Chris Lehmann posted an article about what he expects out of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Teachers and I thought to myself..."This is what should be expected out of every teacher." As a current student and future educator I am constantly critiquing my professors, myself, and my classmates on how well they teach as well as thinking about what I would love for them to do to make things better for my learning. Included in this constant analysis would be instances where a teacher says one thing and completely disregards what he/she is saying just a few minutes later. The following is an example of what I mean shown in a dialogue between professor and class while learning about ADHD....
Professor (While referring to the powerpoint): "As you can see the average child with ADD cannot concentrate on a single subject for an extended period of time."
Student 1: "How long is the attention span for your normal college student."
Professor: "Well I would say that about after 35-45 minutes students will start to wander and 'tune things out'"
Class now continues for an hour and a half going through the powerpoint....
Professor: "Okay we will take our break now."
Do the math on that one for me and practice what you preach. You just told me that I'm most likely going to be losing attention after 40 or so minutes so why are you lecturing to me for over twice that amount of time? With all of this being said I would like to add #11 to Lehmann's list and generalize it to all teachers.
#11) Please be accountable for what you teach and give me the best opportunity to succeed in your class. Even if that is a two minute break where I can get up and just stretch without missing anything, it would make a world of difference and optimize my learning. Thank You.
I agree with your critique of teachers. More teachers need to better understand that their specific class is not always the students' #1 priority. Too many treat their course as the be all and end all of our college careers. This is why I strongly oppose standardized testing. Students do not all learn, study, pay attention, etc. the same way, and they need to be given considerations based on their individual needs. Sometimes things like coming to class late or leaving early are unavoidable, and our teachers should make more concessions for such situations.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more--being both cognizant and aware of students' abilities to comprehend information in meaningful ways is so crucial to effective teaching. Professors seem too often to become "lost" in the content that they are communicating to students, in an attempt to cover as much (often abstract and complex) content as possible. Almost everyday in 401, you and I learn about "depth of knowledge, not breadth"--I feel that this simple mindset benefits all students, regardless of their age or intellectual abilities.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Brendan! I couldn't agree more with you all! I think it it absurd when professors are consistently contradicting themselves left and right. I believe it is important to adopt a strong philosophy for teaching, and to continue to adhere to that philosophy and challenge other educators in the field about their vision as well. Not all students learn, study, behave, and interact with the world in the same way we all know this. It is frustrating when I see others with more credentials than myself make enormous errors in the field on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteWow! This is a great post! I agree with you, and think it's crazy how what our teachers teach us about becoming teachers but don't take their own advice. Education classes are 3 hours long, and we get one break for 10 minutes. If we are going to expect our students to sit and pay attention for an extended amount of time, shouldn't we be able too? Our teachers tell us to only give students work and do things that we ourselves would want to do or grade, yet I don't like sitting in class for 90 minutes just listening to teachers lecture. I think it's a great and valid point you bring up! Thanks for bringing it to light!
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