Learning to Teach in the Primary Classroom

Anne Proctor, Margaret Entwistle, Brenda Judge, Sandy McKenzie-Murdoch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781138146303
• eBook ISBN: 9781134835621
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This text is specially designed to support student teachers in the school based element of their course. It provides accessible guidance, backed by numerous classroom examples, on the essential knowledge and skills needed to teach effectively. The chapters cover: * Classroom organisation * Planning for children's learning * Teaching strategies * Assessment, recording and reporting * Self-appraisal Each section contains information in concise and practical form. For students wishing to explore subjects in more depth, supplementary material at the end of the chapters includes analysis of curriculum and policy documents, case studies, suggestions for further reading and activities to try out in the classroom. Throughout, novice teachers are encouraged to think about how the basic skills fit together in their professional development and determine the sort of teacher that they will eventually be.

1

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS TEACHING?

A group of student-teachers had just completed the last week of their first term of a four year programme and they were reviewing their learning at that early stage. With the encouragement of their tutor and classteacher mentor they began to discuss and to identify personal strengths. They then moved on to think about ‘where they wanted to be in four years’ time’ and ‘how they would get there’, anticipating their learning over the rest of the course. In other words they were thinking about the question ‘what is teaching?’ Below are some of their comments to each other.

‘I don’t know what it is that you do, Anna. It’s quite magical. There they were, all fidgeting and restless and ready to be really naughty, and the next thing they were just as good as anything, all ready to listen and looking at you quietly.’

‘Yes, and Richard, my teaching partner in the classroom, he is so really good at explaining things to the children, you could see that they were following and understood.’

‘But isn’t that because he listened to them properly in the first place? You know when we listened to that tape of him questioning the children about his sundial? We said that he made the children feel valued.’

‘Yes but he’d planned it so carefully, too, hadn’t he? But then he nearly spoiled it all with that dreadful writing on the blackboard!!’

As they talked they collected together their ideas under two main headings:

• what you needed to learn to do

• what you needed to learn to be

The lists that emerged show how these student teachers saw the two faces of teaching, the deliberate and learned skills or the more intuitive response to children and events. Here are some of the things which they listed under the two headings.

THE SKILLS OF TEACHING	THE QUALITIES OF A TEACHER
Teaching
You need to speak clearly and use your voice properly with expression
Questioning the children is more complicated than I’d thought—we need that skill	It’s having a feel for the class, knowing how to get interest and involvement
Part of the skill of questioning is listening carefully to the children and understanding them	It’s about being a good listener as well as telling them things
My lettering is awful, I’ll have to learn to print properly	The children can tell if you care about what you are doing
Managing
You need to be able to organise groups	Teachers have to be leaders. The children have to see them as leaders. So do other teachers often too
We’ll have to learn a lot more about discipline and how to deal with problems	You need to give off a sense of assurance
Classroom control, that’s what I need to find out about	It’s amazing what a difference it makes if you are able to speak with confidence, even if you don’t feel it
Understanding children
I need to know more about children’s special needs	It’s all about getting the best out of children
You need to recognise and teach the different abilities in the class	The main thing is to make all the children feel valued
I’m going to find out about different faiths and cultures	You need to listen with understanding to parents
Planning
Teachers have to learn how to plan. They need to know about the National Curriculum	I can see that I’ll have to be a lot better organised

The group decided that above all teachers would have to enjoy their work, care about children and their families and become really involved in their work.

In their informal discussion, that group identified some important characteristics of their chosen profession. Teaching involves:

• the learning of new skills

• the application of theoretical knowledge in a practical situation

• an enquiring and reflective approach to present practice and new situations

• a professional commitment to children and their parents as well as to teacher colleagues

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

This book has been written as a guide to trainee teachers in the development of the initial skills and competences of teaching as well as the attitudes and expectations outlined above. It is also written for the teachers who will work with trainees in those early stages.

No book can hope to provide all the background which a beginning teacher will need and this book certainly does not attempt that awesome task. Instead the intention is to:

• provide a framework within which the different aspects may be placed so that the relationships between the parts may become apparent

• offer guidance in the development of some of the skills which teachers need to be able to put into practice

• indicate some of the issues/ideas which are presently preoccupying teachers, educational administrators and politicians

• offer help and encouragement in developing that reflective approach which is essential for professional development

FORMAT OF THE BOOK

The book is divided into five chapters: contexts for learning, planning for learning, teaching strategies, assessment, recording and reporting, and self-appraisal through profiling. The chapters are intended to cover basic teaching skills which a new teacher will require, in as clear and straightforward a way as possible. Each chapter will include examples which are intended to clarify the text and help the reader to link the information to the classroom context in which they are placed. Often the text will include techniques which the reader can use in the classroom situation.

All of this is intended to provide the trainee with practical help in planning for and implementing teaching and enhancing children’s learning. However, as we have suggested above, teaching is more than the successful putting-into-practice of a number of simple techniques; it is the development and reflective adaptation of complex strategies to meet the personal and educational needs of children. In the early stages the trainee will be observing classroom practice and then with the help of colleagues trying to put into practice certain teaching strategies. As the trainee becomes more and more competent so s/he will be observing the children’s learning and evaluating her/his own teaching. In evaluating the teaching, the trainee will refer to:

• feedback from the children

• discussion with teaching colleagues

• expectations of parents and carers

• documentation from the Department for Education

• appropriate literature on curriculum development and educational research

Each chapter has been planned with this process in mind. The main body of the chapter gives an outline of basic information which will provide you with a foundation for action. At the end of each chapter there are two further sections. Section 1: Background offers supplementary material, summarises a number of contemporary educational issues, and refers you to further sources of information and discussion. Section 2: Activities suggests a number of activities which you may use to extend and deepen your understanding of the material which has been introduced in the main body of the chapter.

We have already stressed the real importance of dialogue in developing understanding of teaching/learning and professional development and, in planning these activities we intend that they will be shared by the trainee and the mentor. In this way they will stimulate the professional discussion which will probably go far beyond the activities described.

Many of the examples in the chapters and the activities at the ends of the chapters are ones with which the writers are very familiar and which they have used successfully with student-teachers in the past.

CONTENT OF THE CHAPTERS

In choosing the content of the chapters our intention has been to follow the logical requirements of an intending teacher.

Chapter 2 looks at the context of the classroom in which a teacher will work with the children. There is a consideration of both physical factors which impinge upon planning and teaching in a positive or negative way, like space resources, attractiveness of the surroundings; and factors which need development in order to ensure good working conditions and a supportive environment for children’s learning, like the organisation of the furniture, use of display area, management of materials, sympathetic use of personal space. Also important in this chapter is the nature of the interaction which is allowed to take place between the people (children and adults) in the classroom. This will depend upon the people themselves as well as upon the procedures which encourage their interaction. Children will learn better and feel secure in a well-ordered and supportive environment.

As has already been pointed out, the breadth and depth of the discussion is influenced by what it is possible to include in a basic text. It is not intended in the chapter, for example, to discuss the nature of child development or the social psychology of interpersonal relationships. However, the importance of these factors is indicated and reference made to other texts.

Chapter 3 explores the way planning for children’s learning may be carried out. It begins with the details of lesson planning since that is where a trainee will begin. The first step is to understand the intentions which teachers have for children’s learning and this leads on to a consideration of the best ways of achieving those objectives and assessing the outcomes of learning. Sound planning requires the teacher to have a good knowledge base; a clear understanding of the expectations embedded in the National Curriculum; a sensitive perception of the needs of individual children; and a sensible understanding of what can be achieved in a specific context. It is recognised that lesson planning develops from the long-term and medium-term planning which has already taken place in school and the ways in which schools and teachers may tackle this are explored.

Part of the planning process is a consideration of effective teaching strategies and these are explored in Chapter 4. There are many ways of encouraging learning and these need to be matched to what is to be learned and what the learner already knows or is able to do. This chapter identifies different teaching/learning strategies and attempts to show how decisions will be made about their implementation. Resources of various types enhance learning and the use of some of these is also considered.

Chapter 5 concentrates on the important and related areas of assessment of children’s learning, recording and reporting. Teachers assess in order to identify children’s achievements and difficulties and evaluate their own teaching. This information needs to be recorded in meaningful ways and then reported to those people who have an interest in it and a right to receive it. All of these aspects will receive consideration in Chapter 5, again with reference to other sources for further study.

As professional people, teachers are concerned with the development of their own expertise, and headteachers and governors are concerned about th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Detailed lesson plans
• Notes on authors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Contexts for Learning
• 3 Planning for Learning
• 4 Teaching
• 5 Assessment, Record Keeping and Reporting
• 6 Self-Appraisal Through Profiling
• Index