#teaching practices

It's good you know what group of kids may be manageable to you, I have p bad memory, but I have to trust myself cause these HS kids are so good at gaslighting or omitting truth that they will make you doubt yourself. Please be sure to keep your trust in yourself. And always follow through with your consequences. Unfortunately, I can't always be immune but I quickly gain a form of respect, they don't push me but they play at the boundary with me.

Plan your classroom management, that will be your biggest weapon even if it takes them 2 months to get used to it, it is ESSENTIAL. That gives them a form of expectation to follow through.

sometimes even elementary tactics help. Annunciate your voice and keep an even tone, lock down the teacher's stare, and most importantly. Find yourself a teacher friend, who does not have to share the same content, just someone you can eat with.

The biggest thing is, don't forget these kids have 10,000 things going on and most of them will forget to be responsible or be entirely selfish. Remind them you are human too, and that you can help to a limit but there are expectations they must meet. That you might look like a bad guy to them, but you will never be their enemy.

3It is Summer vacation so I decided to go on Pinterest and just search. Just search. Then I came across this Cult of Pedagogy post from 2015 and took a listen. She reviews 5 common teaching practices that she, as a teacher, decided to kick to the curb. 

This made me think, should I do the same?

1. POPCORN READING (A.K.A.: Round-Robin Reading, Volunteer Reading) 

I used to do this even as a high school teacher mainly because the students asked for it and I thought Well, if this what gets the students interested. And then I stopped because, as the blog relates, it was more of a distraction than engaged reading.

2. GIVING STUDENTS PREPARED NOTES

When she began talking about this (I decided to listen to this post rather than read as I cleaned my kitchen), I thought this would be a great idea! Provide these notes and the students can follow along. But wait, this was one of 5 teaching practices she wanted to abandon. I continued to listen and then she said, “...when no effort is required in the learning process, learning doesn’t last very long.” This 2017-2018 school I realized, I made learning way too easy for my students. This section of the article talked about the use of Powerpoints and then I realized, Oh crap, I did so many online presentations! So, personally, I will abandon (or at least rely less) on presenting Google Presentations.

 3. WHOLE-CLASS PUNISHMENTS

This effected me this year. I did not do whole-class punishments, but I this do whole-class judgement. THIS is what I need to abandon. I do not do whole-class punishments, but I do say things like, Ugh, Period # is such a pain or Period # hates me or Period # is so annoying. This needs to stop. For my own sanity’s sake. 

In the post what she does instead of punishments is, “The best way to deal with a rowdy class is prevention: If you have a lot of days when your whole class feels chaotic, this is symptomatic of a larger problem. It may be that your directions aren’t clear. Your students might be bored. You might need to build more opportunities for interaction and movement into your lessons. Or it might be time to re-establish clear behavior guidelines and consequences.“

In my case, I have to find what is symptomatic of a larger problem. This year, it was one student and I let his behavior determine the detriment of the class. But I also think, as she stated, this student might have been bored. This student might have needed more opportunities for interaction and movement into my lessons. He needed me to re-establish clear behavior guidelines and consequences. 

4. USING LEARNING STYLES TO PLAN INSTRUCTION

Not gonna lie, I used to do this. Instead I have been practicing more of what she had suggested to do instead: “Provide a variety of learning experiences to all students.” Variety helps, but I also found high schools can manipulate a situation and not know it. For example, I had students select a role they feel is their strongest and a group of kids assumed that if they all took the same role they would work in the same group. Only one student flourished in that role.

Last but not least...

5. “DIFFERENTIATING” BY HAVING ADVANCED STUDENTS HELP STRUGGLING STUDENTS A.K.A. Peer Tutoring

This is an oldie but goodie teaching strategy and I abandoned this one a long time ago. I think this is good for that go-getting elementary school student, but in my high school classroom I have learned that my more advanced students simply preferred to be around those who were like them. They liked to be in a group that matched their intelligence, and they would not mind helping if a student actually wanted to the help. But some of my Advanced students have told me that in middle school they would get bullied to do all the work or do the assignment for them.  Instead, if I see a student struggling I ask a student Hey [student’s name] mind helping [student’s name 2] with this? Sometimes this is followed with Do I get extra points? in which I respond, regardless of who the student is, You get a thank you and you are amazing.

So that is that, my reflection on listening in (and reading through) the Cult of Pedagogy blog post on ineffective teaching practices.

If one is considering the introduction of a different way to teach something, be it in terms of content or how the content is taught, an initial question one should consider is:  how willing is the affected teacher corps to cooperate with that change?  That is:  if those teachers are introduced to a new perspective or construct in the teaching of government and civics, will they “play” along with what is introduced?

          Obviously, there would have to be a certain level of instruction – in the form of in-service training – which would introduce the construct and give teachers, in a non-threatening setting, a chance to work on the proposed changes by developing or adapting appropriate lessons.  Generally, teachers should be given the opportunity to deal with the construct’s assumptions and elements. 

A key element of the proposed construct, the liberated federalism model, would be its reliance on higher level thinking instruction – beyond recall and superficial application.  This shift by itself can cause a significant challenge and yet there is more. With its call for a significant change of perspective in its content from a strong individual view to a communal one, this can be quite transformative.

There has been a long line of writers addressing this concern.  For example, of recent efforts, Rahama Zayid Al-Yahyaie, et al. point out the elements of this challenge[1] and Joseph J. Onosko, back in 1991, gives his readers a good overview of it.[2]  Onosko outlines a list of barriers that could make the adoption of the proposed model difficult.

The barriers are: 

A prevailing view among teachers that teaching is basically narrowly defined by the practitioners as transmission of knowledge.

A perceived duty among teachers of most secondary courses is to cover the course content broadly and superficially (what this blogger sees as covering a course’s textbook).

A generally accepted estimation that students can meet only low expectations.

A belief that large numbers of students in a classroom make reflective teaching exceedingly difficult.

There is a prevailing lack of teacher planning time.

And a prevailing culture of teacher isolation that precludes collaborative efforts among teachers and which makes successful higher order thinking instruction initiatives have a limited effect on other teachers.

These negative characteristics can be crucial in attempting to institute the kind of fundamental change called for in this account.  These are the same barriers, though, that would meet any attempt to reform curricular offerings in which the materials call for reflective thinking. 

Such interaction is essential to learning, according to Zayid Al-Yahyaie, et al.  But this does not lessen the burden, nor the obstacles, of trying to convince teachers that what is offered is viable and in their best interests and that of their students, their community, and their nation.

[1] Rahma Zayid Al-Yahyaie, Mohd Mokhtar Muhamad, and Hussain Ali Alkharusi, “Barriers to Teaching Higher Order Thinking Skills to EFL School Learners:  A Systematic Review,” International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 11, 2 (2022), 784-801.

Evaluation of Remedial Pedagogy and Practices in Secondary Schools of Northern Samar, Philippines

by Jeselle S. Aquino "Evaluation of Remedial Pedagogy and Practices in Secondary Schools of Northern Samar, Philippines"

Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-5 | Issue-4 , June 2021,

URL: https://www.ijtsrd.compapers/ijtsrd41199.pdf

Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.comhumanities-and-the-arts/education/41199/evaluation-of-remedial-pedagogy-and-practices-in-secondary-schools-of-northern-samar-philippines/jeselle-s-aquino

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