Things that matter in teaching

The teacher- student relationship is not a temporary relationship like ‘seller-buyer’ relationship. So a teacher should be conscious of the various needs of the students

With the passage of time the concept of ‘teacher’ has changed a lot. In the current era, a person has to undergo a number of gruelling capacity building activities to become a competent teacher whether he or she wants to teach the students of a school or those of a university. Although in our country one can become a teacher if he has a requisite academic degree in a particular subject, the scenario is different globally. Having only a degree in a subject with high CGPA does not make a person a teacher to the strictest sense of the term.  In this regard the Chairperson of BRAC Sir Fazle Hasan Abed says, “Professional development of university teachers is limited to obtaining an advance degree in the respective discipline and they are seldom trained to acquire pedagogical skills and engage students in an active learning process.”

As there is no guarantee that a good student will always be a good teacher, many countries in the world are introducing tools for assessing the aspirant teachers’ performance in the classrooms. There are very few countries where teachers without training are employed in their primary and secondary education. Moreover, arrangement has already been made in every university in the United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, and Norway for preliminary training of university teachers. The aim is to make sure that the teachers are capable of translating their academic learning into effective teaching.

Arthur McKee, Managing Director of Teacher Education Studies at National Council on Teacher Quality, Washington, USA, says “There is a pressing need for a rigorous and reliable way to assess teachers’ classroom performance before they are employed as teachers”.   Alongside, a teacher’s subject related learning; he has to grasp the know-how of teaching which does not drop like mercy from heaven on anybody. With a view to achieving the technicalities of teaching a person has to have a curious mind and an urge from within for continuous development of his career. Teaching as a profession needs more competence and qualifications, and as such, it is now more esteemed than it was before. However, it depends on the amount of education and expertise he has earned and how successfully he applies his learning and expertise in his teaching.

Despite the fact that a teacher’s prime duty is to teach or educate people with required skills, tools, and information essential to teach students, this is not the only task a teacher does. His work entails many other things.  

There are some teachers who go on teaching without caring who understand or who do not understand his lectures. This is unbecoming of a teacher. When a teacher finds some students whose progress is not up to the mark or who is far behind the progress of the majority of the students in a class, the teacher should not label the learners as ‘duffers’ or ‘unfit for the class’. The teacher should know that students lag behind in a class for a variety of reasons. They might become upset, panic-stricken, or disheartened while trying to do a difficult task, but when the teacher offers assistance appropriate to the learners, they go ahead gradually towards better comprehending and more autonomy in the process of learning. If a teacher has a teacher’s mind, he or she will be innovative to find out the right technique according to the needs of the students. This is termed as scaffolding which is generally deemed to be a vital part of effective teaching. It is used by teachers to make the students understand things that they find to be difficult.

Scaffolding is a tool used for bridging the ‘learning gap’ – the disparity between what the learners have grasped and what they are supposed to learn to be capable of doing at a particular point of their journey towards their learning goal. So, teachers of various disciplines should know that there are various scaffolding strategies for different academic problems. For example, a difficult algebra problem can be broken up into a number of parts that are taught sequentially. Between each partial-lesson, the teacher makes sure if students have comprehended the concept, offers them time to do the equations, and interprets how the mathematical skills they are practicing will help them in solving the more difficult problem. Here the plays the role of a facilitator.

A teacher ought to be well versed in the subject he is teaching. The teacher should be as dedicated to his own academic and professional development as to the gradual scholastic development of his students. Keeping abreast of the current instructional topics by being an avid learner is crucial for an adept teacher. Whether the teacher is teaching engineering, medical, business, arts or science related subjects, he should be aware of the recent developments in his own area. He should in no way rely on obsolete information. To keep oneself up to date with the current discoveries or development one should involve in relevant research, personal reading, or participating in professional development program

Many teachers are engrossed with the idea of completing the syllabus contents instead of ensuring whether the students are learning or how much they are learning.  They often finish the syllabuses of their course of studies perfunctorily. To keep pace with global trend in learning, the completion of syllabus contents has no alternative, but a teacher must know how much effective his teaching is.  In order to test the students’ understanding of the course materials an effective teacher uses a variety of assessment techniques. The teacher ought to have knowledge about formative and summative tests and the ways to administer them.

Students’ ignorance should not be judged, instead their learning should be judged through various tools of assessment. The questions should be designed in such a way so that they are standard according to the norms set by the educators. There is no way to trick the students or making questions like ‘dress as you like’.   A teacher should have knowledge about strategies of question preparations for both formative and summative examinations.  In this regard Bloom’s taxonomy of learning is an essential guideline. The questions should be able to assess different levels of the students’ learning and ability. In order to make sure justice in marking or assessing the examination papers teachers need to know the techniques and criteria of marking.

A teacher must be articulate to get his message across. It is a well accepted fact that several characteristics like subject-matter knowledge, knowledge about teaching methods, pertinent experience and general cognitive abilities of a teacher contribute to good teaching considerably. But language proficiency of a teacher is one of the most important features that contribute to high quality teaching. Moreover, teachers’ excellent communication skills and competent use of language foster positive interactions with the learners.

As the way a person speaks is one of the first things that people observe about him, the students also mark a teacher’s pronunciation of words of the language he uses as the medium of teaching. They even judge the teacher’s background, scholastic and social dignity by the manner he speaks. Educationist Abdullah Abu Sayeed says, “A teacher who lacks in the language proficiency is not worthy of being called a teacher even if he possesses many other qualities of a teacher”.

The teacher-student relationship is not a temporary relationship like ‘seller-buyer’ relationship. So a teacher should be conscious of the various needs of the students. He should be able to play the role of a mentor has special care and interest in helping the learners in their academic as well as personal matters. Hence, to serve better as teachers, people already engaged in this profession and those who aspire to come to the same, should equip them with modern know how of teaching. It should be remembered that improvement is a never ending process as far as teaching as a profession is concerned.  A research on twenty two university teachers in eight countries carried out by Graham Gibbs of Oxford University and Martin Coffey of Leicester University reveal that training can improve a number of aspects of teachers’ teaching.

 

The writer is Assistant Professor of English, Ahsanullah Univerity

of Science and Technology, Dhaka

 

 

Things that matter in teaching

The teacher- student relationship is not a temporary relationship like seller-buyer relationship. So a teacher should be conscious of the various needs of the students

With the passage of time the concept of teacher has changed a lot. In the current era, a person has to undergo a number of gruelling capacity building activities to become a competent teacher whether he or she wants to teach the students of a school or those of a university. Although in our country one can become a teacher if he has a requisite academic degree in a particular subject, the scenario is different globally. Having only a degree in a subject with high CGPA does not make a person a teacher to the strictest sense of the term. In this regard the Chairperson of BRAC Sir Fazle Hasan Abed says, Professional development of university teachers is limited to obtaining an advance degree in the respective discipline and they are seldom trained to acquire pedagogical skills and engage students in an active learning process. As there is no guarantee that a good student will always be a good teacher, many countries in the world are introducing tools for assessing the aspirant teachers performance in the classrooms. There are very few countries where teachers without training are employed in their primary and secondary education. Moreover, arrangement has already been made in every university in the United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, and Norway for preliminary training of university teachers. The aim is to make sure that the teachers are capable of translating their academic learning into effective teaching. Arthur McKee, Managing Director of Teacher Education Studies at National Council on Teacher Quality, Washington, USA, says There is a pressing need for a rigorous and reliable way to assess teachers classroom performance before they are employed as teachers. Alongside, a teachers subject related learning; he has to grasp the know-how of teaching which does not drop like mercy from heaven on anybody. With a view to achieving the technicalities of teaching a person has to have a curious mind and an urge from within for continuous development of his career. Teaching as a profession needs more competence and qualifications, and as such, it is now more esteemed than it was before. However, it depends on the amount of education and expertise he has earned and how successfully he applies his learning and expertise in his teaching. Despite the fact that a teachers prime duty is to teach or educate people with required skills, tools, and information essential to teach students, this is not the only task a teacher does. His work entails many other things. There are some teachers who go on teaching without caring who understand or who do not understand his lectures. This is unbecoming of a teacher. When a teacher finds some students whose progress is not up to the mark or who is far behind the progress of the majority of the students in a class, the teacher should not label the learners as duffers or unfit for the class. The teacher should know that students lag behind in a class for a variety of reasons. They might become upset, panic-stricken, or disheartened while trying to do a difficult task, but when the teacher offers assistance appropriate to the learners, they go ahead gradually towards better comprehending and more autonomy in the process of learning. If a teacher has a teachers mind, he or she will be innovative to find out the right technique according to the needs of the students. This is termed as scaffolding which is generally deemed to be a vital part of effective teaching. It is used by teachers to make the students understand things that they find to be difficult. Scaffolding is a tool used for bridging the learning gap the disparity between what the learners have grasped and what they are supposed to learn to be capable of doing at a particular point of their journey towards their learning goal. So, teachers of various disciplines should know that there are various scaffolding strategies for different academic problems. For example, a difficult algebra problem can be broken up into a number of parts that are taught sequentially. Between each partial-lesson, the teacher makes sure if students have comprehended the concept, offers them time to do the equations, and interprets how the mathematical skills they are practicing will help them in solving the more difficult problem. Here the plays the role of a facilitator. A teacher ought to be well versed in the subject he is teaching. The teacher should be as dedicated to his own academic and professional development as to the gradual scholastic development of his students. Keeping abreast of the current instructional topics by being an avid learner is crucial for an adept teacher. Whether the teacher is teaching engineering, medical, business, arts or science related subjects, he should be aware of the recent developments in his own area. He should in no way rely on obsolete information. To keep oneself up to date with the current discoveries or development one should involve in relevant research, personal reading, or participating in professional development program Many teachers are engrossed with the idea of completing the syllabus contents instead of ensuring whether the students are learning or how much they are learning. They often finish the syllabuses of their course of studies perfunctorily. To keep pace with global trend in learning, the completion of syllabus contents has no alternative, but a teacher must know how much effective his teaching is. In order to test the students understanding of the course materials an effective teacher uses a variety of assessment techniques. The teacher ought to have knowledge about formative and summative tests and the ways to administer them. Students ignorance should not be judged, instead their learning should be judged through various tools of assessment. The questions should be designed in such a way so that they are standard according to the norms set by the educators. There is no way to trick the students or making questions like dress as you like. A teacher should have knowledge about strategies of question preparations for both formative and summative examinations. In this regard Blooms taxonomy of learning is an essential guideline. The questions should be able to assess different levels of the students learning and ability. In order to make sure justice in marking or assessing the examination papers teachers need to know the techniques and criteria of marking. A teacher must be articulate to get his message across. It is a well accepted fact that several characteristics like subject-matter knowledge, knowledge about teaching methods, pertinent experience and general cognitive abilities of a teacher contribute to good teaching considerably. But language proficiency of a teacher is one of the most important features that contribute to high quality teaching. Moreover, teachers excellent communication skills and competent use of language foster positive interactions with the learners. As the way a person speaks is one of the first things that people observe about him, the students also mark a teachers pronunciation of words of the language he uses as the medium of teaching. They even judge the teachers background, scholastic and social dignity by the manner he speaks. Educationist Abdullah Abu Sayeed says, A teacher who lacks in the language proficiency is not worthy of being called a teacher even if he possesses many other qualities of a teacher. The teacher-student relationship is not a temporary relationship like seller-buyer relationship. So a teacher should be conscious of the various needs of the students. He should be able to play the role of a mentor has special care and interest in helping the learners in their academic as well as personal matters. Hence, to serve better as teachers, people already engaged in this profession and those who aspire to come to the same, should equip them with modern know how of teaching. It should be remembered that improvement is a never ending process as far as teaching as a profession is concerned. A research on twenty two university teachers in eight countries carried out by Graham Gibbs of Oxford University and Martin Coffey of Leicester University reveal that training can improve a number of aspects of teachers teaching. The writer is Assistant Professor of English, Ahsanullah Univerity of Science and Technology, Dhaka