PG's Ponderings

Alan McLean (2003) , identified three internal drivers that motivate all learners and that a greater understanding of these drivers by schools and teachers can help to increase levels of self-motivation. Affiliation: feelings of belonging and connectedness with others. Agency: the degree of self-belief or self-confidence. It is the belief that one has the capacity and ability to learn and achieve. Autonomy: the capacity to be self-determining and to exercise control The implications for teachers and schools Mclean identifies strategies that will help schools to develop a climate where both teachers and students can become more self-motivated. He calls them the 'external drivers' of motivation. They are: Engagement - taking a genuine interest in individuals: valuing, respecting and affirming them as people and having high expectations of what they might achieve. Structure - providing people with a secure environment in which they know where they stand and are clear what is expe...

"...a practitioner (who) does not reflect, ... is inattentive to the limits of his actions." (Schön, 1982, p. 282). Schön argued that teaching is not "a method but an art". He postulated that the "artful teacher" will find a way to solve the problems of his students by looking at himself, stating that a teacher will invent new methods to "develop in himself the ability of discovering them". Schön put forward a novel approach, the idea of "reflection-in-practice" and "reflection-on-practice" in which the researcher becomes a part of the practice, allowing the proceedings of practice to continue, thereby confirming the legitimacy of the practice. This approach is based on the teacher demonstrating a "tacit knowing-in-action" which reflects an intuitive understanding of everyday actions. Schön suggested that the reflective practitioner endeavours to make sense of the issues which he or she encounters through the refle...

This particular technique involves a four-question set that gets students actively responding to the material they are studying. They analyse, reflect, relate, and question via these four prompts: Identify one important concept, research finding, theory, or idea ... that you learned while completing this activity. Why do you believe that this concept, research finding, theory, or idea ... is important? Apply what you have learned from this understanding to the context of the question? What question(s) has the activity raised for you? What are you still wondering about? [You might need to prohibit the answer "nothing".] Key steps to follow: Which details seem significant? Why? What is the significance of this detail? What does it mean? What might it mean? How do the details fit together? What do they have in common? What does this pattern of details mean? What else might this pattern suggest? What other explanation could be given? What details do not seem to fit? What other pa...

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This term we will start on the three key focus points for students preparation for the examinations and the ending of the course programmes: Listening – listen to where your students are at in their examination preparation or in the course completion. Questioning – what do your students need, what are they asking for, and what questions are you asking them. Analysing - identifying, clarifying and developing solutions and answers to the questions – fine tuning the learning and the examination preparation. Communication is a difficult art. Good communication ensures that what is communicated is received in the same manner and tone as was intended, not merely as it was said. The key to good communication is context, i.e. the framework one communicates within. For example, a question may be made in class which each student may perceive very differently, as they will come from very different contexts or starting points. The secret of good communication is to take these differences in c...

Graham Aitken on Developing an Inquiry Approach: "Teaching effectiveness is determined by the quality of inquiry into the relationship between teacher actions and student learning." Effective teachers inquire into the relationship between what they do (style) and what happens for students (outcomes). But effective teachers do more than simply inquire (or reflect) – they take action (in relation to what they are doing in the classroom) to improve the outcomes for students and continue to inquire into the value of these interventions. Thus effective teaching is more than style and it is more than outcomes – it is the continual interrogation of the relationship between these two dimensions with the aim of enhancing student achievement. Such a model implies particular attitudes or dispositions (open-mindedness, fallibility) and particular actions (questioning students about what they are understanding) but it does not prescribe or checklist such qualities. It simply prescribes...

Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about it is a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. We identify and explore our own practices and underlying beliefs. This may then lead to changes and improvements in our teaching. Why it is important? Many teachers already think about their teaching and talk to colleagues about it too. You might think or tell someone that "My lesson went well" or "My students didn't seem to understand" or "My students were so badly behaved today. "However, without more time spent focussing on or discussing what has happened, we may tend to jump to conclusions about why things are happening. We may only notice reactions of the louder students. Reflective teaching therefore implies a more systematic process of collecting, recording and analysing our thoughts and observations, as well as those of our students, and then going on to making changes. If a...

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