Chapter 6 Notes

Chapter 6 opens up by telling us that an effective teacher is one that is always reflects
and evaluates their attitudes, practices, effectiveness and accomplishments even when the lesson went well. The chapter calls this “reflective teaching”.

Difference between an “expert” teacher and a “novice” teacher:
Experts teachers:  “read” the classroom, they show a great ability to gather information in a short time for multiple purposes, focused on learning what students already knew about the subject matter to be learned, they demonstrate skill in planning and classifying problems and formulating solutions.
Novice teachers:  describe the surface characteristics of the classroom, plans to ask students where they left off in their books and then present a review of important concepts.

To be effective decision makers, elementary and secondary teachers need to have attitudes, knowledge and skills that are necessary to be able to teach effectively.
There are five areas of competence that are essential for a teacher
1. Attitudes that foster learning and genuine human relationships: there are four major categories of attitudes affect teaching behavior 1) the teachers attitude toward self 2) the teachers attitude toward children and the relationship between self and others 3) the teachers attitudes toward peers and pupils and parents 4) the teachers attitude toward the subject matter.
2. Knowledge of the subject matter to be taught: whatever subject you teach you should show enthusiasm for it. Enthusiasm is the key to teaching success.
3.Theoretical knowledge about learning and human behavior:
4. Personal practical knowledge: is the set of understanding teachers have of the practical circumstances in which they work. Personal practical knowledge includes the beliefs, insights and habits that allow teaches to do their jobs in schools.
5. skills of teaching that promote student learning: simply knowing something does not guarantee the ability to act on that knowledge. There is profound difference in knowing and doing. All prospective teaches need to develop a repertoire of teaching skills to use as they see fit in varying classroom situations.
Using a variety of approaches is essential to meet the many different needs of students.

Classroom management skills: Actions taken to create and maintain a learning environment conductive to successful instruction. Developing a teacher-student relationship, arranging the physical environment, establishing rules and classroom policies are examples of classroom management.

Academic engaged time: is the time a student spends being successfully engaged with the academically relevant activities or materials. Classes that are poorly managed usually have little academic learning time. a teachers major task is to keep the students engaged. 30 minuetes of lesson engage time is the average time a student should be productively engaged. Effective teachers are those who can manage their classes to that the students are academically and productively engaged.

Kounin’s Research: Identified concepts to describe teachers classrooms management behavior that were useful. Withitness: teachers who are “with it’ are those who communicate to pupils and appear to know what is going on. Smoothness: involves the absence of behaviors initiated by teachers that interfere with the flow of academic events. Momemtum: the absences of teacher behaviours that slow down the pace of the lesson.

Questioning Skills: it is the central feature of most classrooms. It’s not only to monitor student comprehension but to stimulate students to engage with the content, relate it to their knowledge and to think about it’s applications.

Wait - Time: Teachers should give students adequate time to respond to a question. Waiting 3 to 5 seconds before calling on a different student or giving the answer themselves. Questions require students to process and generate what is being asked, therefore they need more time  to think about their answers.

Planning Skills:  Effective teachers base their planning on a rich store of perceptions of classroom events and of their students progress toward educational objectives and content standards. Teachers do four basic types of planning: yearly, unit, weekly and daily. Planning should include consideration of how to involve students.