Autonomous Critical Thinking
Teaching excellence is resourcefulness and effective delivery; both create and maintain an environment where the students and the teacher are continually encouraged to apply autonomous critical thinking skills both inside and outside the classroom.
Resourcefulness means researching the needs of the populace (staying relevant) and applying that to the classroom, down to the needs of the individual student. It also delves into the theoretical and fundamental process of teaching: examining what it means to build a teacher’s toolkit that addresses student needs while simultaneously focusing on an end goal. It consistently takes audacious risks in the classroom for the sake of improving methodology in teaching and, simultaneously, student learning.
Teaching itself is a learning process and much of it comes from experience. In my classroom last year, a major theme we worked on was respect. We worked as a class on conflict resolution; more specifically, how we can address conflicts in a positive manner. Conflict resolution meant identifying when we feel uncomfortable and letting others understand that we are feeling that way, especially if we feel that they are responsible. As we practiced respect, there were a group of three students who tended to speak to one another in an accusatory tone, and (a random) two of them would usually end up picking on the other. What would oftentimes happen was that the students would respond to one another that they were making each other uncomfortable without explaining why, that is, without going into detail of how the other’s behavior was making them feel that way. This led to frustration. I had not yet effectively introduced self-regulation. In our professional development, we discussed the method of tapping as a self-regulating technique. It was interesting to see students practice tapping whenever they felt upset. It also helped me identify when some students were upset when previously they did not seem so. Personally, I learned that it is important to teach students how to interact and self-regulate; when students are left responding to one another negatively, they are not always able to control how they feel.
Effective delivery is important as it would involve using all components of the classroom to engage student learning. It not only focuses on the teacher’s competence, but it also focuses on the level of engagement of the students. An effective delivery of teaching involves a teacher able to: assess student needs, deliver a lesson in a variety of ways, and invite students to invest in the lesson: students buy into a system of teaching when they help develop it.
Teaching excellence is always evaluating your own teaching practice. Reflective questions like “Did this lesson work today?”, “What went well?”, “Did I do this right?”, “What could I have improved on?”, “If another teacher saw this, would they approve?” helped me to practice effective delivery. Being resourceful with teaching techniques (such as involving student lessons on teaching) involves using online resources and asking other teaching professionals for advice. They both helped to evolve my teaching practice: Number Talk was a tool I learned of through my principal and through various videos online. As Number Talk involved the students of all levels of advancement in the subject material to participate in the teaching and learning process, it was useful in my classroom esp. with the class involving both grade 4 and grade 5 students.
Students are assessed in a variety of ways: diagnostic assessment (through journal writing, which can involve cross-curricular learning: Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, think-pair-share, exit-tickets, and so on), ongoing assessment (scaffolding, self-assessments), and summative assessments (tests, presentations, assignments). These assessments can be done effectively through research as there are plenty of resources (lesson plans and assessment materials) to draw from online. Effective delivery of a lesson involves assessing student learning as to establish the right amount of scaffolding necessary beforehand. For example, when I did a lesson on Simple Machines to ELL learners (Korean students), I had translated the materials (e.g., wheel, pulley, axle, ramp, screw, lever, etc.) to Korean and provided students with both the lesson material and the translated terms. This helped students identify the topic immediately.
As I mentioned at the outset, resourcefulness and effective delivery provide an environment for autonomous critical thinking. The preceding paragraphs require students to think about the learning outcomes independently: What do I need to figure out; what did I learn in this lesson; what did I do wrong; what did I do right? My expectations for my students are to always figure out how to make sense of what they are learning. For example: in multiplication, does it make sense to use doubling strategies? When reading my own writing, does it make sense to me? When I finish my work, should I ask the teacher if it is good, or should I first look at the rubric to make sure I’ve understood the task that I am to complete to the best of my ability?
These critical thinking strategies would extend to myself as a teacher as well: Do my instructions make sense? Do I invite students to pursue their curiosity, or do I prevent it? Do my lessons invite students to practice the learning outcomes the Ontario Curriculum places on our classrooms? My expectation for both my students and me is to always leave the classroom independently thinking critically of our learning.