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Rationale For Approach To Learning/Teaching At The School
It is a difficult task to try to make explicit the theoretical basis underpinning our approach to teaching and learning at the school. We, the teachers in the school, attempt to preserve Piaget's basic 'image' of children as major architects of their own understanding while at the same time disagreeing with some of the central features of his theory of stages and of his view on the nature of logical thinking. As do Bruner and Vygotsky, we emphasise the importance of social interaction, communication, instruction and the transmission of cultural expertise in the intellectual development of the children.
We also take account of children's constructive, creative and generative
abilities. We are aware of the enormous complexity of the communicative
process in teaching and learning and the difficulty of discerning the complex
abilities that underlie skilful communication and teaching with children.Piaget's theory leads to the claim that a child's ability to use language informatively depends upon. his stage of intellectual development. Chomskian theorists, on the other hand, are of the opinion that the course of a child's linguistic development, like a child's use and understanding of grammar cannot be understood simply in terms of stages of intellectual development or in terms of communication skills. Their view is that a child possesses a natural ability to discover how language is structured, that language is a 'special' affair separate from the child's knowledge of the world. I concur with that view, having observed, over many years, several children with varying degrees of deficit in their ability to acquire language.
In comparison to Piaget, Bruner places a greater emphasis on the role of language, communication and instruction in the development of knowledge and understanding. Bruner suggests that the processes that underlie intelligent and adaptive thinking are not the exclusive invention of the child but are communicated, sometimes in subtle ways, from the more mature to the less mature. Whereas Piaget provides a role for social interaction and communication in his theory, it plays a less important part in the development of intelligence than does Bruner's thesis. Vygotsky also places instruction at the very heart of human development. Indeed he defined intelligence as the capacity to learn through instruction. Vygotsky, like Bruner, puts language and communication at the very core of intellectual and personal development. Vygotsky's primary concern lay in understanding the nature, evolution and transmission of human culture.
The ability to concentrate is not necessarily an natural attribute in a child. Children differ in the extent to which they find it difficult to concentrate but they can be helped in this regard. Children's ability to attend is impaired when there is too great a gap between what they understand and what is required of them is too great. Perhaps the most important contributions that Piaget has made to our understanding of children is their capacity as learners and architects of their own understanding; their capacity for self correction and self instruction; the view of children as self motivating and self directing of their own development and their ability to interact with one another to foster mutual development.
In any discussion on the nature of teaching to-day it might be well to reflect on how it has developed, especially over the last one hundred years or so. Berliner (1987) states that a little over one hundred years ago there were three equally disreputable professions in America: medicine, law and education. The medical doctor was then viewed as not being very different from members of other trades and a little better than a faith healer. The teaching occupation tended to be viewed as the last resort of persons unfit for the rigours of more demanding careers. As in Europe at that time, American universities viewed teacher education curricula as devoid of scholarship and concerned mainly with teaching the 'tricks of the trade' (Cohen,1976). In nineteenth century England the status and role of teachers were, to say the least, ambiguous (Jones,1990). They were expected to reform society by being models of morality for the poorer classes to emulate but, yet, to be conscious of their lowly status within that society.
In Ireland, as elsewhere in the world, teacher education has tended to be the 'poor relation' in the traditional university sector (Commission on Higher Education, 1967). A widespread doubt exists as to its legitimacy as a knowledge based enterprise and hence there are misgivings about its right to a place on a university campus (Coolahan, 1984).
In the space of one hundred years the medical and legal professions have made enormous gains in stature, while teaching has lagged seriously behind. One must bear in mind, however, that the conceptual basis of teaching to-day has undergone a sea change during the present century. From being a craft whose skills could be acquired either through a short teacher training course or through an apprenticeship it has evolved to a point where policy and practice have a more comprehensive theoretical basis. Teaching, like other occupations could be said to have evolved through Aristotle's developmental stages, the final stage being made possible through developments in modern psychology, psycholinguistics, sociology, economics, new developments in educational research and practice, new thinking in the philosophy of education, and particularly through insights emerging from such people as Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner.
Our vision of the context of teaching has broadened enormously and our knowledge of the
complexity of the teaching/learning process has improved enormously. Just
as there can be no going back to the witch doctor approach to modern medicine
so neither can there be no going back to a 'tricks of the trade' approach
in teacher education or in teaching. information which is of particular relevance to teaching) has coincided with the rejection of the technical model of teacher training in favour of preparing practitioners who would be theoretically well informed as those of other professions. In my opinion, there is a critical connection between the knowledge base of teaching, the practice of teaching, and the preparation of practitioners for the classroom.
Each foundation discipline approaches education from its own perspective and no individual could hope to provide more than a partial explanation of the multifaceted teaching/learning, educational/inculcation process. Because of these developments we have become aware, as never before, of the complexity of the teaching/learning process and the burden of uncertainty with which the teacher has to contend on a constant basis.
Having argued earlier that the complexity of the teaching context is now known and understood to a point that a developing scientific basis can be claimed to exist to inform teaching, a comparison of the nature of decision-making in the professional areas and in teaching may prove useful.
The contributions made by the foundation disciplines have undoubtedly been of great benefit in advancing our knowledge of teaching, the learning process and our understanding of the learner. There is disagreement, however, as to the precise nature of these disciplines and that borders between them are not always clearly delineated. It could be argued that the foundation disciplines and their contributions to education, while important, should not be given the eminent position accorded them by some educationalists. However, it would be remiss of the writer not to offer a critique of the role of the foundation disciplines in the curriculum and teaching of this school.
It would be true to say that no occupation or profession can advance faster than the knowledge base on which it must rely. Has the knowledge base of teaching changed? What are the implications of any advances in knowledge and understanding of pupils, teachers and the learning/teaching process and context? New thinking on the teaching/learning process has been emerging since the seventeenth century from such major figures as Rousseau (1712-1768), Pestalozzi (1746-1827), Froebel (1782-1852) and in recent times from the works of Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. These advances were mediated to a large degree through the aforementioned foundation disciplines.
I am not competent to make judgements on the relative merits of the foundation disciplines to the education process, but I shall attempt to offer a selective account of some of the more important contributions in that area - particularly in so far as they impinge on the work carried out in our school: Psychology is the systematic and scientific study of human behaviour and development. This includes physical, intellectual, emotional, social and moral development. Psychology attempts to identify, explain and interpret patterns in all these aspects of human behaviour and development. As a result of its advances it has become possible to predict patterns of behaviour and to identify stages of development while, at the same time recognising that individuals vary considerably in their rates of maturation (Schwab, 1989). Twentieth century psychology is differentiated from that of the mechanistic approach to the human mind was evident. It was seen largely as a passive receiver and conservator of information, while intellectual activity, was to a great extent, reduced to combinations of associations of sensations, images and ideas. This mechanistic view of mind lent itself to the educational approach whereby the needs of the child were based largely on analysis of the needs of adults and of the teacher centred transmission of the core heritage to all who attended school. Classes were treated as homogeneous, and individual differences were not understood or catered for. That view of pupils as largely imbibers of information has changed.
"Everywhere we find the idea that the life of the mind is a dynamic reality; intelligence, a real constructive activity; will and personality, continuous and irreducible kinds of creativity" (Piaget, 1935 p. 146)
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) identified stages of development, about which Rousseau had speculated, on the basis of scientifically established data. While Piaget's interest in the educational aspects of his work was limited, his findings constituted a major advance in the knowledge base of teaching and has had a significant impact on classroom practice despite the fact that a number of people would take issue with some of the central features of his theory of stages and his views on the nature of logical thinking.
To the American psychologist and learning theorist B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) we owe
behavioural modification, a psychological conditioning technique for dealing with misbehaviour or aiding the learning process. The approach entails the the application of positive and negative reinforcements (i.e. operant conditioning through rewards and punishment) in the case of acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. Critics of Skinner's view (including myself) of human behaviour and learning would disagree with his belief that only what is observable and measurable is important in education. They would point to a student's thought processes, motivation, expectations, feelings and interests, most of which are not quantifiable in a Skinnerian model. Nevertheless, I have found, like many other teachers, the Skinnerian approach to be effective in motivation and controlling certain aspects of human behaviour and learning. I believe that to that extent it has been a worthwhile advance in the knowledge base of teaching.
Attempts have been made to deal with individual differences in the teaching situation (Cronbach,
1967; Glaser, 1977). In the past, pupils who failed to meet the goals of
a common curriculum were frequently either kept back or allowed to drop
out of school. B.S. Bloom (1984) believes that most students (as high as
90%) can in fact master what schools have to teach if appropriate means
are devised to do so. In this context, aptitude to learn is defined in terms
of the length of time an individual student takes to master a particular
task rather than in terms of some innate ability to learn. Progress in the
knowledge base of teaching in this regard has resulted in significant advances
in our understanding of and approach to classroom practice. Such matters
are complex and do not lend themselves to simple rules of thumb. Helpful
guidelines have been formulated to help the teacher in tackling these difficult
problems (Good & Stipek, 1983). There has been a move in recent times away from associationist and behaviouristic models in the study of learning. The current approach distances itself from the view of learning as imbibing of information. It emphasises, rather, the interaction that takes place between what teacher presents and the way the student processes what is presented. Here both teaching strategies and learning strategies are critical. Weinstein & Mayer (1986) identify many learning strategies being successfully utilised by students, e.g., the use of analogies to aid understanding; incorporating critical information in a diagram; techniques for checking one's own learning, such as self-questioning; strategies to prevent negative thinking or thought of examination failure. All students can be coached in these and in other learning strategies.
Sociology has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the teaching/learning context. Like each of the other foundation disciplines, sociology provides a different and very useful perspective on the education/ enculturation process. The close links between sociology and psychology are borne out by the existence of the discipline social psychology which studies the psychological aspects of social behaviour (e.g. attitudes, propaganda, the role of the teacher and classroom interaction). Sociology, like other behavioural sciences, is relatively young. Its name was first coined by the Frenchman, Auguste Comte in the 1830's. It has only become part of the teacher education in Britain since the second world war and in Ireland within the past twenty five years. Sociology's special insights into education have emanated from its perception of it as a process of socialising people into the group(s) to which they belong and into which they happen to have been born. Its analysis of education as essentially a social process is based on three assumptions: First, everything that is part of a way of life of a specific society or group of people is learned from that social group - none of it is innate or biologically inherited. Second, human beings from infancy have a great capacity to learn all their society has to teach them by way of knowledge, values and know-how. Third, human beings have a very long period of post-natal dependency upon other members of their group(s). Because of these facts, sociologists view education in the broadest sense as the induction of newcomers into a society. It can be said that man is both a determined as well as a determining being (Banks, 1976) and from the sociological perspective outlined above one could almost view the human person as the sum of the groups to which he/she belongs (Havinghurst, 1963).
The disciplines of Philosophy, History, Economics and Empirical Research have all contributed to the knowledge base of teaching. At this juncture I shall deal only with the findings from empirical research and how these have added to the knowledge base of teaching. Since the mid 1970's there has been considerable research into classroom practice. Through the use of the statistical technique known as meta-cognition significant strides have been made in classroom research into teaching and learning (Hedges & Olkin, 1985). The research on specific teaching practices and behaviours has been extensive. Gage (1979) concluded that the findings had established:
that there are instructional methods and teacher behaviours that are effective regardless of subject, student characteristics and classroom circumstances while other methods and behaviours are specific to certain subjects, types of learning, kinds of students, and individual circumstances.
Brophy and Good (1986) concluded:
We now know much more about teacher effects on achievement than we did in 1963 or even 1973 ... the fund of available information on producing student achievement ... has progressed from a collection of disappointing findings to a small but well established knowledge base ... (p. 370).
Since the 1970's considerable progress has been made in research on classroom management techniques. Everton (1970) identified the major facets of effective management in teaching. They included:
· the ability to communicate an awareness of student behaviour in class
· the ability to move smoothly and slickly in and out of activities
· the ability to maintain an even lesson pace
· the ability to hold the attention of all students while another student is performing, e.g., by calling on listeners at random or by giving a prearranged assignment on the lesson on hand.
The overall conclusion was that the means or technique used to prevent misbehaviour in the first place are far more significant in determining effective classroom management than the measures taken to punish misdeeds after they have occurred.
Tobin (1987) has reported on the findings of several studies on the issue of "wait time". This is the length of time a teacher waits after asking a good higher order question before allowing pupils to volunteer answers. The average wait time was found to be 0.8 of a second. However, if teachers learn to wait up to 3 seconds the following welcome changes in student learning occur:
· the length of student responses increases
· the quality of student responses improves
· the number of students who fail to respond decreases, while the number of unsolicited but appropriate responses increases
· the number of inter-student interactions increases.
·Student achievements in science and mathematics improves
· the number of alternative answers and explanations increases
The following categorisation of teacher knowledge is given by Schulman (1987) as the minimum which a teacher must possess if he/she is to facilitate and promote understanding on the part of students. The promotion of understanding does not, of course, constitute the whole of teaching.
· knowledge of content
· knowledge of general pedagogical principles and strategies that operate or appear to operate across subject areas
· knowledge of curriculum programmes and materials
· knowledge of the pedagogy of particular content areas
· knowledge of learners and their characteristics
· knowledge of the institutional, political, social, and cultural context in which the school/class exists and within which teaching takes place
· knowledge of the educational aims and of their historical and philosophical underpinnings
The research on teaching/learning has taught us that these processes are extremely complex. It would be foolhardy, therefore, to search for monolithic images of successful teaching or simplistic recipes for good practice on the basis of which policies for education (especially national ones) could be formulated. The most we can hope for are well researched guidelines in the light of which individual teachers can formulate plans and implement practices appropriate to the circumstances in which they find themselves. Stated another way, the situation entails being able to make a distinction, as Gage (1985) does, between nomothetic and idiographic knowledge, the former being the kind of generalisation that emerges out of science and applies to all individuals, while idiographic knowledge applies to understanding of one situation or one individual. The artistry of the teacher emerges precisely in the application of nomothetic knowledge to idiographic problems. The teachers' educated guesses must be informed by a broad knowledge base and their professional education should prepare them to exercise their problem solving abilities to a high degree.
Weikcart (1973), commenting upon the success of his own neo-Pagetian programme and those of others who had based their interventions on other theories, concludes that the important common element in success was not the curriculum per se nor material it employed but the commitment and competence of its teachers.
It is important that the teacher discovers the pupil's pre existing level of knowledge or lack of it before embarking on a teaching programme. Particularly in the case of pupils who have mild general learning difficulties one cannot assume that they will know certain basic ideas that one would take for granted in their peers of average ability. What some children acquire incidentally, children with mild general learning difficulties may not acquire except through a highly structured teaching experience
Paulo Friere states in his book: Cultural Action for Freedom (1972) as follows:
'Experience teaches us not to assume that the obvious is clearly understood'.
The truth of the above quotation teachers sometimes forget or tend to ignore. However, in the context of our school the quotation is particularly pertinent for one has to be most careful about what prior knowledge, if any, can be assumed in a teaching or assessment situation.
The assessment of a child's progress in school has always been an accepted part of a teacher's role. Assessment has always gone on in schools; what has varied is the role and style of such assessments. I take the view that properly used, assessment is a valuable and essential part of the education process. Assessment is a child-centred process that helps the teacher build a detailed picture of each child's attainments so that decisions can be made about future learning needs. Teaching, learning and consider assessment to be an integral part of the learning process and not something added on as an after thought. Assessment should be supportive of learning and should always remain the servant and not the master of the curriculum. A well planned assessment should mean that progress is more clearly demonstrated and in this way a child's confidence may be enhanced.
Helping teachers make decisions about children's learning is the formative purpose of assessment - formative because the assessments inform teaching decisions. That is the most important purpose of assessment. 'The most important consequence of placing assessment in the learning process is to shorten the time between learning and the feedback of information about performance'. (Shipman, M., Assessment in Primary and Middle Schools, 1989, p.17). Summative assessment is also important, especially as a means of summing up a child's progress and reporting the results to parents at intervals.
The three main techniques used in assessing children's progress in the school are :
1. Product,
2. Observation,
3. Dialogue.
Many of the tasks and activities within a school day do not result in a product. In making assessments through observation it is important to decide beforehand what sort of response is acceptable in order to determine what the pupil has achieved. It is also important not to attempt to assess too many pupils at the same time. Care should be taken not to ask leading questions which would invalidate the assessment. It is important to ask 'open' rather than 'closed' questions where possible.
'Teacher assessment lies at the very heart of learning progress in that new learning must be matched to what a pupil already knows and can do. It is the teacher in his/her classroom who, day in day out, undertakes this vitally important task of formative assessment'. (Ron Dearing, 'Interim Report', July,1993)
There are three key principles which I believe must underpin assessment if it is to achieve the aims that have been set:
1. The first principle is that nothing improves because we assess it - it only improves if the assessment leads to action.
2. The second principle is that the purpose of assessment is decision making. If one takes formative assessment as an example, on-going teacher assessment is used to make decisions about steps to take next with a pupil, which order to take them in, the way learning experiences are set up etc. In other words, assessment information is used to make decisions about actions.
3. The third principle is that only 'action research' at the level of the individual learner can provide the quality of information necessary for high quality on-going assessment.
It is important for the teacher to make his/her learning objectives clear:
· Knowing what she wants the children to learn to-day, next week, in the next topic
· Knowing what skills she wants the children to acquire as a result of the work she has planned.
Throughout the school's curriculum development programme opportunities are provided for the pupils to draw upon familiar social contexts in order to provide a shared cultural framework of scaffolding for their interactions. Teaching is reflexive, sensitive to the possibility of different kinds of shared understanding based on joint knowledge and action. Opportunities for decision-making within the classroom environment and outside, where possible, are provided. Bruner (1986, p127) says:
It is not just that the child must make knowledge his own, but that he must make it his own in a community of those who share his sense of belonging to a culture.
The affective domain of the children's development is a priority in this school. The psychological needs of the children take precedence over all other needs. Each child, regardless of ability is given opportunities to make contributions to the work in progress and to achieve success in tasks presented to him/her.
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