Effective Teaching: Reflecting and Revealing for Better Instruction

In Chapter 16 of Snowman, et. al. (2009), the authors focus on the teacher as student and the ways in which teachers can continually improve their teaching styles. Building from my last post, society needs to embrace the importance of a lifelong relationship with learning rather than viewing education as a a requirement that must be completed early in life.  No group of people benefits more from this viewpoint than teachers, and they should be not only allowed, but encouraged, to continue learning, taking classes, and improving their skill set.  Teaching is an ever evolving science that must be understood and improved upon as learners become more sophisticated.  Through reflection and revelation, two methods that will be further explored below, teachers can evolve with their student population and harness these changes for better instruction.

"Reflecting" as is mentioned in the title of this blog post refers to the constant checking of one's own teaching style and student outcomes. One of the most useful, but most dreaded, aspects of the end of year classroom experience is evaluation.  Students do not like filling them out, and teachers brace themselves for complaints about everything from homework levels to favoritism.  Rather than viewing this as a time of criticism, both sides should think of this as a real opportunity to learn and grow.  After feelings may be a bit hurt, there are real lessons in listening to students and their concerns.  Furthermore, for faculty of all ages, having a lesson videotaped or having a colleague observe your classroom can help one get a better perspective about how they are coming across or what signals might be getting crossed between the front and back of the classroom.

"Revealing" refers to the act of sharing stories with other educators of your experiences in the classroom, to both get ideas for what works, and to avoid what does not.  At Lehigh, there are a number of ways in which new teachers and developing teachers can practice, observe, and hone their skills.I have touched upon this before in a blog post, but it is worth mentioning the Teacher Development Series available here at Lehigh for teaching assistants and upcoming young faculty.  Through a series of talks and workshops, those preparing for a career in higher education can gain the skills necessary to be an effective professor, and hear experiences of other faculty and their struggles and successes.  In TLT 431, we are encouraged to do a set of classroom observations and write a reflective piece to analyze teaching styles and approaches.

We are marked by the outstanding and incompetent teachers we experienced from our first days in Kindergarten through our time now in graduate school.  I think we would find that most of the time, the extraordinary teachers are bred from both hard work and constant reflection of their teaching styles, successes, and the caring and effort that goes in to such improvement.  "Bad" teachers do not come from malicious or ill-intentioned backgrounds, but are a product of ignorance and the inability to grow.

As educators, we inherently should have developed a lifelong love of and relationship with learning.  From technology shifts to new developments in neuroscience, we are consistently finding new ways to reach learners and new things to learn ourselves.  Teachers must be allowed the time and the encouragement to understand and reflect upon those new methods, as well as share their experiences with other educators, to improve the classroom experience for themselves and their students.