Study Question: Can you state any of your personal theories that function to guide your educational practices? Could you name the personal theories? One personal theory I have regarding my teaching practices stems from my own experiences with education. I believe that the atmosphere and environment directly correlate with the students' abilities to learn. If they feel they are in a "safe place" where they can contribute without the fear of being ridiculed if they make a mistake, they are more inclined to participate and will gain a deeper understanding of what they are learning. It provides them with freedom from fear of being wrong, allowing them to focus on the learning and content without worrying about being made fun of by anyone in the room. If I were to name this theory, I would call it the Safe Learning Environment Theory. I see this reflected in my students as well, they began the year hesitant to contribute answers if they were not confident in their response, and later said that they didn't want to answer because they were embarrassed to get it wrong. I quickly established and ingrained that out class was a safe place where we are all learning, even me, and it's ok to make mistakes because that's a part of learning. Now they eagerly participate and encourage each other, even if they answer incorrectly, they are still very supportive of one another. :)
Study Question: Should educators be following academic theories? What could be the possible alternative relationships with academic theories? Educators should know and understand academic theories so that they can be used to better inform their practice. However, part of understanding a theory is recognizing its limitations and how those can limit a theory’s applicability to your own practice. Knowing the theory without understanding the circumstances from which it was derived is not helpful to educators who have a very small likelihood of teaching in such a controlled environment. Yet macro theories can help us think of explanations for behavior or learning patterns that we would not have come up with on our own and educators can utilize these ideas when they are trying to understand an individual. Rather than assume these theories explain a particular student, the teacher can perform his or her own testing of the theory on that student by manipulating variables and observing whether or not change is occurring. The teacher can then create his or her own theory about that individual based on what, in practice, was actually effective or non-effective
Study Question: What would be the best method to reflect on your personal theories? How could it be done to benefit your educational practice?
I find that I tend to reflect on my personal theories when I am introduced to new personal or academic theories. It's important for me to participate in discourse on personal values with my peers. Through these discussions I find what values are important to me and those that are not. I enjoy finding personal theories of others that I hadn't considered previously, and can incorporate those theories into my own practices. This is true for my educational practice as well as my personal every day values. Graduate school is the perfect environment for this type of discourse. It is the underlying foundation of our education to be exposed to new theories and perspectives. I think that being education is a career field that really requires you to reflect on your persona and be conscious of how your persona affects your teaching philosophy.
Reflection can be difficult for some. I think being conscientious can take time and practice. It is also difficult to reflect on failures or circumstances that were uncomfortable. However, when we open up to our peers they may offer insight into our own personal theories that we might not have understood and help us cope with our re-evaluations. I think all reflections can be beneficial for educational practices.
Study Question - Have you experienced any kind of death and re-birth of your personal theory? How did it happen, and how did you overcome the challenge?
I have experienced the death and re-birth of many of my personal theories in different moments of my life. To mention one specifically, I chose an example of when I started teaching. I was an inexperienced young teacher in a class with 26 third graders. I had the idea that I should write hard tests for them and assign them tough tasks. In my theory the harder the task/test, the more they would learn from it. However, as I gained experience and a broader and deeper understanding of the teaching practice, this theory died off. I now think of tests and assignments as fluid and ongoing processes that need to be accompanied closely by the teacher. They are opportunities for the teacher to notice gaps, help students overcome them, and ultimately enhance the learning experience of the student. Tests are not supposed to be scary or cause anxiety and despair. It is part of a natural process and the final objective is learning successfully.
Study Question: What would be the best method to reflect on your personal theories? How could it be done to benefit your educational practice? Reflecting on personal theories with a more critical lens is a way in which one can grow as an educator. When we look at our personal theories and how we came to believe them through the circumstances in which they were created, the feelings around them, and the players that helped shape them, we can then understand them on a deeper level. One way in which an educator can reflect on their person theories is to keep a journal of their experiences, this way one can see the history of the theory and if the theory has been through changes. By reflecting on personal theories, an educator will have the opportunity to not let the theories based on a false jikkan, dictate their educational practice. Constant reflection will ensure that the educator is growing and learning from experiences and not letting one theory take over everything they do.
study question: what is the jikkan that you felt about your educational practices recently? Is there anything wrong with following your jikkan in your practice? My current students comprise of one Japanese student that I tutor, and a class of mixed students that I teach as volunteer. When I first started I over did it. I wanted to find the perfect textbooks, nail the grammar, do exercises, games, and review. However, I had a jikkan that the most of my students weren`t following me. No matter how much I wanted my students to understand my lessons, they just couldn`t. I spent hours preparing for the lessons, and I felt like a one man show. I stopped and wondered what was wrong, and started being practical about this. I looked at what the students were taking in, and what was being waisted. What were the students taking out of these lessons? The conclusion that came to is that most students didn`t want an overload of information, but wanted to use the language, and have fun. After that I adjusted my lessons to be student focused. I do stress a few points, grammar, vocabulary that I think are important, but try to involve the students as much as I can. I learned the importance of letting the students do the work through this jikkan.
I really feel your observation about "finding the right..." It's hard not to, IMO, as a new teacher. I think experience helps with this, though. Like learning to drive a car, or anything else complex enough to be interesting, at first it's all you can do to keep it on the road, with a focus on doing it "the right way". Before long, though, you are cruising down the highway listening to music and driving with one hand (but not texting, please!).
(Not sure how that looks in a classroom, but once you find a good metaphor...) KAT
Study Question: Have you experienced any kind of death and re-birth of your personal theory? How did it happen, and how did you overcome th challenge?
My personal theories, educational and otherwise, have been formed by me as a son, father, student, engineer, and now teacher. One educational personal theory that changed happened as my role as the father of a student. I have a son who is really smart. He is a great abstract thinker. Now, at this point, you might expect me to say "but he's severely disabled" or "he is quiet autistic", but if that were the case, this would not likely have been a changing theory for me.
No, my son was a regular, bright, kinda-nerdy kid. But in first grade he would not write his daily journal. The teacher gave him enormously leeway in what that journal could be, but he would not do it.
Notice how I phrased that: "He would not do it." That, friends, was my personal theory. That good students work hard, and that laziness was the culprit (enemy!) to be "trained-out".
My wife's personal view was different than mine (fortunately), and after some testing it was determined that my son had a condition which made it very difficult for him to "put pen to paper". He thought well, and was as creative as a first grader should be, but when it came to making his hand make the letters, no go.
This rocked my world, and opened my eyes to a whole new perspective of how disabilities manifest themselves, and that while we can see the big ones, it's the small ones we need to be on guard for.
So I used to think that if a student wasn't doing their work that there was an 80% chance that they were "just being lazy". Now, there are no percentages, I just ask "why?" and start from there.
Study Question: What is your omoi about education? From what experiences did it emerge?
I think education is the tool to help understand human conditions as a whole. Human beings have the fundamental needs of knowing about oneself and others. However, we regularly form limited personal theories through the perspective of our own life experience. Therefore, we educate ourselves by reading others’ stories and communicating with others. Education liberates us from our own limited one-life-story territory. It is a mirror to help us examine more possibilities by reflection. It is also a pair of unbiased glasses to see others better. I came into this conclusion along with my own growth. While interacting with others, a lot of conflicts emerge if both stick to their own point of view. If both consider their way to be the only right way of solving problems, they will be forever isolated from each other. In contrast, education enables us to learn from each other. We learn to question our stubborn ideas and be open to more possibilities by communication.
Study Question: Have you experienced any kind of death and re-birth of your personal theory? How did it happen, and how did you overcome the challenge?
When I first started tutoring three years ago, many of my personal theories about teaching were based on my own experience as a student. Tutoring tested those theories which resulted in them either begin changed or laid to rest. The first student I was assigned to was a third grader who was struggling with homophones and identifying main ideas in passages. With little training and experience working with elementary students, I would explain a concept and have him work on worksheets. For a while each lesson was like that, boring. Eventually, it reached a point where he refused to cooperate and answered questions with “I don’t know”. Finally taking some time to reflect on each lesson I had with my student and putting myself in his shoes, I realized that worksheet should not make up an entire lesson but act as a guide or starting point for ideas for lessons. An educator must be able to be creative and incorporate various teaching styles, like combining visual and kinesthetic activities when teaching homophones, when planning out lesson that will engage and develop students’ skills.
Study Question: What is the jikkan that you felt about your educational practices recently? Is there anything wrong with following your jikkan in your practice? Recently I have switched from teaching Math for grades 6-12, to teaching English as a second language to adult learners. I was extremely nervous and unsure if switching would be the right choice. However, my gut kept telling me that I should. That I should just take the challenge, even though I had no knowledge of teaching English. My gut kept telling me that in the long run it was going to be the right thing to do. I feel that I had a jikkan moment that this change was the right choice for me. It was through student teaching that I realized that I was needed somewhere else in the classroom. That my focus should change to better help this community of learners that were being ignored. I followed my gut feeling and I have not regretted the choice. I do not think that there is anything wrong with following your jikkan in your practice. I feel that your gut is what moves you to do things. It starts the next adventure in your professional life and your passion continues it. Your jikkan can be extremely important in what you do in your professional life.
Study Question: Can you state any of your personal theories that function to guide your educational practices? Could you name the personal theories?
ReplyDeleteOne personal theory I have regarding my teaching practices stems from my own experiences with education. I believe that the atmosphere and environment directly correlate with the students' abilities to learn. If they feel they are in a "safe place" where they can contribute without the fear of being ridiculed if they make a mistake, they are more inclined to participate and will gain a deeper understanding of what they are learning. It provides them with freedom from fear of being wrong, allowing them to focus on the learning and content without worrying about being made fun of by anyone in the room. If I were to name this theory, I would call it the Safe Learning Environment Theory. I see this reflected in my students as well, they began the year hesitant to contribute answers if they were not confident in their response, and later said that they didn't want to answer because they were embarrassed to get it wrong. I quickly established and ingrained that out class was a safe place where we are all learning, even me, and it's ok to make mistakes because that's a part of learning. Now they eagerly participate and encourage each other, even if they answer incorrectly, they are still very supportive of one another. :)
I agree with you! I think a safe as well as respectful environment is important in my classroom.
DeleteStudy Question: Should educators be following academic theories? What could be the possible alternative relationships with academic theories? Educators should know and understand academic theories so that they can be used to better inform their practice. However, part of understanding a theory is recognizing its limitations and how those can limit a theory’s applicability to your own practice. Knowing the theory without understanding the circumstances from which it was derived is not helpful to educators who have a very small likelihood of teaching in such a controlled environment. Yet macro theories can help us think of explanations for behavior or learning patterns that we would not have come up with on our own and educators can utilize these ideas when they are trying to understand an individual. Rather than assume these theories explain a particular student, the teacher can perform his or her own testing of the theory on that student by manipulating variables and observing whether or not change is occurring. The teacher can then create his or her own theory about that individual based on what, in practice, was actually effective or non-effective
ReplyDeleteStudy Question: What would be the best method to reflect on your personal theories? How could it be done to benefit your educational practice?
ReplyDeleteI find that I tend to reflect on my personal theories when I am introduced to new personal or academic theories. It's important for me to participate in discourse on personal values with my peers. Through these discussions I find what values are important to me and those that are not. I enjoy finding personal theories of others that I hadn't considered previously, and can incorporate those theories into my own practices. This is true for my educational practice as well as my personal every day values. Graduate school is the perfect environment for this type of discourse. It is the underlying foundation of our education to be exposed to new theories and perspectives. I think that being education is a career field that really requires you to reflect on your persona and be conscious of how your persona affects your teaching philosophy.
Reflection can be difficult for some. I think being conscientious can take time and practice. It is also difficult to reflect on failures or circumstances that were uncomfortable. However, when we open up to our peers they may offer insight into our own personal theories that we might not have understood and help us cope with our re-evaluations. I think all reflections can be beneficial for educational practices.
Study Question - Have you experienced any kind of death and re-birth of your personal theory? How did it happen, and how did you overcome the challenge?
ReplyDeleteI have experienced the death and re-birth of many of my personal theories in different moments of my life. To mention one specifically, I chose an example of when I started teaching. I was an inexperienced young teacher in a class with 26 third graders. I had the idea that I should write hard tests for them and assign them tough tasks. In my theory the harder the task/test, the more they would learn from it. However, as I gained experience and a broader and deeper understanding of the teaching practice, this theory died off. I now think of tests and assignments as fluid and ongoing processes that need to be accompanied closely by the teacher. They are opportunities for the teacher to notice gaps, help students overcome them, and ultimately enhance the learning experience of the student. Tests are not supposed to be scary or cause anxiety and despair. It is part of a natural process and the final objective is learning successfully.
Study Question: What would be the best method to reflect on your personal theories? How could it be done to benefit your educational practice?
ReplyDeleteReflecting on personal theories with a more critical lens is a way in which one can grow as an educator. When we look at our personal theories and how we came to believe them through the circumstances in which they were created, the feelings around them, and the players that helped shape them, we can then understand them on a deeper level. One way in which an educator can reflect on their person theories is to keep a journal of their experiences, this way one can see the history of the theory and if the theory has been through changes. By reflecting on personal theories, an educator will have the opportunity to not let the theories based on a false jikkan, dictate their educational practice. Constant reflection will ensure that the educator is growing and learning from experiences and not letting one theory take over everything they do.
study question: what is the jikkan that you felt about your educational practices recently? Is there anything wrong with following your jikkan in your practice? My current students comprise of one Japanese student that I tutor, and a class of mixed students that I teach as volunteer. When I first started I over did it. I wanted to find the perfect textbooks, nail the grammar, do exercises, games, and review. However, I had a jikkan that the most of my students weren`t following me. No matter how much I wanted my students to understand my lessons, they just couldn`t. I spent hours preparing for the lessons, and I felt like a one man show. I stopped and wondered what was wrong, and started being practical about this. I looked at what the students were taking in, and what was being waisted. What were the students taking out of these lessons? The conclusion that came to is that most students didn`t want an overload of information, but wanted to use the language, and have fun. After that I adjusted my lessons to be student focused. I do stress a few points, grammar, vocabulary that I think are important, but try to involve the students as much as I can. I learned the importance of letting the students do the work through this jikkan.
ReplyDeleteI really feel your observation about "finding the right..." It's hard not to, IMO, as a new teacher. I think experience helps with this, though. Like learning to drive a car, or anything else complex enough to be interesting, at first it's all you can do to keep it on the road, with a focus on doing it "the right way". Before long, though, you are cruising down the highway listening to music and driving with one hand (but not texting, please!).
Delete(Not sure how that looks in a classroom, but once you find a good metaphor...) KAT
Study Question: Have you experienced any kind of death and re-birth of your personal theory? How did it happen, and how did you overcome th challenge?
ReplyDeleteMy personal theories, educational and otherwise, have been formed by me as a son, father, student, engineer, and now teacher. One educational personal theory that changed happened as my role as the father of a student. I have a son who is really smart. He is a great abstract thinker. Now, at this point, you might expect me to say "but he's severely disabled" or "he is quiet autistic", but if that were the case, this would not likely have been a changing theory for me.
No, my son was a regular, bright, kinda-nerdy kid. But in first grade he would not write his daily journal. The teacher gave him enormously leeway in what that journal could be, but he would not do it.
Notice how I phrased that: "He would not do it." That, friends, was my personal theory. That good students work hard, and that laziness was the culprit (enemy!) to be "trained-out".
My wife's personal view was different than mine (fortunately), and after some testing it was determined that my son had a condition which made it very difficult for him to "put pen to paper". He thought well, and was as creative as a first grader should be, but when it came to making his hand make the letters, no go.
This rocked my world, and opened my eyes to a whole new perspective of how disabilities manifest themselves, and that while we can see the big ones, it's the small ones we need to be on guard for.
So I used to think that if a student wasn't doing their work that there was an 80% chance that they were "just being lazy". Now, there are no percentages, I just ask "why?" and start from there.
KAT
Study Question: What is your omoi about education? From what experiences did it emerge?
ReplyDeleteI think education is the tool to help understand human conditions as a whole. Human beings have the fundamental needs of knowing about oneself and others. However, we regularly form limited personal theories through the perspective of our own life experience. Therefore, we educate ourselves by reading others’ stories and communicating with others. Education liberates us from our own limited one-life-story territory. It is a mirror to help us examine more possibilities by reflection. It is also a pair of unbiased glasses to see others better. I came into this conclusion along with my own growth. While interacting with others, a lot of conflicts emerge if both stick to their own point of view. If both consider their way to be the only right way of solving problems, they will be forever isolated from each other. In contrast, education enables us to learn from each other. We learn to question our stubborn ideas and be open to more possibilities by communication.
Study Question: Have you experienced any kind of death and re-birth of your personal theory? How did it happen, and how did you overcome the challenge?
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started tutoring three years ago, many of my personal theories about teaching were based on my own experience as a student. Tutoring tested those theories which resulted in them either begin changed or laid to rest. The first student I was assigned to was a third grader who was struggling with homophones and identifying main ideas in passages. With little training and experience working with elementary students, I would explain a concept and have him work on worksheets. For a while each lesson was like that, boring. Eventually, it reached a point where he refused to cooperate and answered questions with “I don’t know”. Finally taking some time to reflect on each lesson I had with my student and putting myself in his shoes, I realized that worksheet should not make up an entire lesson but act as a guide or starting point for ideas for lessons. An educator must be able to be creative and incorporate various teaching styles, like combining visual and kinesthetic activities when teaching homophones, when planning out lesson that will engage and develop students’ skills.
Study Question: What is the jikkan that you felt about your educational practices recently? Is there anything wrong with following your jikkan in your practice?
ReplyDeleteRecently I have switched from teaching Math for grades 6-12, to teaching English as a second language to adult learners. I was extremely nervous and unsure if switching would be the right choice. However, my gut kept telling me that I should. That I should just take the challenge, even though I had no knowledge of teaching English. My gut kept telling me that in the long run it was going to be the right thing to do. I feel that I had a jikkan moment that this change was the right choice for me. It was through student teaching that I realized that I was needed somewhere else in the classroom. That my focus should change to better help this community of learners that were being ignored. I followed my gut feeling and I have not regretted the choice. I do not think that there is anything wrong with following your jikkan in your practice. I feel that your gut is what moves you to do things. It starts the next adventure in your professional life and your passion continues it. Your jikkan can be extremely important in what you do in your professional life.