think about who their students are. What would be the best ways to engage the students in critical thinking, problem-solving, and thinking about what’s important to learn about the subject being taught?
The bottom line is, it’s about the kids. Who are they, what do they care about, how can we engage them? Teaching, ultimately, is like Tom Sawyer painting the fence. The creative part of the job is getting people to do something they don’t think they want to do and enjoy it! It’s not a simple task. But if you don’t remember you’re dealing with kids, and don’t try to get to know who those kids are, there’s almost no chance you can be successful at it.
4. “Getting to the Activity” is not the most important thing.
Teachers, even new teachers, are very good at designing activities that students will get involved in. The problem is that these activities are transitory and leave no enduring knowledge with the student. So, new teachers will often plan a class with a very clever or creative activity and make sure they get the students to do that activity that day. By the next day, the students may remember they did something that was “fun” in the class the day before, but have no idea what the activity was supposed to teach.
This is one of the most difficult areas for new teachers to overcome. When new teachers prepare a lesson that has a clever or creative activity and the students actively engage in it, it appears that the class has been successful. But what have the students learned? Is the activity aligned with the outcomes that students need to know and be able to do? Or is it simply something that engaged the students for 45 or 82 minutes and carries no lasting value? One of the pitfalls of being a new teacher is that “getting to the activity” becomes the objective for a lesson and, if we get to it, do it, get excited about it, the lesson is a good one. But is it? What have the students learned from the lesson? What will they take away from the lesson that they’ll know next week? So, “getting to the activity” is not the most important part of a lesson plan if the activity is not aligned with outcomes that are focused on what students need to know and be able to do. It’s not easy, to say the least, but it’s crucially important for young teachers to learn.
5. “Getting through the lesson plan” is not the goal each day.
Like “getting through the activity,” “getting through the lesson plan” is a problem for new teachers. The historical pressure put upon teachers to “get through the curriculum” exacerbates this. Because traditional curriculum has been about getting through the text and getting through the daily lesson plan, new teachers can easily lose the focus of why they’re doing what they’re doing. It’s not about the teacher, it’s not about “covering” the content, and it’s about the kids’ learning. Easier said than done.
Given the school culture that most of us have come through, it’s hard, sometimes, particularly for new teachers, to get beyond thinking about “getting through the lesson plan.” Class starts, the teacher gives instructions, the students do what they’re told, the lesson plan is followed and we show up again tomorrow for more of the same. It’s not about teaching and learning. It’s about “getting through the lesson plan.” And new teachers fall into this trap, just as they do with “getting to the activity.”
Once again, new teachers have to focus on outcomes. What do students need to know and be able to do in whatever the subject area is? What will the evidence be that they have actually learned those things? Simply getting through the lesson plan is not enough, particularly if the lesson plan is just about “getting through the material.” School cannot simply be about what the teachers need to do. In fact, schools need to re-focus so that they enable students to learn what they need to know. The “getting through the lesson plan” mentality is connected to the idea that students must fit the school. Focusing on outcomes, on what students need to know and be able to do, is about the school fitting the students and transcends “getting through the lesson plan.” It’s about authentic teaching and learning which pushes students to aim for higher expectations.
6. Ask the students: why are we doing this? Why do you think I’ve asked you to do this?
Caught up in “getting through the activity” and “getting through the lesson plan” is another important point that new teachers need to take heed of. They need to understand that students’ voices need to be heard, particularly in regard to what is being taught. New teachers need to remember to ask their students, “Why are we doing this? Why do you think I’ve asked you to do this?
For too long school has revolved around what the adults in the school essentially order the students to do. Learning cannot happen around that dynamic. If students do not feel like they are listened to and heard, if they are not invested in what they are doing, learning cannot occur. This is a very difficult dynamic to break away from. The history of school, the way schools have always operated, locks people into patterns that are about what teachers do, not what students learn. As a result, new teachers do not develop the instinct to ask their students: why are we doing this? Why do you think I’ve asked you to do this? Too few teacher preparation programs push their students to think this way, to consider that what happens in classrooms is about the students’ learning. And even those who learn this too often end up in schools where the culture does not allow them to implement what they have learned in their teacher preparation programs. The point is simple: teachers, new and old, need to remember to ask students: why are we doing this? Why do you think I’ve asked you to do this?
7. Inquiry and kids’ learning is what drives our teaching.
This will sound a bit redundant, but it needs to be said again and again. Teaching is not about “covering” content. The focus must always be on “what are the students learning?” And to get there, what teachers do must be based in inquiry, not on “answers.” As Grant Wiggins asks, if teachers would think of the content they want to teach as the “answers,” then what are the questions that will lead students to construct knowledge around that content? So, if we can clearly identify what we would like students to know (content) and be able to do (skills) when they complete our course, we can then take the “know” part, examine it as “answers” and create essential questions which will drive student inquiry. Those questions would:
• go to the heart of the discipline
• recur naturally throughout one’s learning and in the history of the field
• raise other important questions
(Wiggins/McTighe, Understanding by Design p.29-30)
Developing essential questions can focus students on what they need to learn while leaving it up to them to construct their learning. Examples of such questions, again from Wiggins and McTighe (p. 28) are: Is there enough to go around (food, water, etc.)? Is history a history of progress? Does are reflect culture or shape it? Are mathematical ideas inventions or discoveries? Must a story have a beginning, middle, and end? When is a law unjust? Is gravity a fact or a theory? Is biology destiny? These are questions that can be asked again and again, moving through a curriculum and they will help develop students to become questioners and inquiry driven thinkers.
8. It’s okay to be assertive and directive (at times).
When so much emphasis is put on creating student-centered classroom with student-active work being assigned, new teachers can misconstrue their role. Over the years I have encountered dozens of new teachers and student teachers who not only want to create a student-centered classroom but also want their students to “like” them and have “fun.” Don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. I would hope that all students would “like” all their teachers and that kids would see school as “fun” far more than they do. However, teachers are not at school to be “liked,” they are there to teach --- and to teach young people how to learn. This may not always be “fun,” but it can be challenging and engaging for all involved. It might also require the teacher to be assertive and directive with the students. This is not necessarily a negative thing. Until students operate in a whole school culture where they are asked to be responsible for their own learning, it will probably take them a while to adjust to a student-centered classroom. Since most school cultures revolve around systems focused on power and control, not learning and education, students often become accustomed to teachers who are disciplinarians and even authoritarians. This means a new teacher may need to show the students that (s)he can be assertive and directive while incrementally introducing more and more student-centered work. We have to remember that our students are novices in relation to what we teach. Even if we aren’t total “experts,” we do have greater familiarity and experience with our subject matter and it becomes our job to structure learning experiences for students so they can learn what we believe is important. In the process, we may have to assert ourselves as teachers and direct students toward their learning.
9. If kids (or you) haven’t done a lot of Group Work they need structure, help, and a slow process.
While I am a big proponent of Group Work, I think it’s important for teachers (and new teachers, especially) to recognize that students need to learn how to do group work effectively, it is not an innate, DNA-encoded part of our nature. Roger & David Johnson have written extensively about this and their basic principles are listed at the end of the “Next Ten Recommendations.” What’s important to remember about Group Work is that it is structured --- which means the teacher, initially at the very least, needs to organize how the work will proceed. Students will need support in this. Remember, it’s not as if students have been waiting for years to do group work. Walking in and announcing “Today, we’re going to start doing group work” will, more often than not, be greeted with jeers, not cheers. Students have not been sitting around for years wondering “when are we going to work in groups.” The experiences they’ve had, very often, have not been good (often characterized by a “smart” kid dominating the group and others “hitch-hiking” for the grade). This is why structure and careful planning, as well as a deliberate process are essential to effective Group Work.
10. Nothing Beats Experience.
Most of my student-teachers over the years have measured themselves, their work, and their progress, as if they somehow thought they were 10-year veterans. I love that they set the bar so high for themselves but one of the great truths about teaching --- and about learning to teach --- is that it is a cumulative art. One gets better and better as time goes on, particularly if one devotes him/herself to becoming a student of teaching. So, while we shouldn’t use inexperience as an excuse for poor teaching, it is a partial explanation for early miscues. Nonetheless, developing the essential habits of teaching which thoughtfully and reflectively consider planning, pedagogy, and assessment is what is crucial to developing into a great teacher. But it takes time.
Essential Elements to Effective Cooperative/Collaborative/Group Work
(developed by Roger & David Johnson)
1. Positive Interdependence: each member of the group must have to do work which is essential to the group’s success but is clearly individual and distinct from anyone else’s task.
2. Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction: groups/teams must have to interact in ways in which information is shared, students talk and listen to each other and everything is aimed at accomplishing a common goal.
3. Social/Communication Skills Improvement: Over the course of doing Group Work students should demonstrate clear, progressive improvement in their ability to communicate in speaking and writing as well as demonstrating exemplary social skills.
4. Individual Accountability: I believe this is the most important item on this list because if each student isn’t accountable and responsible for some independent, individual work which is part of the group goal, the cooperative/collaborative element of whatever the project is, will be lost. This requires careful thought and planning by the teacher.
5. Processing Skills: Cooperative/Collaborative/Group Work shouldalways be followed by a de-briefing session where students reflect on their personal performance, their group’s performance, and the entire process, with an eye on how to improve for next time.
Any ideas, suggestions, comments, recommendations are encouraged