Summary Chapter 1 (Teaching Profession) and Summary Chapter 2 (Teaching Elements). By: Zulfa Suhaila

 Name                 : Zulfa Suhaila

Class                    : 3.2

Study Program : English Department

Lecturer             : DR. Herlinawati, M.ed

Summary Chapter 1  

"TEACHING PROFESSION"

A.   What Learning and Teaching Should Be

       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. People learned for the sake of learning and satiating their curiosity of the world. Teachers taught their students with their hearts, and students listened to their teachers’ advice. 

           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; worldly gains such as money will come when you find the opportunity.

               “What should teaching be like now?” 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. 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. Your goal as a teacher in this era is to create learners who will challenge themselves to be innovative—who go the extra miles.

            The type of education that we all must aim for is when the classroom pushes both students and teachers to adapt and improve. Students will grow when their teacher pushes themselves to be better in teaching them, and teachers will grow when their students put the effort to truly apply what they learn. 

B.   Breaking Down the Profession of Teaching

• You 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. 
• In the same vein, you have to keep up with and study new instructional pedagogy
• Furthermore, you must keep up with the newest technological trends.
• But you can’t make the learning goals however you want because s a teacher of an institution you must link your lesson plans onto the learning objectives of the required standards of your institution, which you can find in the curriculum.
• You as a teacher must arrive at school early, stay late, and spend part of your weekend to make sure you’re prepared. 
• Organize your classroom in a student friendly way, meaning that the seating arrangements maximizes learning and gives breathing room, without creating any unnecessary hassle for them and you to move around the class.
• Develop ways to differentiate instruction to challenge all students without frustrating them while still ensuring that everyone meet the learning objective.
• You must decide whether or not a seating chart is appropriate. They must also decide when a change to that seating chart is necessary.
• You must monitor students while they are working independently. 
• Decide on a behavior management plan, which means “gaining mastery” over classroom management, procedures, and expectation.
• Try to formulate questions that require both higher and lower level responses so every student have the opportunity to participate in the discussion; also by giving them an appropriate waiting time and rephrase questions when necessary.
• You must break down data from assessments to self-assess whether or not the new content is successfully taught or if it needs changes.
• You gotta grade and record every student’s papers in a timely manner.
• You’re obliged to attend in the required professional development because you’ve to learn the content and figure out how to apply it to your classroom.
• Sometimes, these obligations might make you miss a class.
• Obviously, establish healthy working relationships with your co-workers. 
• Also, keep your kids’ parents informed of their progress on a regular basis (by calls, emails, or face-to-face conversations).
• Plan with other grade level and/or content level teachers to determine common themes, objectives, and activities.

C.   The Challenges of Teaching

• 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.
• There’s a general lack of respect. Just a few decades ago, if a student got poor grade, it was because they weren’t accepting the knowledge that the teacher gave them. Nowadays, if a student is failing, teachers get blamed, even though they really can’t focus on an individual in a class of 30 students, not to mention when a single teacher has to teach multiple classes and multiple subjects. Teachers are unfortunate scapegoats for society when students aren’t showcasing their brilliance and this speaks of the general lack of respect toward the profession.

     This lack of respect in schools can be traced back to what is taught in the home. To be blunt, many parents fail to instill the importance of core values such as respect as they once did. Because of this, like many things in today's society, the school must take on the responsibility of teaching these principles—akhlak. 

• Since students themselves also have general lack of respect for their own teachers, classroom management is even worse. Worst case scenario is when students are so unruly, your teaching time basically got replaced just trying to discipline them. Remember: you do not need each student to like you, lest they take advantage of that “need”. Demand and give respect. 
• You can't play favoritism (and if you have a favorite student or some don't call them out on it). You might care for all of them but you have to keep a professional difference. Students are smart enough to know if they'd be given leeway or get off scot free if they feel you're too emphatic. Figuring out your boundaries is hard for new teachers. Figuring out your boundaries is hard for new teachers. 

     However, challenging isn’t the same as impossible. Doing something hard often equal worthy rewards, whether they are actual rewards or simply your own satisfaction on having completed the challenging task. If you can have fun taking up the challenge of trying to pass Level 2000 of Angry Birds or Candy Crush Saga, you can have absolute joy taking up the challenge of teaching.

D.   The Rewards of Teaching

• 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 teachers and realize you're surrounded by some of the most caring and dedicated people in the world (even if some of your colleagues not easy to work with). As much as teachers find things hard, they still stick to the job because they are invested for the future.
• You and other teachers share the same experiences of this emotionally draining job. When there are too many responsibilities, teachers can share the duties based on each other’s weaknesses and strengths. 
• At some point, someone might make you cry. You'll find support from unexpected people; the admin you thought who disliked you but helped you, the parent who seemed angry but sees your dedication to their child, or the student that might be unruly but was the first to lend help.
• Your kids will come up with some of the funniest statements and the laughter you all shared in the class will be one of the most memorable experience. During breaks, you might have and even give endless “you'll never guess what this kid said.”

E.   What Makes a Good Teacher?

• Do not yell at or call a student in front of their peers.
• Don’t claim that a student “will never be able to do that.” Encourage your students, don’t discourage them, even if their dreams may sound lofty or impossible.
• Don’t accuse a student is “just lazy.” When students are repeatedly told that they are lazy, it becomes a part of who they are. 
• Telling them “That’s a stupid question!” is a big No. 
• Have a positive attitude. 
• Be consistent. 
• As new teachers you might want to be all friendly and not stern, but teachers must assert authority so classroom would run smoothly throughout the semester.
• Know your resources. 

F.   The Status Quo of Education in Indonesia

• A constitutional mandate to spend 20% of the national budget on education. However, since national budget is 15% of GDP, Indonesia’s spending for education is only 3% of GDP, one of the lowest in the region. An increase is needed because if you think education is expensive, you should try the cost of ignorance.
• Decentralization of education sector functions to the district and school level
• The Teacher Law in 2005
• Increase of resources to schools with the School Operational Assistance Grant (Bantuan Operasional Sekolah, or BOS) program
• Support for parents enrolling their children in schools through the Smart Indonesia Program (Program Indonesia Pintar, or PIP).

    2020 Target of Education are Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Computer  Speak, and Collaborative Competence.

G.   To Teach or Not to Teach?

So, what are teachers for? 

To give focus. To monitor. To assess.

       Internet, books, all those resources are simply tools that store knowledge for children to reach. But they neither know how to reach for them yet nor the best way to grasp them. It is frustrating to see students who have tremendous potential but do not want to put in the hard work necessary to maximize that potential. The journey is hard, but it doesn’t have to be void of fun. Education is no longer as monotonous as it used to be when primary education started to become compulsory all over the world sometime after 1775, but it still has challenges from so many different factors because while your job title is ‘teacher’ you have to do more than just ‘teach’. You have administration duties, you have to manage things beyond lessons, and beyond teaching you also have to learn just like your students. A good teacher expects their students to succeed and also expect themselves to succeed.

Summary Chapter 2

"TEACHING ELEMENTS"

 A.   Instruction Planning

     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. 

Figure 2.1 Variables in Instructional Planning

  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. These two different factors are interdependent because the way teachers think depends on what they know. In this type of planning model, the most fundamental question you must ask is “what is important for students to learn?”

B.   Your Topic: Curriculum and Syllabus

         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.

     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 

1. 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.   

• Affective Domain 

Objectives of this domain is aware that school doesn’t exist simply to make students smarter as teacher C said.

 

• Psychomotor Domain 

This domain involves the development of coordination and physical skills (Harrow, 1972), which is the goal of teacher A.

 

2. Task Analysis

     For example, teacher D’s learning objective is for students to write simple sentences with correct punctuation, so they wrote down the skills needed to meet this objective: (1) Being able to differentiate between complete sentences and sentence fragments, (2) Knowing the difference between declarative, interrogatory, and imperative sentences, (3) Knowing whether periods, question, or exclamation marks go with each type of sentence, and (4) Correctly using these marks to punctuate different kinds of sentences. You can see that task analysis helps you break complex skills into smaller subskills that will be easier for you to teach to students. For this example, teacher D would have to firstly make students understand what sentences are, then help them understand how to punctuate the different kinds of sentences, and finally have them write and punctuate on their own.

D.   Yo Learning Activities: Lesson Plan

      Lesson plans focus your efforts on a specific day and class, so it is commonly personalized for each teacher.

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

      Both your activities and assessments have to logically connected to your learning objectives. This is called instructional alignment, which is the matching of learning objectives, activities, and assessment (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). 

      How do you make your teaching elements align?

• Step 1   : Develop learning objectives
• Step 2   : Identify how you would assess if students reached the learning objectives
• Step 3 : Design the way you would teach the material so students can reach the learning objectives

~~Finish~~