CHAPTER I
TEACHING PROFESSION
– OUTLINE –
Figure 1.7 How Far Will You Go?
A.What Learning and Teaching Should Be
This book is not merely another book containing a collection of teaching techniques and dos and don’ts. The first thing this book will try is to have you—potential teachers—read its contents with an open mind.
With laptop and projector becoming the most common technology schools provide for classrooms and the curriculum shifting to student-centered from teacher-centered, one of the most common teaching practice we see in classes is PowerPoint presentations of the lesson material. The use of this facility has not shed the most optimistic light on formal education.
Without enforced discipline, many students could simply sit at the back of the class and spend entire hours whispering to their classmates or sleeping through class. “Social media and mobile phones are distractions in the classroom” is not an unfamiliar statement, and students could go through class chatting and playing games rather than listening or taking notes.
In contrast, when students are tasked to give presentations in front of the class, some teachers have left them largely unacknowledged in favor of their own personal work or social media, giving little if no feedback to the students’ performance and the result of their research to make their PowerPoint slides. As a result, it has also become common for students to not care about the
There are many instances when if students could not answer questions or make mistakes, teachers might berate them and snidely remark how they should have known about the lesson material from online sources if they bothered to make use of their free time.
Nowadays, we are even seeing regular headlines of teachers bullying students and students molesting teachers. To put it plainly, the sheer lack of respect for each other as lifelong learners is staggering. However, despite the regular theme of the scenarios above, it is not this book’s intention to blame technology. The notion is foolish as it is blind to the true issue: respect.
Decades ago, teachers are most respected. During our grandparents’ time, the only resource they have to seek out knowledge and train their skills is teachers. Teachers were essential for children to be smart. Teachers were highly necessary for kids to develop an intellectual way of thinking, a philosophical way of self-reflecting. What the teachers know and believe were passed down to the next generation. As such, the good deed of helping and teaching were passed down as well.
But, for many years now, our society has put emphasis on the ideal, numerical results of learning that is good test scores.
For you, potential teachers, you should ask yourself, “What should teaching be like now?” One thing this book must make you all aware as early as possible is for the importance of keeping up-to-date with the type of teaching that is encouraged. We are now entering Education 4.0 (4th Industrial Revolution). Look up for the trends of education of the world, which is what is popular and highly encouraged in the field. As of now, the highest goal of education worldwide is the development of growth mindset, which is the way of thinking that we control our ability, so we can learn knowledge and skills by being committed to learn.
Have you ever experienced your teacher telling you that you are not good enough? Have you ever told your teacher that you aim to be an astronaut or a doctor and your teacher said you are either good at it or not? That kind of teacher is not a good teacher and not the type of educator that will ever be desired. That kind of teacher has what is called a fixed mindset, which is the belief that someone is either born smart or stupid
…But, for many years now, our society has put emphasis on the ideal, numerical results of learning that is good test scores.
grades are pre-requisite for well-paying colleges and careers. Crudely put, many learned for money and the promise of luxurious life. The goal of learning for many is no longer as holistic as it used to be. Instead, education is a transfer of knowledge, without the transfer of akhlak (good character), so there are many people who are smart yet not of good character.
Teaching should not be just for the sake of producing students who can reach ideal scores. Learning should not be just for the sake of securing a good future. We cannot forget that we are temporary in this world, and we have much value to pass down to the future generation than simply knowledge and skills. Go extra miles, respect what your teachers say and learn as much as you can and as best you can;
For you, potential teachers, you should ask yourself, “What should teaching be like now?” One thing this book must make you all aware as early as possible is for the importance of keeping up-to-date with the type of teaching that is encouraged. We are now entering Education 4.0 (4th Industrial Revolution)
Have you ever experienced your teacher telling you that you are not good enough? Have you ever told your teacher that you aim to be an astronaut or a doctor and your teacher said you are either good at it or not? That kind of teacher is not a good teacher and not the type of educator that will ever be desired. That kind of teacher has what is called a fixed mindset, which is the belief that someone is either born smart or stupid. In Indonesia, the famous phrase used is “otaknya sudah kayak gini.”
Fixed mindset is a huge obstacle for your development as a learner. More importantly, it is a huge boulder for you as a potential teacher. You are not smart and you are not stupid. Whether or not you are smart or stupid is determined by your effort. Read back on Jay Shetty’s script about education on page vi.
There is an entire journey behind success. You will work hard but you will fail at one point. You will dedicate and sacrifice time and effort and you might be disappointed sometimes. With a fixed mindset, you will only believe that you are not good enough, that your situation cannot be helped. However, the goal of our current education is not just to make you good enough, but also to make you believe you can be better even after you are out of an educational institution. Failure is not your limit. Failure is an opportunity to grow. With a growth mindset, you will understand that failure and disappointments are normal.
For your students to become innovative, they must take risks. For them to maintain a growth mindset, they must recognize that nothing is ever perfect. This is why respect between you and your students for each other is essential. If students do not respect and accept wholeheartedly of the knowledge you impart to them, they might not grow. If you as a teacher do not respect and give wholeheartedly the knowledge you have, your students and yourself would not grow. The type of education that we all must aim for is when the classroom pushes both students and teachers to adapt and improve.
Applying what you read in this book is the first step, but for you, potential teachers, to really evaluate your progress, it is now recommended for teachers to record your class. While students’ learning performance will receive feedback directly almost daily from teachers,
hers do much more than just teach.
The job description for the profession of teaching is lengthy and much more than most people realize. Most teachers still work after the school is over, needing to take work home because it’s often too much to do on one sitting.
• gotta understand what you teach, and it can’t be what you learned when you were in school a decade ago, it has to be the updated version. So, you’ve to continuously study and review new research within their content area. Just because this you are now the one teaching does not mean you are no longer the one learning. Just like your students, you also have the pressure to stay updated, with the additional task of making sure that you’re able to break apart new concepts into terms that your students can understand.
•In the same vein, you have to keep up with and study new instructional pedagogy. Find a way to implement the teaching material to be relevant in daily life to breathe more context into the lesson.
•Furthermore, you must keep up with the newest technological trends. You, and especially your students, must become tech savvy to stay up with the digital generation. You as a teacher must assess what technology would be advantageous to use in the classroom. In modern society, you must utilize the Internet and social media to search for activities, lessons, and teaching resources that you can utilize within or supplement a lesson. This book can’t stress the importance for you to make your lessons relevant for your students’ everyday lives if not their future
The Challenges of Teaching
This job is difficult and draining—anyone who had ever been a teacher would tell you this. In the process of writing this book, we have engaged with multiple people with teaching experience to compile a list on the things that makes the profession of teaching challenging. Like we mentioned, teachers don’t just teach.
=The job salary will never make you rich. Teachers are sadly underpaid (except in Finland). Most teachers work take a side job to supplement their income. This condition can change though, if you’re clever to spot opportunities to create lucrative outputs with your teaching.
=Teaching isn’t glamorous, are undervalued and underappreciated by many people in our society. It’s very odd, but our society has the idea that teaching is the most noble perception, but also places a negative stigma that teachers “complain too much and so don’t do much”. Prove them wrong.
And in the same vein, your students are also human. They will make mistakes. They will test your patience as they try to understand the world around them. What makes you a good teacher is your respect for your students’ struggle. Never belittle them. As teachers, your words and actions are powerful. You have the power to transform, but also the power to tear apart. Be professional by choosing your words carefully.
.The Rewards of Teaching
This profession is hard, but also bore the best fruits. This book has also asked many teachers to share what they found rewarding in their profession.
You're a contributing member of society. This may sound basic, but you'll really feel it when you look around the street and see people who are just getting by selling street food and toys or cleaning the road in the heat. It tugs the heartstrings and motivates you to do better for your community.
You'd look around at your fellow
As can be seen on the chart above, Indonesia’s proportion of school levels are highly uneven. There is too many elementary schools and too few secondary and tertiary schools, so it is inevitable in Indonesia to have huge number of children only stopping at
As can be seen on the chart above, Indonesia’s proportion of school levels are highly uneven. There is too many elementary schools and too few secondary and tertiary schools, so it is inevitable in Indonesia to have huge number of children only stopping at
TEACHING ELEMENTS
– OUTLINE –
A.Instructional Planning
Teachers plan. Good teachers don’t simply “wing it”. Teachers have to organize their lesson plans by considering the curriculum, school resources, student motivation, student ability and other variables that will affect all instructional decisions teachers must decide before they actually teach.
You as a teacher must have a solid lesson plan not only so you will not flounder during teaching, but also so the superior evaluating your teaching performance will have a solid idea and expectation of how you will run your class.
Teaching is a personal endeavor, so you must plan on how you will run your class. Below is a diagram summarizing the most important variables that you must plan for:
St
The figure above presents at least a couple of questions to prompt you to consider the 7 variables in instructional planning. In doing so, you will reflect on your role as a teacher
In the 20th century’s first half, society at large believe in behaviorism (Mayer, 1996; Reynolds, Sinatra, & Jelton, 1996), which emphasizes teachers to use certain activities to stimulate students to behave appropriately and learn the information given to them
Overtime, education has realized students in reality actively respond to their environment based on their background knowledge, motivation, and strategies. Society now sees learning as a development of strategies to encode and retrieve information, learners as active participants who try to make sense of their environment using strategies, and teachers as partners in the process of interpreting information. This perspective is called as cognitive psychology
Therefore, instructional planning nowadays is based on cognitive psychology, and at the core of it is teacher thinking and teacher knowledge, which are the way you think and what you know respectively. the most fundamental question you must ask is “what is important for students to learn?”
A.Your Topic: Curriculum and Syllabus
The lesson topics you will teach is typically already determined by the school curriculum, which is a set of standardized learning goals across grades. A curriculum is the guideline of the course/program, covering the knowledge, skill, behavior, and performance that will be taught to and expected of students. In essence, a curriculum is what an educational institution offers to students.
B. curriculum contains all factors involved in an educational program, and one of it is called a syllabus, which covers the portion of what topics should be taught in a subject or content area. Subject syllabus is a unit of the curriculum containing 7 primary segments: instructor data, general class data, course targets, course arrangements, grading and assessment, learning assets, and the course calendar.
C.Your Learning Objective: Taxonomy and Task Analysis
Teachers are not directly or solely responsible to create a school curriculum and syllabus, but you will be responsible to determine the goals of your classes. Specifying learning objectives is commonly difficult because schools generally have a broad spectrum of goals and individual teachers prioritize different things. For example, imagine this scenario of three physical exercise teachers discussing their goals:
A wants the students to develop their muscle strength and flexibility so no matter what kind of other exercises they do, they’ll have a good foundation.
B prefers students to know many different kinds of exercises so they will be able to differentiate aerobic and anerobic exercises.
Meanwhile C is concerned about when the students will inevitably leave school and wants students to be motivated to continue exercising for life so they will not end up as couch potatoes.
All three of these objectives are equally important, but attempting to reach all of them for one class is nigh impossible so teachers must select on a specific learning objective. One topic could have dozens of goals, so make it easier to select them, teachers can use two conceptual tools: taxonomy and task analysis.
Taxonomy
This tool divides the broad selection of objectives into 3 domains:
Cognitive Domain
This domain consists of objectives concerned with obtaining knowledge, understanding, and skill, such as teacher B’s goal. Researchers have developed Bloom’s taxonomy to classify the different student outcomes that are in the cognitive domain (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill & Krathwhol, 1956) shown in Table 1 which is
C.Your Learning Objective: Taxonomy and Task Analysis
Teachers are not directly or solely responsible to create a school curriculum and syllabus, but you will be responsible to determine the goals of your classes. Specifying learning objectives is commonly difficult because schools generally have a broad spectrum of goals and individual teachers prioritize different things. For example, imagine this scenario of three physical exercise teachers discussing their goals:
A wants the students to develop their muscle strength and flexibility so no matter what kind of other exercises they do, they’ll have a good foundation.
B prefers students to know many different kinds of exercises so they will be able to differentiate aerobic and anerobic exercises.
Meanwhile C is concerned about when the students will inevitably leave school and wants students to be motivated to continue exercising for life so they will not end up as couch potatoes.
All three of these objectives are equally important, but attempting to reach all of them for one class is nigh impossible so teachers must select on a specific learning objective. One topic could have dozens of goals, so make it easier to select them, teachers can use two conceptual tools: taxonomy and task analysis.
Taxonomy
This tool divides the broad selection of objectives into 3 domains:
Cognitive Domain
This domain consists of objectives concerned with obtaining knowledge, understanding, and skill, such as teacher B’s goal. Researchers have developed Bloom’s taxonomy to classify the different student outcomes that are in the cognitive domain (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill & Krathwhol, 1956) shown in Table 1 which is
amount of time teachers assign to different learning activities. Depending on which activity you’d prioritize, the time allocated to specific activities can vary. To understand how you can maximize your classroom time, you must understand its 3 dimensions:
Table 2.8 Dimensions of Classroom Time
Dimension
Description
Instructional time
Time available for teachers to teach after classroom routine (e.g., greeting, praying, role call)
Engaged time
Time for students doing the learning activities
Academic learning .time
Time for students successfully doing the learning activities
There are some types of assignments you can choose for the class activity:
* Whole-class; you lecture the class as a whole and have them all participate in discussion.
*Small groups; you have students to work on assignments in groups.
* Workshops; you get students to perform various tasks simultaneously.
*Independent work; you ask students to complete their assignments individually.
* Peer learning; you ask them to work together and learn from one another.
* Contractual work; both you and your students come to an agreement of what kind of assignments students should do and what their deadline will be.
When you choose the type of assignment, you must choose the type that would provide the most benefit for the students based on your assessment measures (Biggs, 2011). Try to ask:
~ What level of learning are my students at now?
~What level of learning do my students need to get to?
~ What’s the amount of time I want them to use to complete the assignment?
~ How much time and effort to grade and give feedback?
~What’s the purpose of the assignment?
~ How does the assignment fit with the rest of the lesson plan? Does its content knowledge or does it require application in a new context?
~ Does the lesson plan fit a particular framework?
E Your Evaluation: Assessment
You should be intimately familiar with this portion. As students, you have to participate in quizzes, do your exercises, and submit your home assignments. Now, as teachers, you are the one who will prepare and create them. Though in recent years, you may even ask your students to create their own questions and answer them on their own so the students can provoke their own knowledge.
What needs to be stressed is the alignment of your assessment with your learning objective (Hammer, 1998)
is is called instructional alignment, which is the matching of learning objectives, activities, and assessment (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). You can’t aim for students to be able to create an essay when your learning activities focus on isolated grammar skills. Without this alignment, it will be difficult for you and your students to understand what is being learned (Bransford et al., 2000).
Komentar
Posting Komentar