As I read this standard, it tells me that as a teacher I must have a clear purpose for deciding what curricular and instructional aspects should be implemented.
Questions that I still have regarding this standard is with the word "defensible." At first I am curious as to whom we are defending or justifying ourselves to? At present I can think of a couple of individuals that we may be justifying towards. Firstly, based on Todd Dinkelman's comments to me, I should justify my actions and rationales to myself. My decisions should first and foremost relate to my rationale, and starting from there, they have purpose. The second group of individuals whom I think I should be defending my action to is the students. I think that transparency in the classroom is vital to trust-building between the students and instructor and for creating a classroom that stresses mutual support and collaboration, as highlighted in standard 3b. The next group of individuals that I think I should justify my curricular and instructional decisions to is other teachers. I think in order for the profession of social studies education to grow, teacher must start collaborating more often to ensure student success at tasks that we ask of them. I think by sharing rationales with one another, teachers can find common ground and learn from one another (Disclaimer: there will be more writing on professional collaboration later.) The last immediate group that I feel that I must justify my actions to is the administration. By having the approval of the administration, I feel that I will be better supported to defend my purposes for curricular and instructional decisions, if my rationale for doing so is not seen as defensible to say another group, like parents.
So, I have described who I am to defend my reasons for implementing certain curricular and instructional decisions; however, my second question is how is my reasoning "defensible?" For this question, I do not have a clear answer as the previous inquiry, but I believe that purposes for doing certain pedagogical implementations can be defensible by the following: reasons for implementing certain curriculum or instructional changes are clearly related to the teacher's rationale; the actions of the teacher have the support of both colleagues and the administration; reasons for such implementations are based on research and such implementations have been successful before in practice; and the teacher's decisions are based on prior student performance, to better facilitate student learning and understanding. This last point was suggested by one of my peers, Colson Bellmor.
Within my practice thus far as a student teacher, I have rarely had to defend my actions to anyone but my mentor teacher. Throughout the semester I have occasionally had to justify the creation of certain activities to my collaborating teacher, not because he was not flexible, but so that the planned assignment had a clear purpose and was justifiable within the parameters of the standards. Whenever I had to justify any implementation, I would have to identify its connection to the Georgia Performance Standards, so that, I think, it was justified to the administration. I have, however, had to justify my actions based on my rationale before. For example, in implementing certain closer activities following an inquiry lesson. I have asked that students engage in what King, Newman, and Carmichael (2009) contend is "elaborate communication" around a provocative inquiry question, while using evidence from social studies accounts. I have articulated to peers as well as practicing teachers that this implementation clearly relates to aspects of what I think social studies is for.
In moving forward specifically with curricular decisions, I want to create a syllabus that changes from year to year, as new developments occur and new connections to the curriculum can be made. The curriculum should not just be recycled even if it is justifiable. No, the teacher should constantly alter his or her curriculum based on the interests of students and the emergence of debatable issues. In addition to advancing beyond this semester, I think that I should also focus my attention to making my decisions more aligned with the support of the students, fellow teachers, administration, and research. A fellow teacher candidate, Colson Bellmor also highlighted that curriculum should be research tested and approved.
Regarding my rationale for teaching, I contend that every implementation that I make should have a purpose that is in accordance with student interest of contemporary issues. I recognize that my curricular decisions must be defensible in the sense that they should reflect mandated standards. However, I also conclude that my decisions for curriculum must also be based on my rationale for teaching social studies and should include students participating in inquiry regarding important and controversial issues. Decisions in the classroom must also be based on pedagogical research, student interests, administrative support, and collaboration between teachers.
What this standard says is that as a teacher, I must assume multiple roles in the classroom to support students in their engagement of worthwhile learning.
Regarding this standard, I had several questions regarding the various roles that we must assume as teachers. The first question that I had was what are other roles that teachers assume in the classroom, besides instructor, facilitator, model? I asked this question because I felt that the roles that were referenced in the standard understated the great variety of roles that teachers have to assume. In addition to instructor, facilitator, and model, I also came up with "councilor." It should be no surprise that teachers are sometimes told some very heartbreaking stories of students' home lives and personal experiences. Because of this information, we frequently have to be a center of comfort and support for the student, as well as maintaining our usual duties. However, as pointed out by Casey Thomas and Samantha Higgenbotham, teachers may need to send the students to professional councilors in certain circumstances, where the professional is sufficiently trained to handle such matters. In addition to councilor, others from my seminar conveyed that the teacher also assumes many more roles than the aforementioned. For example, Colson Bellmor said that the teacher assumes the role as disciplinarian as well to appropriately initiate consequences for disruptive behavior. Todd Dinkelman also concluded that the teacher can also take on the roles of coach, collaborator, and listener. While I don't think that all of these roles clearly and comprehensively reveal all of the important roles that the teacher assumes, it nevertheless demonstrates a wide spectrum of roles that the teacher must assume to be successful.
Another question I had relating to this standard was how do teachers balance the various roles? For example, does the teacher assume instructor for 40%, facilitator for 30%, and model for 30% of a class period? Based on discussion with my peers over this question, it is clear that the teacher should change his or her roles when students' responses tell them to do so. For instance, if the students are confused about a problem, the teacher should "model" in order to demonstrate correct success. If a discussion has become loud and unproductive than a teacher may want to intervene with more facilitation and collaboration. Thus, it is important to note that the role that the teacher assumes can often change quickly, even if such a change was not found in the lesson plan. Samantha Higgenbotham offered one final question that puzzled me, "Could teachers just assume one role?" Ultimately, I would say no. In order for students to be successful and to understand knowledge they need exposure to that knowledge, opportunities to understand how to work with that knowledge, a chance to engage in substantive collaboration with their peers, and to vocalize their interpretations of that information. Hence, the need for at least the following roles: instructor, model, facilitator, collaborator, and listener.
Within my practice, I have had to assume many of the aforementioned roles that a teacher assumes in the classroom. During multiple portions of many lessons I have changed my roles in order to help my students be more successful. For example, during mini-lessons and giving instructions, I have primarily assumed the role of instructor. When I have demonstrated my expectations for certain activities and helped the students work through problems, I have modeled. Finally, during discussions of many varieties, I have had to facilitate the flow of thoughts permeating the room, communicate the links between comments, and ensure that all students have the opportunity to participate.
In reaching the second part of the standard related to instructional strategies, I have provided many outlets for my students to succeed this semester. I have done so by allowing them to engage in learning and the application of knowledge through direct instruction, basic economic worksheets, analysis of station readings, participation in jigsaws, simulations, role playing, and structured academic controversies.
In future practice, I recognize that I need to assume more instructional roles that what I have done so thus far. While I have assumed roles like instructor, facilitator, listener, collaborator, and councilor, based on student advice I need to assume the role of disciplinarian more often. I gave my students a survey my last day with them and asked them to give me criticism as well as things I did successfully during the semester. The largest source of improvement they said was to be more strict and follow through with consequences more often. Also they said I needed to be less lenient with accepting late work and student unpreparedness.
In my future practice, I would also like to meet the parameters of the second part of the standard as it relates to varying instructional strategies. This semester I believe I have adequately used station readings, simulations, role-playing activities, and image and video analyses; however, I would like to experiment with other inquiry strategies moving forward. Thus, in future years I hope to strengthen my implementation of structured academic controversies, and begin using take-a-stand, think-pair-share, silent discussions, and line of contention activities to ensure that more participation occurs in the classroom around provocative inquiries.
As referenced in my rationale, as a teacher I recognize that as a teacher I am frequently the primary author for curriculum formation, instruction, and material construction. However, in my rationale, I also specified that students need to assume more active roles in the classroom, in order to invoke positive change in their lives and to find meaning for the information that they are exposed to. Just as I assume multiple active roles in teaching, I also recognize that I must also accept more passive roles, so that the students can guide the direction of the class. In this sense the students will also assume the aforementioned roles that were discussed, such as instructor, facilitator, collaborator, model, and perhaps even disciplinarian, if they work to refocus those who are off task. As Rebecca Dotterweich conveyed, I too want my classroom to be student driven and centered on content that they perceive is worthwhile, and in order to do that, the teacher must relinquish some of his or her activeness, so that the students can assume more active roles usually reserved for the teacher.
The way that I see that this standard is written is that the teacher should modify his or her planning and instruction based on student responses and prior academic performances.
Once reading this standard, I had certain questions that came up regarding its meaning. In particular I was curious as to when a teacher should adjust his or her instruction? In other words, are these adjustments made quickly during the actual implementation of the lesson or formally changed in the learning plan once the lesson had been given? A fellow peer, Catherine Brown, posed a similar question in association with my thought process regarding this standard: Per this standard are we, as teachers, supposed to adjust on-the-fly or in post-planning reflection? To answer both my peer’s question as well as my own, I would say that the teacher should do both. If we are able to, we should adjust accordingly in an on-the-fly manner when we see that students are disengaged with what we have prepared. However, even if we are not able to adjust quickly during the lesson itself, the teacher should reflect over the success of the lesson, as determined by student responses, and make proactive changes to further develop the planned instructional strategies and materials.
The second question that I had related to this standard was what are the student responses and how do we see them? First, what are the student responses? I don’t believe that I have a comprehensive understanding of what the student responses are but I would say that mostly this is related to students being disengaged or apathetic to the learning experience. Now for the how do we see their responses? Most of the time, I should think that both of these emotions are clear in the classroom, when students are looking at their phones, talking with neighbors, putting their heads down on the table, and perhaps rolling their eyes or expelling sighs. I think that students’ responses can also be seen on their performance to a particular assignment. While I think that analyzing students’ work is primarily done to reflect over the lesson after it has been given, I think that a teacher can (and should) gauge student understanding to a particular assignment as the students are working on the performance task.
Typically I have adjusted instruction appropriately as I am giving the lesson. I have done this by “reading the audience” and looked for cues that students are disengaged with the material. As mentioned before, I look to see if a handful of students are on their phones, with their heads down, talking with neighbors, or some other indication of apathy. Once seeing a combination of these indicators of disengagement or apathy, if possible, I would move on to other planned activities.
I have also tried to adjust planning appropriately given prior student performances. For example, in one of the last inquiry lessons that I gave, I asked the students to construct a 1-2 paragraph response to the following inquiry question: “Based on the impact on consumers, healthcare providers, and insurance companies, should the Affordable Care Act be repealed and replaced?” In other inquiry lessons, I had done a similar closer where students wrote an answer to the inquiry question; however, the majority of times, I received answers that were basic and often did not reference evidence. Therefore, based on students’ prior performances related to answering the big idea question, I had them write more in their response and emphatically directed them to use evidence in their arguments.
Overall in moving forward into my induction years as a teacher, I want to find more ways of gauging student responses so that I can adjust my lessons accordingly. I would like to find more concrete and perhaps evidence-based (as in I have tangible proof) responses from students on certain assignments. I envision this as maybe giving students a survey so that they can reflect on an assignment and evaluate its effectiveness on their learning. I would also like to discuss with the students more openly and acquire their thoughts to a particular lesson or assignment. I think too often during this semester I had students do one assignment and then we moved on to the next. Instead, I think it is worthwhile to stop and ask the students, “What did you think about this lesson or activity?”
In my rationale I constantly point to the idea of having a class where the content is centered around the students’ interests so that they have an authentic desire to understand and apply the content. In order for this idea to begin and maintain in the classroom, I recognize that I must gauge what students are motivated by or have interest in. How I measure this is through student responses. If they are disengaged with a particular piece of content or the way that it is taught, chances are that either the content is not relevant to them or the way in which it is taught is too teacher-centric. Students must be given the opportunity to actively engage with meaningful topics, and if they are not given that opportunity, then they will “tell” you either with signs of disengagement and apathy or through student performance.