I have just received the letter I am sharing with you on the Teacher’s Appreciation Week. Students were asked to write about a teacher that they would like to recognize for this week. I was moved by this letter drafted by two of my students – a 7th grader and 12th grader. I am so ecstatic to find out that they describe me as an authentic teacher! A Feeling of self-alignment mixed with a sense of fulifiment has overwhelmed me! I thought this moment is worth sharing with my blog readers!
Task Value
Rationale: Authentic Teachers should invite students to find value in the learning task by helping them understand its importance, utility, interest, and cost – whether the task is valuable or not (Ormrod, 2016). In practice, Authentic Teachers are expected, on the one hand, to scaffold students’ learning as needed to increase their sense of competence and self-efficacy. On the other hand, they should encourage students to value what is to be learned by sharing with them their own views, encouraging critical discussions, explaining how what they are learning is impacting their future lives, and instilling in them a love for knowledge (Ormrod, 2016).
Procedure:
— Prior to learning a major task, Authentic Teachers ask students to answer the following questions:
— Encourage students to share their answers in pairs, small groups, or with the whole class.
Assessment: encourage students to include their reflections in their journals or portfolios so that they can refer to them later for self-assessment and/or self-motivation.
A follow up alternative : the same questions could be used as a post reflection ( formative assessment):
Reference:
Ormrod, J. E. (2016). Human learning (7th ed.). Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson.
Simple Effective Instructional Frame
Abderrazak Behhar
When talking about authentic teaching, I mentioned that one aspect that characterizes authentic teachers is their adoption of a simple and effective instructional frame.
Effective teaching, as Schmoker( 2011) explains in his popular book “Focus: Elevating the Essentials” is simple and consists of the common elements of a solid lesson known to all effective teachers.
Schmoker (2011) reminds us of these common elements :
“a clear learning objective with some effort to provide background knowledge or create interest in the topic, teaching and modeling, guided practice, checks for understanding / formative assessment and independent practice/ assessment.” (P, 53)
The way Schmoker (2011) describes effective teaching echoes the lesson design developed by Madeline Hunter in 1984. Hunter(1984) as cited in Marzano (2007) suggested that an effective lesson should have the following stages:
It is very sad that this simple nature of effective teaching is now blurred with sophisticated terminology and instructional fads.
The practices of effective lesson planning should permeate the instructional practices; Marzano (2007) believes that the stages of Madeline Hunter’s lesson plan should be “routine components of every lesson” (p. 180)
The authentic teacher knows that effective teaching is not a mystery.
The authentic teacher knows that teaching in an effective way means teaching in a simple way.
The authentic teacher knows that teaching in a simple fashion requires creativity and flexibility.
References
Marzano, R. J. (2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Schmoker, M. J. (2011). Focus: Elevating the essentials to radically improve student learning. ASCD.
Roughly speaking , educational philosophy can be defined as “ the application of philosophical ideas to educational problems, which in turn, can lead to a refinement of both philosophical ideas and educational development” (Ozmon, 2012, p 2).
Education does not exist in a vacuum; education is part of a socio-cultural context that philosophy strives to explore (Ozmon, 2012). Educational philosophy sheds light on how education shapes and is shaped by this panoramic context (Ozmon, 2012).
One might tend to believe that the need for educational philosophy is oudated since we are talking now about a legimate science of education; however, educational philosophy “ has an important role to play in incorporating and examining the value of scientific ideas”.(Ozmon, 2012, p 3).
I personally believe that it is difficult to deny the contribution of science to educational theory today, but it is equally difficult to deny that our educational practices and beliefs lack a coherent, holistic vision as to the purpose of education. Postman (1985) succinctly expresses this dilemma as follows:
“ The answer to this question has nothing whatever to do with computers, with testing, with teacher accountability, with class size, and with the other details of managing schools. The right answer depends on two things, and two things alone: the existence of shared narratives and the capacity of such narratives to provide an inspired reason for schooling (as cited in Gunzenhauser, 2003, p.52).”
Professional philosphers are, therefore, mainly concerned with “ providing illumination, understanding, and perspective for educators to think with than on providing programs and policies for educators to act on.” ( Soltis, 1983, p 17).
An authentic teacher draws on educational philosophy as a source of developing his/her personal education platform “ to achieve a satisfying sense of personal meaning, purpose, and commitment to guide his or her activities as an educator” ( Soltis, 1983, p 15).
An authentic teacher is not a fervent supporter of a given educational philosophy, but a relflective practioner who is yearning to improve his/her teaching and brige the gap between practice and theory (Ozmon, 2012).
References
Gunzenhauser, M. G. (2003). High-Stakes Testing and the Default Philosophy of Education. Theory Into Practice, 42(1), 51-58. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4201_7
Ozmon, H. (2012). Philosophical foundations of education (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
SOLTIS, J. (1983). Perspectives on Philosophy of Education. Journal of Thought, 18(2), 14-21. Retrieved August 27, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42589009
Authentic Teaching!
I would like first to clarify what authentic teaching is NOT from my perspective.
I will detail my definition of the authentic teacher in the coming posts.
Abderrazak Behhar – August 21, 2021.
References:
Authentic learning definition. The Glossary of Education Reform. (2013, September 16). https://www.edglossary.org/authentic-learning/.
De Bruyckere, P., & Kirschner, P. A. (2016). Authentic teachers: Student criteria perceiving authenticity of teachers. Cogent Education, 3(1), 1247609. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2016.1247609
Sergiovanni, T. J., & Starratt, R. J. (2002). Supervision: A redefinition (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Abderrazak Behhar 