UNIT 2: TEACHING

Dear student well done for completing Unit 1. You are welcome to Unit 2 in this Unit you will learn much about teaching. You are to read the learning outcome and indicators below

Learning Outcome(s):

By the end of the course the student would be able to:

CLO 2: Describe the role of the teacher in the teaching and learning process.

(NTS 2a, 2b, 2c, 2e. 2f, p. 13; 3e-3o, p.4)

Indicators:

The student will be able to:

• Explain the concepts of teaching as a science and as an art
• Describe six teaching competencies
• Explain the roles of the teacher in the teaching and learning process

Activity 1: Dear Student teacher answer the questions below ·         Who is a teacher? ·         Discuss any five qualities of a good teacher. Refer to the content below.

2.1 Who is a Teacher?

• A teacher is a person who helps student to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue.
• One whose professional or occupational function is to help others learn and develop new ways

2.2 Some Qualities of a Good Teacher

1. Good Teachers Are Strong Communicators
2. Good Teachers Listen Well
3. Good Teachers Focus on Collaboration
4. Good Teachers Are Adaptable
5. Good Teachers Are Engaging
6. Good Teachers Show Empathy
7. Good Teachers Have Patience
8. Good Teachers Value Real-World Learning
9. Good Teachers Share Best Practices
10. Good Teachers Are Lifelong Learners

Activity 2: ·         You are to brainstorm the meaning of Teaching. Compare your answer with the information below.

2.3 What is Teaching?

Teaching is a term which can be used:

(a) Loosely as in a situation in which a mother teaches her daughter to prepare soup; or a village carpenter teaches an apprentice to make a chair, and

(b) Officially as in school situation where a professional teacher trains pupils to read and write. In this Unit institutionalized teaching will be dealt with.

Institutionalized teaching has two aspects: (a) formal teaching and (b) informal teaching.

With formal teaching the teacher takes full control of the class and decides on what to teach and the methods to use. He may decide to use the class or lecture method, whole class discussion or brainstorming technique.

Informal teaching is the approach in which the teacher is more of facilitator of learning rather than a director of it. The teacher organizes teaching in such a way that learners are brought in contact with the learning material and left to interact with the learning materials themselves  in the way they please. The teacher only acts as a guide, a counselor and a motivator. The learning activity may be guided by the setting of problems. In this case, the problems may be set by both the teacher and the learners.  Informal teaching is not as structured as it is with formal teaching. The structure in informal teaching is flexible and loose.

Teaching can further be explained as an activity of imparting knowledge, skills, attitude and values to learners. It involves creating situations to facilitate learning and motivating learners to have interest in what is being transmitted to them. Teaching, thus does not occur without a supposed learner. In a restricted sense, teaching is the role related to the behaviour of those individuals who occupy the position of “teacher”.

Activity 3: ·         How would you explain teaching as an art or a science. The content below will help you to understand it better.

2.4 Teaching as a Science and an Art?

 2.4 Teaching: As An Art or a Science?

This question is used to be popular in the past. It is like asking whether teachers are born or trained?

It was realized that some people taught naturally and effectively as if they had been trained to teach. Again, some pupil teachers in Health Training Institutions, Primary Schools, and Junior High Schools in Ghana have been known to be effective in their teaching. Teaching as an art depends on the individual teacher and his personality.

Furthermore, the art of teaching has been undertaken by people of different walks of life and various organizations from ancient times to the present. Some of the people included Socrates, Plato, Aristotle the Scribes and the Prophets. It also included the various religious organizations like Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. These organization were exemplified by their leaders, notably among whom were Confucius, Zoroaster, Gautama (the Buddha), Jesus Christ and Mohammed.

Other teachers of great repute included Herbart, Rousseau, Comenius, Pestalozzi, John Locke, Montessori and John Dewey.

Modern Teaching should, however, be considered as a science more than as an art. Modern teaching does not leave things to chance as in the case of teaching as an art. Teaching as a Science has a body of systematized knowledge on Teaching Methodology, Human development and Human Learning or Educational Psychology. Such knowledge is derived from scientific investigations and in certain cases is built into models and theories. Researchers try out different teaching methods to find out their effectiveness for recommendation for classroom teachers. In this way effectiveness for recommendation for classroom teachers. In this way effectiveness of teaching is not left to chance as in the case of “teaching as an art”.

Activity 4: ·         State and describe any two teaching competencies

 2.5 Teaching Competencies

What are Teaching competencies?

Competencies are the skills and knowledge that enable a teacher to be successful. To maximize student learning, teachers must have expertise in a wide-ranging array of competencies in an especially complex environment where hundreds of critical decisions are required each day (Jackson, 1990). Few jobs demand the integration of professional judgment and the proficient use of evidence-based competencies as does teaching.

Which competencies make the biggest difference?

An examination of the research on education practices that make a difference shows that four classes of competencies yield the greatest results.

1. Instructional delivery
2. Classroom management
3. Formative assessment
4. Personal competencies (soft skills)

Further, the research indicates that these competencies can be used to organize the numerous specific skills and knowledge available for building effective teacher development.

1. Instructional delivery:

The hallmarks of an explicit approach for teachers are as follows Teacher selects the learning areas to be taught.

1. Teacher sets criteria for success.
2. Teacher informs students of criteria ahead of the lesson.

• Teacher demonstrates to the students successful use of the knowledge/skills through modeling.

1. Teacher evaluates student acquisition.
2. Teacher provides remedial opportunities for acquiring the knowledge/skills, if necessary.
3. Teacher provides closure at the end of the lesson.
4. Classroom management:

Classroom management is one of the most persistent areas of concern voiced by school administrators, the public, and teachers. Research consistently places classroom management among the top five issues that affect student achievement.

A good body of research highlights four important areas that classroom teachers should be proficient in to create a climate that maximizes learning and induces a positive mood and tone.

4. Rules and procedures: Effective rules and procedures identify expectations and appropriate behavior for students. To be effective, these practices must be observable and measurable.
5. School wide rules and procedures: Clearly stated rules identify, define, and operationalize acceptable behavior specific to a school. These rules, applicable to all students, are designed to build pro-social behavior and reduce problem behavior in a school. They distinguish appropriate from problem behavior as well as specify consequences for infractions.
6. Classroom rules and procedures: Another set of clearly stated rules establishes acceptable behavior specific in a classroom. These rules need to be consistent with school wide rules, but may be unique to meet the needs of an individual classroom.
7. Proactive classroom management: These are the practices that teachers and administrators can employ to teach and build acceptable behavior that is positive and helpful, promotes social acceptance, and leads to greater success in school. The key to proactive classroom management is active teacher supervision. The practice elements that constitute active supervision require staff to observe and interact with students regularly. The goal is to build a positive teacher-student relationship by providing timely and frequent positive feedback for appropriate behavior, and to swiftly and consistently respond to inappropriate behaviors.
8. Effective classroom instruction: The key to maintaining a desirable classroom climate is to provide students with quality instructional delivery aligned to the skill level of each student. This enables students to experience success and keeps them attentive.
9. Behaviour reduction: These practices, designed to reduce problem and unacceptable behavior, are employed in the event the first three strategies fail. Behavior reduction strategies include giving students corrective feedback at the time of an infraction, minimizing reinforcement of a student’s unacceptable behavior, and guiding students in how to behave appropriately.
10. Formative assessment: Effective ongoing assessment, referred to in education literature as formative assessment and progress monitoring, is indispensable in promoting teacher and student success. It is frequently listed at the top of interventions for school improvement. Feedback, a core component of formative assessment, is recognized as an essential tool for improving performance in sports, business, and education. Feedback has been identified as the single most powerful educational tool available for improving student performance. Formative assessment consists of a range of formal and informal diagnostic testing procedures, conducted by teachers throughout the learning process, for modifying teaching and adapting activities to improve student attainment. Systemic interventions depend heavily on the use of formative assessment.
11. Personal competencies (soft skills):

These skills must be defined as clear behaviors that teachers can master for use in classrooms.

Indispensable soft skills include:

1. Establishing high but achievable expectations
2. Encouraging a love for learning
3. Listening to others
4. Being flexible and capable of adjusting to novel situations
5. Showing empathy
6. Being culturally and gender sensitive
7. Embedding and encouraging higher order thinking along with teaching foundation skills.
8. Having a positive regard for students

9. Activity 5: ·         State and explain ant five roles of the teacher in the teaching and learning process.

    

2.6 Roles of the Teacher in the Teaching and Learning Process

It is clear that the 21st-century classroom needs are very different from the 20th-century ones. In the 21^st century classroom, teachers are facilitators of student learning and creators of productive classroom environments, in which students can develop the skills they might need at present or in future.

Teacher Roles:

Most teachers take on a variety of roles within the classroom. The primary role of a teacher is to deliver classroom instruction that helps students learn. To accomplish this, teachers must prepare effective lessons, grade student work and offer feedback, manage classroom materials, productively navigate the curriculum, and collaborate with other staff.

Below are some roles of the teacher:

1. The Controller:The teacher is in complete charge of the class, what students do, what they say and how they say it. The teacher assumes this role when a new topic is being introduced and accurate methodology and techniques are needed.

In this classroom, the teacher is mostly the center of focus, the teacher may have the gift of instruction, and can inspire through their own knowledge and expertise, but, does this role really allow for enough student talk time? Is it really enjoyable for the learners? There is also a perception that this role could have a lack of variety in its activities.

2. The Prompter:The teacher encourages students to participate and makes suggestions about how students may proceed in an activity. The teacher should be helping students only when necessary.

When learners are literally ‘lost for words’, the prompter can encourage by discreetly nudging students. Students can sometimes lose the thread or become unsure how to proceed; the prompter in this regard can prompt but always in a supportive way.

3. The Resource: The teacher is a kind of walking resource center ready to offer help if needed, or provide learners with whatever language they lack when performing communicative activities. The teacher must make her/himself available so that learners can consult her/him when (and only when) it is absolutely necessary.

As a resource the teacher can guide learners to use available resources such as the internet, for themselves, it certainly isn’t necessary to spoon-feed learners, as this might have the downside of making learners reliant on the teacher.

4. The Assessor:The teacher assumes this role to see how well students are performing or how well they performed. Feedback and correction are organized and carried out.

There are a variety of ways the teacher can grade learners, the role of an assessor gives teachers an opportunity to correct learners. However, if it is not communicated with sensitivity and support it could prove counter-productive to a student’s self-esteem and confidence in learning the target knowledge or skill.

Again, as an assessor, the teacher does not merely evaluate the success of students to achieve the goals in the teaching and learning process, but also becomes an evaluation for the success of the teacher in the implementation of teaching and learning process

5. The Organizer:Perhaps the most difficult and important role the teacher has to play. The success of many activities depends on good organization and on the students knowing exactly what they are to do next. Giving instructions is vital in this role as well as setting up activities.

The organizer can also serve as a demonstrator, this role also allows a teacher to get involved and engaged with learners. The teacher also serves to open and neatly close activities and also give content feedback.

6. The Participant:This role improves the atmosphere in the class when the teacher takes part in an activity. However, the teacher takes a risk of dominating the activity when performing it.

Here the teacher can enliven a class; if a teacher is able to stand back and not become the center of attention, it can be a great way to interact with learners without being too overpowering.

7. The Tutor:The teacher acts as a coach when students are involved in project work or self-study which certainly requires skills, whether it is intellectual or psychomotor. The teacher provides advice and guidance and helps students clarify ideas and limit tasks. With the current competency based curriculum, the teacher acts as a trainer to develop these skills. Without the lessons, surely a teacher will not be able to indicate mastery of basic competencies and not be proficient in skills that match the standard lessons

This role can be a great way to pay individual attention to a student. It can also allow a teacher to tailor make a course to fit specific student needs. However, it can also lead to a student becoming too dependent or even too comfortable with one teacher and one method or style of teaching.

8. Interpreter and designer of learning programmes and materials: The teacher will understand and interpret provided learning programmes, design original learning programmes, identify the requirements for a specific context of learning and select and prepare suitable textual and visual resources for learning. The teacher will also select, sequence and pace the learning in a manner sensitive to the differing needs of the subject learning area and learners.
9. Leader, administrator and manager: The teacher will make decisions appropriate to the level, manage learning in the classroom, carry out classroom administrative duties efficiently and participate in school decision making structures. These competences will be performed in ways which are democratic, which support learners and colleagues, and which demonstrate responsiveness to changing circumstances and needs.

10. Scholar, researcher and lifelong learner: The teacher will achieve ongoing personal, academic, occupational and professional growth through pursuing reflective study and research in their learning area, in broader professional and educational matters, and in other related fields.
11. Community, citizenship and pastoral role: The teacher will practice and promote a critical, committed and ethical attitude towards developing a sense of respect and responsibility towards others. The teacher will uphold the constitution and promote democratic values and practices in schools and society. Within the school, the teacher will demonstrate an ability to develop a supportive and empowering environment for the learner and respond to the educational and other needs of learners and fellow educators. Furthermore, the teacher will develop supportive relations with parents and other key persons and organizations based on a critical understanding of community and environmental development issues.

Activity 6:Explain the three main phases of teaching. The content provided below will assist you

2.7 Phases of Teaching

Teaching is a complex task. For performing this task, a systematic planning is needed. Teaching is to be considered in terms of various steps and the different steps constituting the process are called the phases of teaching.

The teaching can be divided into three phases: Each phase has some operations of teaching which create the situation for learning.

The three phases/stages involved in the teaching process are

 

• Pre-active phase – refers to planning.
• Interactive phase – refers to the conduct and management.
• Post-active phase – refers to the follow-up and consolidation.

THE PRE-ACTIVE PHASE OF TEACHING:-

• It is the phase of planning for teaching.
• Good planning makes the task of teacher smooth, functional and successful.
• There one two major steps involved in this phase.
  1. Establishment of some kind of goals or objectives.
  2. Discovering ways and means to active these objectives.

Operation of teaching at pre-active phase:-

Before classroom teaching, a teacher has to perform many tasks. This phase includes all these activities which a teacher performs before entering the classroom. This stage involves the following activities.

(1) The formulation or fixing up of goal:-

• The teacher formulates in detail the instructional objectives in behavioral terms by using the taxonomy of educational objectives.
• Objectives one determined according to student’s psychology and needs of the society and the school.
• Objectives are determined according to what changes teacher expects in students by achieving these objectives.

(2) Selection of content or subject matter to be taught:-

• After fixation of teaching objectives teacher decides about the content to be presented before learners.

• For content selection following points should be kept in mind.
  1. The demand of syllabus/curriculum.
  2. The entry behavior of the accepted learners.
  3. Level of the motivation of learners.
  4. Teacher’s preference for assessment related to the content.

(3) The arrangement of ideas and style of teaching:-

After selecting the presentable content, the teacher arranges the elements of the content in a logical and psychological sequence. Sequencing should be able to assist in the transfer of learning.

(4) Selecting Instructional Methodology:-

The teacher has to select appropriate strategies and tactics of teaching, keeping in view, of the content and objectives of teaching. This operation is very important in teacher-education programme.

(5) Development of teaching strategies:-

The teacher should decide beforehand about strategies and techniques, which he has to use during the course of his classroom teaching. He should decide about

• When and what device of teaching should be used.
• When the teaching aids will be used.
• When recapitulation or evaluation etc. will be done.

(6) Deciding the duration, place, and management of classroom teaching.

(7) A decision about evaluation tools and techniques.

So, this stage is about working out the details of the teaching or activities a teacher want to perform in the class. Here, teacher hypothesizes about the possible outcome of his action.

THE INTERACTIVE PHASE OF TEACHING:-

This phase refers to the execution of the plan made during the pre-active phase. This is actual classroom teaching. In this phase, the teacher gives students the learning experiences through some suitable modes.

In this phase, teachers give learners a pre-determined environment. The teacher interacts with students so that desired changes can be brought in the learner.

So learning is directed in pre-determined directions to achieve pre-determined goals. In this process, the teacher provides learners with verbal stimulation. This stimulation can be of various kinds. Few examples are:-

• Asking questions
• Listening to student’s response
• Providing guidance
• Making explanations etc.

Operations of teaching at interactive phase:-

This phase of teaching

• Includes all those activities which a teacher uses after entering the classroom.
• Includes actual teaching done in the classroom.

In this face to face encounter with learners. Here the teacher uses some of the techniques, aids, and material planned in the first phase. This helps the teacher in achieving the relevant objectives that were already set. Here the following operations are undertaken by the teacher.

(1) Setting up the class:-

It refers to the activity of perceiving the due size of the class, getting the feel of the mood of learners. here teacher should be aware of

• how many in the group are looking attentive
• how many are negligent and disinterested
• who are sharper ones</