Key Points

Notes

• Four components of good teaching

• Construction

• Occupation

• Negotiation

• Conversation

• Continuum of Performance

• Construction, Occupation, Negotiation, Conversation
• Constrution: making meaning from the information and creating an understanding from it.
• Construction is exemplified by word manipulation; the construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of texts; creating an active, participatory environment; giving students the tools for success
• Occupation: To work and to inhabit; the ability to “inhabit an imaginative space”-- students will therefore lose their inhibitions and read more critically.
• Occupation is exemplified by understanding how people engage with their occupations; Engaging with student-to-student material (journals); extensive reading and writing; reading aloud; reading from the opposite point of view.
• Negotiation: Awakening our students to power-- negotiating the space between “my” class and “our class”.
• Negotiation is exemplified by the choices students make in the classroom; how they choose to share and demonstrate their knowledge; playing an active role in their assessment of the material; the teacher yields to the classroom; student participation as members of the classroom and as a community of learners.
• Conversations involve different factors: the students, teachers, parents, texts, the learning tradition, and the community at large.
• Conversation is exemplified by small group discussion; dialogue and correspondence; conferencing; online exchanges; talks with parents; interviews with the community at large.
• Novice/Insecure <--------> Master/Confident
• We continually move through this continuum as we learn and improve our skills, regardless of what we are learning. We are not Masters immediately.

Summary

Students pre-knowledge is always active, but their preconceptions about how the world works is not always accurate. By giving our students the tools to not only produce thought, but to question and analyze, as well as the tools to both succeed and even fail at times, we are empowering them through the continuum of performance. Through the four basic tenets of good teaching, we are creating an open environment for our students to access these tools quickly.