In that last week, I got to observe three wonderful first-year educators. This was part of a school wide initiative, where the premise was to learn good teaching practice. Instead, I sat there, imagining what it would be like to be a student of that classroom. What would it be like to be a learner of that classroom, that environment, and that teacher?
It isn’t that I didn’t want to learn good practice; it is just that I am so far removed from a front of the classroom, “sage at the stage” mentality that I witnessed with all three teachers. If you would peek in to my classroom, you would see all the students take charge of their learning; you would see me along side students trying to help them with whatever problem they were working on; and you would see laptop pages with information on Science, a book topic or even a dance move.
I’m all about best practice; not on teaching but on successful learning. Thus, I went into these classrooms with an open mind to understand if these classrooms were more successful in student learning.
What I found was that the best part of any class was when activities became student centered. The students got to engage, reflect and work out problems. The most effective student centered lesson came when students knew the learning intention going into the activity, could work in small groups with peers they like and got immediate feedback to how well they understood the learning. Unsuccessful lessons missed one of those three criteria or, even worse, no student centred activity at all. The most successful lesson had students active in the learning as much as possible. The lessons where students struggled the most is when they sat their listening.
Now, full circle, back in my classroom, I just observed my own students in a “library” block. There are no learning intentions on my board, for the class is meant to be a reading period. Instead, only one student is reading. Two more are trying to create a blog site that I asked for. One is working on complete re-doing a science report that I asked to be redone. Quite a few are whispering the next steps on a science project and one more is desperately researching how to make his exothermic reaction explode. I have helped very few as they’re all in that independent working mode.
Come into my classroom. You won’t see the best teaching practice. What you will see however is effective learning.
It isn’t that I didn’t want to learn good practice; it is just that I am so far removed from a front of the classroom, “sage at the stage” mentality that I witnessed with all three teachers. If you would peek in to my classroom, you would see all the students take charge of their learning; you would see me along side students trying to help them with whatever problem they were working on; and you would see laptop pages with information on Science, a book topic or even a dance move.
I’m all about best practice; not on teaching but on successful learning. Thus, I went into these classrooms with an open mind to understand if these classrooms were more successful in student learning.
What I found was that the best part of any class was when activities became student centered. The students got to engage, reflect and work out problems. The most effective student centered lesson came when students knew the learning intention going into the activity, could work in small groups with peers they like and got immediate feedback to how well they understood the learning. Unsuccessful lessons missed one of those three criteria or, even worse, no student centred activity at all. The most successful lesson had students active in the learning as much as possible. The lessons where students struggled the most is when they sat their listening.
Now, full circle, back in my classroom, I just observed my own students in a “library” block. There are no learning intentions on my board, for the class is meant to be a reading period. Instead, only one student is reading. Two more are trying to create a blog site that I asked for. One is working on complete re-doing a science report that I asked to be redone. Quite a few are whispering the next steps on a science project and one more is desperately researching how to make his exothermic reaction explode. I have helped very few as they’re all in that independent working mode.
Come into my classroom. You won’t see the best teaching practice. What you will see however is effective learning.