Teacher- Learner Relationship

In one of my colleague’s reflection, she identified what is important in the teaching and learning process, in which she spoke about forging relationships between the teacher and her students. And because of her building the link between the teacher and her students, she made a difference to the lives of her students. Today let me reflect on need for quality teacher learner relationship so that teachers can be effective in their teaching and their students learn well.

Let me begin by saying that it is important that we have are clear of the fact that teaching and learning are two separate and distinct processes. Often, I hear of teachers referring to teaching and learning as though they are one single entity. Why do I say that? Well, of the many differences between teaching and learning, I see the process of teaching been carried out by one person while the process of learning goes on inside another. And hence, if teaching and learning processes are to work effectively, there must be a unique teacher-learner relationship between these two separate persons.

One of the effective ways in forging this teacher-learner relationship is through communication and this requires communication skills. My colleague mentioned about the use of written notes – the written skill, which is certainly not hard for any teacher to utilize nor does it place unusual demands on teachers during their daily interactions with their students. Another skill I am thinking of involves talking. Both forms of communication can be destructive to the teacher-learner relationship as well as enhancing as these can separate the teacher from the teacher or move them closer. For the effect that such forms of communication produces depends on the quality of talk or written note and on the teacher’s selection of the most appropriate kind of talk or written note for different kinds of situation.

Take praise as an example, either spoken or written. I believe that every teacher knows how to praise their students. However, there are times when one kind of praising message causes students to feel misunderstood and manipulated while a slightly different message has high probability of making students see the teacher as a person who is genuine, as well as a person who really cares.

Teaching and learning time in the classroom should be taken up by real learning. And that occurs when teachers teach and are not disrupted by their students and students are motivated by their teachers to learn – all can be made possible by quality teacher-learner relationship.

Assessment – Our Guiding Principles

Assessment is a central process in teaching and learning. I believe that when assessment is an integral part of teaching, it contributes significantly to all students’ learning. Hence, assessment should support the teaching and learning. Last week, my school leaders spoke about assessment in our school. One of the school leaders presented the guiding principles for assessment, which included validity of assessment, clarity of expectations, accurate placement of students to realize their potential and motivation to do classwork.

Four Guiding Principles

These four principles underpin my school’s assessment objectives and represent the shared view within the school of the processes and conditions that contribute to assessment. These described principles now serve to support the process of assessment – which teachers from different departments, various subjects and levels can work together to plan, develop and provide coherent assessment for our students.

Generally, it is through assessment that we know whether our students have learned what they have been taught, so that teachers can make appropriate adjustments to the teaching. Assessments are also used to describe the achievement of our students, so that decisions can be made about the kind of learning experiences that should follow. Students likewise would use the information from assessment for the process of continual self-improvement. Parents also use the results of assessment to learn about the progress their children are making in school, and to make decisions about the quality of teaching and learning in the school. And, of course, school leaders and middle managers use assessments to provide information about the quality of the school or programs. All these can be categorized under two broad purposes for assessment: (1) to “improve the teaching and learning process in the classrooms” and (2) to provide “reliable information to hold students, teachers and the school accountable for results”. Hence, there is a need for Principle 2: clarity of expectation of assessment for students, teachers and parents. In addition, I believe that middle managers including myself also need to have clarity of expectations of assessment.

Ultimately, I see all assessments being used to support decisions and my belief is that a decision made with the information from assessment is better than a decision that is made without such information. Hence, the quality of decisions will depend on the quality of assessment and so Principle 1: the validity of assessment is important. To me, validity refers to the extent to which an assessment measures what it is intended to measure, and the accuracy of inferences and decisions made on the based on the assessment results. Another criteria for evaluating assessment indicated is of reliability, which refers to how consistent the assessment measures students learning (knowledge, skills, understandings…). Hence, to be reliable, the results of the assessment should be consistent across the level (Principle 1).  

Today’s reflection provided me with some clarity about assessment as I attempted to interpret the “whys” in some of the elements in the guiding principles for assessment. In my coming reflection, I will attempt to speak on the two assessment methods, namely summative and formative assessment. To be continued …

Improving Academic Instructions

I see 2013 as a focus on our teachers’ commitment to implement academic instruction that support their students’ growth within their classrooms. In tandem with teacher commitment, as the middle manager, I recognize the need to support their collaboration on issues relating to implementing, evaluating, and expanding instruction to ensure that all our students learn and graduate to further their education.

Through discussions with fellow colleagues, I came to believe in the need to support teachers’ professional collaboration by subject area and level. That is why the professional learning team (PLT) is important. As teachers, we know of the intensive planning that is required for even one day of teaching. We also know of the fact that while groups of past students were able to learn a subject well and quickly, this does not mean that all other future groups of students will be able to do the same. In addition, I see the need as people developer to model “real-time” teaching and learning within the classroom instructions with my fellow teachers. These sharing among teachers offer instructional examples which are connected to everyday classroom teaching. Each teacher being classroom teacher himself/herself, can then be adapted and refined each instructional suggestions within his/her own classroom setting.

Indeed, I believe that all teachers should strive to create satisfying learning experiences for their students through their classroom instructions. Satisfying learning experiences require that students pay attention. Attention, engagement and interactions are all crucial to keeping the students motivated and so they will make effort to learn well. I think there are specific behaviors that teachers can use to ensure that learning experiences are satisfying and will result in increased understanding and achievement of our students. I look forward to these discussions with my teachers on such learning behaviors and how this is accomplished. To be continued …

My First 2013 management meeting

Being in the education profession, one of the set of leadership practices must include instructional leadership. Elements found in instructional leadership shared by my school leader during the first management meeting of the year include beliefs, knowledge, people skills, planning, processes and monitoring and review. I believe that her effort is to improve the academic instruction in the school by doing what is necessary to help our teachers to translate the expectations of the desired outcomes of education into effective classroom practices. I see this as especially crucial in my school, where teacher’s current approaches to instruction have not been very successful with students.

Based on my fellow colleagues’ sharing, such instructional supports also include having clarity of instructions, knowledge and expectations of instructions, achievement of targets, role-modeling and sharing of pedagogy and ownership. To me, all these meant providing significant amount and multiple types of support to our teachers for their instructional work. The sharing also indicated to me that as middle managers, our instructional support must include urging our teachers and students to put a much stronger emphasis on student academic achievement regardless of stream. By focusing on and priority made to the academic instruction with contributions from everyone, I believe that our student academic work and achievement can then improve.

Equally important is my school leader spending much of her time providing clarity on what was needed to be accomplished for the semester and creating a sense of accountability for those goals through widely disseminated expectations, starting with us middle managers. In this way, the school then works towards a common set of targets, thus effectively establishing a whole school approach for all teachers and students in the school.

The Game

My two kids, who is about five and seven, and I wanted to strengthened my relationship with them in a more meaningful way before we sleep during our end year overseas trip in 2012. I remembered that with human interaction – communication was the key. So I thought, “What can we, as a family do in ten to fifteen minutes we have together before sleep to make us think positively about and feel warmly towards each other?” You know, this took a bit of courage. By the age of seven, my elder kid has pretty much a good idea of the kind of behavior expected from each parent. I am not much talker before sleep during normal days. I might say “Good night”, “Sweet dreams”, “How was your day?” and that was all the “talk”.  So I was a bit nervous to suggest the game I came up with.

As we lay down in our beds, I said, “.... why don’t we play a game? What we want to do is to say ‘I feel good about you because…” or “I liked what you did because ….” The because is important so that we then know the reason the other person like about us. Okay? I will start.”

So, I began and said something about each of my family members. Then each of us in turn said something about each other. After one completed round, we went to sleep. In fact, that was because I could not think of anything else. That night, I felt good in one hand but discouraged at the other. Good that we shared one round of good things about each other, discouraged that I could not find more. However, we continued this for the next few days, with each day, increasing on the number of things we will say about each other. What was quite shocking to me was that I realized that I had to really think of what to say about my kids. I love my kids very much, but at that moment I was having difficulty thinking of specific actions that I love of my kids. I was really searching for things to say to them.

This game made me wonder about how I was seeing my kids as they grow up. After that, I began to really see what they did every day in our family. I see their hugs, their words, their thank-yous. And then, I will tell them how well they did – that I love their actions and behaviors. Now that I have started digging, I hope that we will not stop. I think the game has started a conversation that I now extend to building meaningful bond among my family.