When I signed up for this course module PIDP 3260, the very first moment I felt my hook was the title of this book: The Skillful Teacher. I immediately started reflecting on my own teaching skills - am I a skillful teacher?When I opened the moodle, my first assignment was writing my reflection from chapter 2 of this book titled, "What students value in teachers?" Here you go, I am already so keen to know what students value in teaching and learning itself in this fast-paced life and of-course what they value in teachers. As per my teaching philosophy, teacher and students are constantly learning, both put themselves in fire again and again to get purified as once is not enough. I had already started self-evaluating myself and how can improve myself to become a "better" skillful teacher. Here I share my reflection with you on this topic. I hope you will correlate with what I am talking about and somewhat it makes sense to you, indeed!
Objective: “…And I know that I can not motivate anyone to
learn if at a very basic level they don’t wish to. All I can do is try to
remove whatever organizational, psychological, cultural, interpersonal, or
pedagogic barriers are getting in the way of them learning, provide whatever
modeling I can, build the best possible case for learning, and then cross my
fingers and hope for the best.” Brookfield, S.D. (2006)
Reflective: The very title of the book “The
Skillful Teacher” is catchy for me. The moment I got this book in my hand and
got a feel of the cover, scrolled my eyes through and through the title and immediately
flipped it to see the back cover …” Insights and practical suggestions to
college educators…”Humm…”am I a skillful teacher…Am I always successful in
keeping my students engaged?” My brain immediately ran into self-evaluation.
Without even knowing which chapter I am supposed to read for my first
assignment and reflective writing, I went to the river for a short walk and book
reading. I felt my first sensation at the sentence, “I know that I will never
be able to initiate activities that keep all the students engaged all the
time”. I got interested to read further, because that was exactly what was
happening with me while delivering Employment Skills workshops at WorkBC Centre
and it happened all the time in my teaching career in India when I was teaching
first year medical students. Yes, this sentence was compelling to read it
further and I took a deep breath after I finished the paragraph wit the above
said sentence, “….And I know that I can not motivate anyone to learn………cross my
fingers and hope for the best.” I felt a sensation of electrifying tranquility
that I am not alone! That I am not alone, indeed! Brookfield immediately bought
my emotion. Everyone needs an answer to their challenges without getting
stigmatized.
Interpretive: It means a great deal of relief, first of all. I got an
insight from this quote that there are always very unique personalities and
people from different walks of their lives who attended my classes and they were
there in the course for the specific reasons:
1.
They
are there not because they wish to learn how to do job search and make winning
resumes to pursue a sustainable career; but they are forced to be in the class
by systemic pressure (Ministry of Social Development) which is trying that
these people must work and get off the Income Assistance soon.
2.
Who
come from a higher economic background, sent to the class by their family
members to teach them responsibility and a sense of self-reliability? These
students are not matured enough to feel motivated to be serious learners in the
class.
3. Who have multiple issues in their
life to resolve other than being focused in learning in the class; such as
single mothers with toddlers, homeless people who are living in shelters but
struggling for getting into a safe housing and meeting other necessary needs?
Even though they wish to get into a sustainable career but that wish is pushed
down the priority list.
I
have come across many challenges to keep such populations motivated in the
class.
Decisional: “All I can do is to remove whatever
organizational, psychological, cultural, interpersonal, or pedagogic barriers
are getting in the way of them learning, provide whatever modeling I can, build
the best possible case for learning, and then cross my fingers and hope for the
best.”
Yes,
I have come across many challenges to keep such populations motivated in the
class and tried to custom design my teachings for them or sometimes offered
them one-on-one support depending upon the time availability. But that would
not be possible for strict time frames of the curriculum and larger classes
which was true in my University teachings. Being a humanistic and students-centric
in my basic personality, I do care for my students. I take it seriously and
research the ways to pull them up on the surface, but it was never that easy.
Now, this PIDP course 3260 is providing me an opportunity to research better
ways which can be helpful for such students and I came across this article by
Sarah Rose (2020), “How to make your teaching more engaging”; which gives me a
perspective to look at what I was not doing enough in my class. Her four
principles of engaging students and her vision of “why caring about engaging
students at all?” encouraged me to read the full article. “Engaging
Alex using a variety of methods to attract his interest and excitement doesn’t
mean that you are taking on the work of learning for him, or somehow cheapening
your material. Instead, it is an invitation — to take the initiative, to apply
effort, to risk the daunting possibility of failure.
It is an open hand.
It is good teaching.
Here’s how to do it.”
I started incorporating her four Principles
of student engagement: Emotions,
Performance, Community and Stories in my small class of online informal
teaching group about Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path https://www.buddha101.com/p_path.htm. I started
incorporating my personally made videos to simplify the concepts, focused on
being little more charismatic in my appearance and speech, building a community
around me by posting some engaging open-ended questions and sharing my personal
stories how I am practicing this noble eightfold path in my personal life and
what challenges I am facing. I have observed a drastic change in the group
participant behaviours. I called every participant personally and got the
feedback how they are doing? The increased participation by few of them
motivated others to respond to the “question of the day” or “story of the day”
(Peer support). I have reached an understanding that it is difficult indeed, to
keep every individual student in the class motivated and engaged but diligent
and persistent efforts done by an instructor may, one day, bring success in
cracking the hard shells.
References:
Brookfield, S.D.,
(2006): The Skillful Teacher – On Techniques,
Trust and Responsiveness in the Classroom. (2nd Edition). The Jossey-Bass
-Higher and Adult Education Series. P. 12
Cavanagh,
S. R., (2020): How to make your teaching more engaging. The
Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/advice-teaching
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