Act of Teaching Summary chapter 13 & 14

What Kinds of Classroom -Related Problems Do Teachers Face

Affiliation This means as teachers there is a need to establish a relationship

with all other parties of that are involved in the education arena at the school level.
This includes parties like the students, fellow teachers, parents and the
administration at large.

Affiliation is emphasized because all the teachers the challenges they face in
their professional it is attributed to one of these parties. Evidence by the author was
given when they carried out research they realized that teaching compared to any
other occupation that it was ranked highest when it comes to the social scale.

It is very important for any teacher who wants to achieve success in his or
her teaching career for the students to not only achieve success in academics but
for the students to grow academically, spiritually and physically then a strong
relationship between all the parties that attribute to the success of the students and
the teachers.

They are several areas that are concern of the teachers and they can all be
solved through building a mutual understanding between all parties and this
understanding should be at a friendly level with the parents, administration,
students and fellow teachers.

The other concern that several teachers have is to do with control in a

classroom or what we can call classroom management. Here students some fail to
maintain order in the class and the language they use is inappropriate. Some of
these students lack respect for their teachers or even the way they respond to
learning is a shock to their teachers and this worries the teachers.

Solutions to the teachers concerns

Parent Relationships and Home Conditions

As teachers at times we deal with some issues in our classes but we surely
dont know why this student does what he does or why he comes late to class or
even why he uses the kind of the words he uses towards his friends in class.

As a teacher, there is a part to play and it is trying to know the conditions

home and this comes by the teacher probably visiting the students home and
establishing an honest friendship with the parents at home. And as we establish the
relationship and get to discuss about a student we need to be straight to the point
we should avoid just trying to hide things about the students if something is not
right then talk about it with the parents.
 The main reason why we need to visit the homes of our students is to find out
what happens home and the conditions home because it gives us as teachers a
good ground of helping these students but also the parents get to help the teacher
in bringing out the best in this student and the teach get to look for the best ways
to help the student after knowing the situation home.

Most of the times teachers we have gone ahead to judge our students
behavior not knowing why they behave like that or even why they come late and
especially in the third world countries like Africa the teachers go ahead to punish
the students which at times the problem is from home and the student is not to
blame which does not sure redemptive teacher.

The primary goal of a teacher is their students to be successful in their class.

This means getting good grades and showing a certain level of understanding. And
as teachers look at that aspect of success we forget the social bit of our students
which is as relevant as academic excellence. Unfortunately, many of the students
struggle with student success this is because of the different personalities in the
students and various levels of understanding who come from different families and
all these things count for the students success.

The other issues that teachers face include Obstacle to student success this
means that as teachers we are still growing and we are going to make a lot of
mistakes. But then also teaching is always accumulating meaning that we are going
to make mistakes in preparation for our students to be successful. Like you prepare
well teach well but still some of your students dont make it which is absurd for the
teacher but its part of learning to teacher in a better way so that next time all your
class achieve success.

The other issue that teachers are concerned with is Teacher Behavior Linked
to Student Success Here as teachers we need to be flexible according to the ability
of our students that calls for us to be patient with the slow learners and this means
probably giving them extra time for them to catch up with others using an edifying
language. This is very fundamental because the way we teachers behavior affects
our impact on our students either in a negative or a positive way. All these issues
mentioned above can be overcame through being caring, being cooperative and
being open minded.

Act of Teaching Chapter 14

Reflectively Skills of Effective Teachers

In this chapter, we learn about the effectiveness of the teachers and we are
focusing on reflection among the teachers. Reflection refers to the ongoing process
of critically examining and refining teaching practice by considering the personal,
education and social life of a teacher and the students you teach. (P.460)

Reflection is very paramount in the teaching career because we appear

before students and during this time we say a lot some of the things out of mistakes
and hold different views and use different strategies to effect classroom
management which may have a negative effect on our students. This reflection time
gives us an opportunity to reflect on all these issues and try to do better in the next
lesson especially for the new teachers who are still trying out all innovative ideas.

Thanksgiving Reconsidered.

Under the sub section of this chapter we come to understand example of Adrienne
who many at times wants to go with the bond wagon or of using generalization
because one student or two seem to have understood then to her she thought
everyone would have got the concept. Another issue is taking time to prepare for
the lesson but it turns out not workout as you had prepared it to be. As teachers,
some of the disappointments are very common of students not understanding the
whole lesson or you find that it is only a third of the class that would have
understood.

The only way these disappointments among teachers can only come to an
end through doing reflection because it helps us as teachers to point out those
issues and what caused the students not to understand the lesson. These
reflections help us as teachers to prepare for the next lesson and counsel those
loopholes that were involved in our previous lessons and change our teaching
behaviors. During this period of evaluation and reflection we should ask ourselves
questions like what happened during the lesson? Why did it happen? How did
learner characteristics guide me as I developed the lesson? Sure, questions force
one to think hard about how the lesson went and how to make it perfect next
meeting with the student because then you will be prepared.

Characteristics of Reflective Practitioners

According to (Jay,1999) Villa (1997) describes reflective teachers as those who can
look back on the teaching and learning in their class classrooms and make
judgments about them and change their teaching behaviors as a result. Reflective
teachers are deliberative, open minded, responsible and sincere to themselves for
example the student teachers who were described who decided to ask themselves
questions like those which were sincere.

Reflective practitioners are purposefully and deliberate they have reasons

why they ask themselves questions or just reflect they do it with an aim of making
their delivery to the students better and they are just dont ask themselves but they
go ahead to work on their weakness. Another characteristic sure teacher is open
minded for example Adrienne she did not just keep silent with the fact that the
lesson had gone bad, but she went ahead to look for ideas from the fellow teachers
and the practicing teacher. Being open mind in this career of teaching is very
important because you keep learning new things from your fellow teachers and your
own students and thats what makes our teaching better as teachers.

Reflective practitioner take the responsibility like Adrienne she took the
responsibility of allowing that she had done a mistake of using writing assessment.
Reflective teachers take the responsibility of their own mistake and learn from their
mistakes because thats what makes them better teachers tomorrow. Adrienne
came up with a better class the next time she taught because she had taken the
consequence of her mistake and used them to make herself better.

Reflective teachers are also referred to as inquiry-oriented by

(Wellington,1904). The process of inquiring leads teachers to becoming students of
teaching (Dewey,1904). We should learn to think about work and being creative
not to just master the process but understand the process and explain it differently
and this also should apply to classroom management. The difference between the
student teaching teachers and those who are not is that the student teaching
teachers are always inquire and analyze their teaching behaviors and look for ways
to make themselves better.

Benefits of Reflecting on Teaching.

Reflections help teachers to increase the ability to analyze the classroom

events and these include classroom management and the way as a teacher you
teach. This practice of also helps teachers to learn about through consulting and
reflecting on each lesson they teach.

According to the learning psychologists, reflectively enhances learning about

teaching and they are steps that are followed through which teachers benefit from
these reflection steps which are as follows. Having a concrete learning experience
as a teacher you must have an experience such as grading home work papers for
your operating teacher. As teacher, you must have an opportunity to reflect on the
experience by recapturing and evaluating. For example, after grading the
assignment as a teacher you might need to take off time and evaluate the grades of
the students and come up with things like the percentage of the students that didnt
do well as compared to those who did well.

Learning process is integrating your reflections with what you already know
and believe about teaching and learning. Lastly it is very important that after the
reflections and getting the information you get to put these lessons into actions
thats when you get appreciate lessons learnt.

Developing Reflective Thinking

Reflective process it is identified as descriptive, comparative, and evaluation
(Jaya,1999 and Johnson,2002). Descriptive reflection involves describing significant
aspects of a classroom event or concern here you describe what happened?

In comparative reflection you, explore alternative perspectives or

interpretations that help you understand why the event described happened that
way. Under comparative reflection you ask yourself questions or the view of the
named situation.

Evaluation reflection moves beyond describing and understanding an event

and seeing it from another view to judging or making a judgment of the situation
and what happened and finding solutions to the issue at hand.