PART 2 (3'07")
- 2. Teaching ((( Teacher Perspective ))):
Let's see what the teachers have to say about our two students.
Yes...
> Excuse me; could you tell me about Susan, please?
Susan..., yes. Susan is one of our good students! She always does well, not only in my own classes, but I know that she performs well in all classes. She's truly one of our good students.
> Then what about Robert?
Robert... Robert...?
> You know, the guy...
Ahh, Robert. Well, he's one of our bad students.
Notice how this labelling conveniently defers responsibility. In particular, we cannot do anything about it. It's just the way students are: either good ...or bad.
This "good student - bad student" perspective is also known as the "blame the students" approach to teaching, and is level one in John Biggs' "three levels of thinking about teaching". A level one teacher is concerned with what students are. For him, the exam is a matter of sorting the good students from the bad. A level two teacher has the focus on the teacher, and is concerned with what the teacher does. From this perspective, there are ...good teachers ...and bad teachers.
This perspective is also known as the "blame the teachers" perspective. A so-called "good" level two teacher will attempt to arm himself with an armada of teaching techniques, tips, and tricks. There are many types of level two teachers. However, common for most of these, apart from having a teacher focus, is that the result is passive students.
We need to engage and activate the students.
"...and then she said: it was the transition system!"
> Great teacher, man that guy was good.
> Yeah, but I didn't really get the point about the indexes - and I wasn't too sure about the rest either. But yeah, great teacher!
As clearly demonstrated by our "entertainer teacher" activation itself is not enough. A teacher at the most advanced level, level three, is particularly concerned with what a student does, before, during, and after teaching. That is, he is particularly concerned with the product, or the learning outcome of the teaching. But before we can go there, we need to understand understanding.
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