Interview with a K 12 Educator - Essay Example

Interview with a K-12 Educator Interviewee Context The interview was a 4th Grade teacher in an elementary school of Denver Colorado. She is 38 years old, and has been in the teaching profession for approximately 7 years. Ms. X. will remain anonymous throughout the interview report. She is a single mother of a nine-year old boy, so she believes that her parenting and teaching worlds reinforce each other. Ms. X graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education and specialises in teaching mathematics. She has taught two other schools, with one of them being where she did her internship. Therefore, most of her experience revolves around her latest school. Interview report The interview was relatively simple and straightforward except for a few instances where some clarification was needed concerning certain questions. The questions were recorded and then analysed for a summary. In response to the first question, Ms. X. said that she thinks of herself as a guide preparing her students for the future. She insists on igniting the same passion she feels for her subject matter in her students. She believes that her goal is to cause learners to reach their full potential. In fact, this was the same response the interviewee gave about the purpose of education in children’s life. She believed that education is meant to grow children’s innate abilities and talents so that they can become productive members of society (Heyting, 2004). Ms. X translates this philosophy of education by making her lessons as engaging as possible. The interviewee tries to understand her student’s strengths in order to tailor their assignments to their interests. Therefore, similar subject matter will be tested in two or three ways in order to accommodate these interests (Wilson, 2003). Furthermore, she always strives to use real-life examples and objects or tasks that children are already familiar with. Ms. X also believes in inviting children to give their own examples about the topic of the day. That personalises the lesson and enables them to remember whatever they learnt. The Interviewee believes that collaborative teaching is a revolution in education. Therefore, she has taught in teams several times. She often does this during quizzes and discussion lessons (Steffe and Cobb, 2008). This method works for her because it negates some of her weaknesses and allows her to learn new things. In terms of collaboration, the interviewee also believes that parents are crucial in the education process. They understand their children more personally and are capable of finding gaps that they may have even forgotten in class. Ms. X thinks of teachers as partners in the collaborative learning process. These individuals interact with students and provide them with the numerous opportunities to apply mathematical ideas (Wiles and Bondi, 2002). The interviewee makes house calls when her pupils have substantially improved if a child had been continually underperforming. It is for this reason that she always gives homework in order to reinforce the day’s lessons and to let parents know about the progress that the students made in class. Her teaching style is non directive. She does not believe in feeding everything directly to the children while the sit and listen. Instead, she asks students to remind themselves about what they learnt previously. Thereafter, Ms. X stimulates mathematical thinking by asking them questions about something in life that relates to the day’s topics and invites suggestions on how they think they can solve it. She’s also open to new ways of solving mathematical problems because she believes that this makes them take ownership over the problems. After their contributions, she then gives her input about the same. At the end of the lesson, Ms. X will engage in dialogue with her students in order to determine whether they understood the material and how they can apply it in life. The interviewee’s classroom management techniques appear to mirror the above philosophy. She often carries charts and toy blocks in class. Sometimes she may ask her students to use the toys to create certain patterns. Student’s tables are arranged in a circular motion in order to encourage group work and collaboration. For instance, when learning about fractions, she may ask them to use these symbols in order to demonstrate how effectively they understand the issues under discussion. It is for this reason that she believes in a small student-teacher ratio. Her ideal number would be 10 students per teacher, but she currently handles double this number (Daft and Marcic, 2007). The manner in which the interviewee handles indiscipline also reflects this guiding role in education. Ms. X tries as much as possible to provide a stimulating and respectful environment, so instances of indiscipline are not common. Furthermore, expectations on how to behave in class are always fully understood by these individuals. However, when indiscipline occurs, she lets the concerned student understand that he or she has done wrong. The child will be expected to leave the class and stand outside for a certain number of minutes, depending on the degree of offense. The interviewee believed that students learn by working with what they already knew. Classroom material needs to be slightly more complex than what they learnt before or else they will be bored and unmotivated to learn. Additionally, she asserted that knowledge is best acquired when the child is motivated enough to learn about it personally. This implies mathematical knowledge is best acquired through the children’s own thinking and involvement in discussions (Cobb, 2006). They must be given personal responsibility for learning in class. Interview analysis Although the interviewee did not explicitly name her theory of education, it appears that she ascribes to a constructivist paradigm. However, constructivism encompasses both social and cognitive aspects, so it appears that she values cognitive construction more. This view of knowledge espouses the belief that learners utilise their initial cognitive structures in order to construct knowledge systems (Bruner, 1996). It sharply differs from behaviourist dimensions which call for response to external stimuli. The view of learning in cognitive construction is active assimilation as well as accommodation. New information is assumed to enter the learner through their cognitive structures. Therefore, discovery is a critical component of the approach. The interviewee mentioned how most of the class is dominated by her students in order for them to discover new things for themselves (Bruner, 1996). The opposite is true for teachers who believe in behaviourism. The latter school of thought focuses on passive knowledge absorption by students. Positive reinforcement and repetition are the order of the day in this educational paradigm. Because of this, the interviewee probably said that her classroom rarely has discipline cases. Instead of focuses on reinforcement and punishment, it is more effective for the educator to create a proactive environment in which the students are encouraged to learn (Gutek, 2004). Educators who use this dimension tend to view children’s motivation as intrinsic. In other words, students have the capacity to set their own goals in order to learn and motivate themselves. Negative and positive reinforcement is not really a source of motivation for her because this would imply that knowledge is absorbed externally. An overall analysis of the method shows that it is one in which accommodation and assimilation are prioritised. Teachers are facilitators and act as guides to their students instead of people that correct or reprimand them. Some traditional educators may oppose this approach because they only treasure established concepts and techniques. However, the challenge with their old-fashioned approach is that it curtails intuitive thinking (Bruner, 1990). In corporate society today, employers seem to value discerning thinkers because the business environment is ever changing. When educators focus so much on directing and controlling learners, then they stifle these creative abilities, and thus leave students unprepared for the workplace. This is in fact not a free for all method since the teacher offers guidance and directs learning by directing what the student attention (Stakle, 2006). Conclusion The interviewee gave a lot of insightful information on how an abstract teaching dimension can be applied in the classroom. It illustrates that some seemingly technical subjects like mathematics can also be taught using a constructivist approach. The findings proved that one’s philosophy of education adversely impacts teaching approaches and methods in school. A teacher who has confidence in student’s capacity to learn is likely to give them opportunities to discover new knowledge for themselves. The interview attests to the relevance of having a teaching philosophy as it guides every other element of success. References Bruner, J. (1996). The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cobb, P. (2006). The Tension between Theories of Learning and Instruction in Mathematics Education. Educational Psychologist, 23, 87-103. Daft, R. and Marcic, D. (2007). Management: The new workplace. Australia: Thomson. Gutek, G. L. (2004). Philosophical and Ideological Voices in Education. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Heyting, F. (2004). Relativism and the Critical Potential of Philosophy of Education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38(3), 493. Stakle, A. (2006). Attitude towards teaching and learning in the context of students’ educational philosophy. Saule: Daugavpils. Steffe, L. and Cobb, P. (2008). Construction of Arithmetical Meanings and Strategies. New York: Springer-Verlag. Wiles, J. and Bondi, J. (2002). Curriculum development: A guide to practice. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Wilson, J. (2003). Perspectives on the Philosophy of Education. Oxford Review of Education, 29(2), pp. 279-283. Appendix: Interview Questions 1) How would you define your philosophy of education in a sentence or two? 2) How do you translate this in your lesson plans in class? 3) What do you think about parental involvement in school work? 4) In your perspective, what is the ideal teacher-student ration and why? 5) Describe how you organise your classrooms? 6) Explain your teaching style? 7) Have you ever tried teaching in teams, and how did it work for you? 8) Outline how you handle cases of indiscipline in your class using examples. 9) How do you believe students learn best? 10) What do you think is the long term purpose of education? Read More