Summary:
Svinicki & McKeachie’s (2014) chapter 21 focuses on strategies higher education instructors can adopt to help develop high quality thinking skills in students. With their 15 briefly discussed points, they show strategies that teachers could use to help learners learn how to become effective thinkers in their learning. They assert that students would become effective thinkers when they are taken through intentional well-designed pedagogy that ensure quality thinking development in learning. But before that, the authors discuss some of the reasons why (little exposure for practice, limited time provision for thinking during class meetings, limited patience to do deeper thinking on the side of students, limited direction and scaffolding from instruction to aid student develop deeper thinking skills, etc) higher education students struggle to change from teacher-centered instruction to learner-centered instruction even when some institutions adopt the learner-centered approach to teaching that foster students’ thinking. The authors briefly show the differences between the different types of thinking skills (critical, creative, problem solving, reasoning and decision making) with examples of how they could be applied. Their discussion indicate that for instructors to successfully lead their students into acquiring and developing their thinking skills, they need to acknowledge that thinking skills is developmental and as such students need strategic scaffolding and appropriate instructional support coupled with motivation, exemplars or modeling by experts.
The authors’ discussion reflect their title that thinking should be taught because teachers play a vital role in making students become deeper learners which is derived from students applying quality thinking skills into the learning. Teachers need to take many things (student intelligence, learning style, emotion as well as the motivation they get from teachers, context and content of the learning etc.) into consideration into to achieve students’ thinking success so that instruction is built around these to promote students’ thinking skills.
Loughran’s (2006) chapters 11 and 12 discuss the importance of teacher educators viewing teacher education as a learning period and that it is the time that novice teachers that use to explore and reflect on their practice. Using exemplar articles, the author illustrates why developing one’s practice after the completion of a program is vital in the teaching field in order to help us develop scholarship in the our profession. He reiterates the importance of teacher educator modeling by his assertion that teacher education need to demonstrate scholarship in their instruction. He shows why modeling, being reflective about one’s practice and examining it (practice) to make it better as one progresses in the teaching profession should be the hall mark of effective teacher education. Through his discussion, he showed how purposeful social interaction ought to be encouraged in professional learning as it provides nurturing environment for mentoring. He stresses that teacher educator should see teacher education as a starting point for their ongoing professional learning. He explains the relevance of mentoring based on trusting relationship to teacher education. His concluding chapter re-echoes the importance of practice or pedagogy as well as self-study in teacher education and why these must be modeled explicitly for PSTs. It is through these practices that the educator could improve his/her professional skills and at the same time creates an effective platform for PSTs to see the realities in the teaching profession and be equipped with the skill to combat the uncertainties. It is through these practices by both teacher educators and PSTs that we can blend or balance the two important worlds (teaching about teaching [theory] and learning about teaching [practice]) in teacher education to achieve the desired results.
Reflection:
Reading Svinicki & McKeachie’s (2014) chapter 21 opening quotation “the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled” this week reminded me of an instructor I had during my undergraduate program who will joyfully tell us about how he could fail more than half of his students because such students could not recall the fact he taught. I could still remember verbatim what he used to say (“If you can’t remember what I say, you fail this course and mind you no mercy for the cripple”). His questions are always factual and he expect students to ‘give back’ the notes we copy from his class. It also made me assess my own teaching (past to present) to see how my students may see me. Regarding the authors’ discussion of how learning styles could influence thinking development, I remember most of my present students telling me they like more visuals in class discussions during our first day meeting and it reflects in their group presentation (for the co-teaching we adopted in the course of the semester) indicating that such students belong to the concrete experience group. The authors’ discussion of the 15 strategies that adult educators could use to facilitate quality thinking development in learning were revealing. I like that the authors acknowledged that ‘teaching thinking skill…, but … more gratifying’ indicating that though it is difficult, it can be done. From my own experience in the doctoral program, I can attest that it is doable and must be encouraged because it is through this that education can produce functional literates.
I see Loughran’s (2006) chapters 11 and 12 as buttressing the importance of teacher educators modeling teaching for their PSTs to authenticate what they teach as well as making them (PSTs) see the reality in the profession that his previous chapters discuss and that of Svinicki and McKeachie (2014) discuss. As shown in his discussions, learning in teaching (through modeling, reflection and inquiry) is a lifelong practice as we can never fully remove all the uncertainty from teaching no matter how long we stay in it. As Loughran (2006) rightly puts it, “Developing scholarship entails becoming much wiser about how to anticipate and deal with the uncertainty of practice and sharing such wisdom in professionally meaningful ways with others” (p. 164). This benefits the practitioner her/himself as well as the people (students and colleagues) s/he works with. As I was reflecting Loughran’s (2006) discussion of critical conversations, I saw our CFG as an example of an environment or platform for critical conversations. His discussion of the six ways that effective mentoring influences learning about teaching reminded me of a similar discussion we had on these aspects in supervision II course regarding effective supervision.
The reading this week all showed the importance of appropriate and effective feedback provision as vital to achieving success in the teaching of thinking skills as well as thinking about practice and this links with my present inquiry. I also end this week’s reflection with Loughran’s (2006) statement, “Teacher education is a beginning for teacher’s professional learning, rather than an end unto itself” (p. 163).
Reference
Loughran, J. (2006). Developing a pedagogy of teacher education: Understanding teaching and learning about
teaching. London: Routledge.
Svinicki, M., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college
and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Svinicki & McKeachie’s (2014) chapter 21 focuses on strategies higher education instructors can adopt to help develop high quality thinking skills in students. With their 15 briefly discussed points, they show strategies that teachers could use to help learners learn how to become effective thinkers in their learning. They assert that students would become effective thinkers when they are taken through intentional well-designed pedagogy that ensure quality thinking development in learning. But before that, the authors discuss some of the reasons why (little exposure for practice, limited time provision for thinking during class meetings, limited patience to do deeper thinking on the side of students, limited direction and scaffolding from instruction to aid student develop deeper thinking skills, etc) higher education students struggle to change from teacher-centered instruction to learner-centered instruction even when some institutions adopt the learner-centered approach to teaching that foster students’ thinking. The authors briefly show the differences between the different types of thinking skills (critical, creative, problem solving, reasoning and decision making) with examples of how they could be applied. Their discussion indicate that for instructors to successfully lead their students into acquiring and developing their thinking skills, they need to acknowledge that thinking skills is developmental and as such students need strategic scaffolding and appropriate instructional support coupled with motivation, exemplars or modeling by experts.
The authors’ discussion reflect their title that thinking should be taught because teachers play a vital role in making students become deeper learners which is derived from students applying quality thinking skills into the learning. Teachers need to take many things (student intelligence, learning style, emotion as well as the motivation they get from teachers, context and content of the learning etc.) into consideration into to achieve students’ thinking success so that instruction is built around these to promote students’ thinking skills.
Loughran’s (2006) chapters 11 and 12 discuss the importance of teacher educators viewing teacher education as a learning period and that it is the time that novice teachers that use to explore and reflect on their practice. Using exemplar articles, the author illustrates why developing one’s practice after the completion of a program is vital in the teaching field in order to help us develop scholarship in the our profession. He reiterates the importance of teacher educator modeling by his assertion that teacher education need to demonstrate scholarship in their instruction. He shows why modeling, being reflective about one’s practice and examining it (practice) to make it better as one progresses in the teaching profession should be the hall mark of effective teacher education. Through his discussion, he showed how purposeful social interaction ought to be encouraged in professional learning as it provides nurturing environment for mentoring. He stresses that teacher educator should see teacher education as a starting point for their ongoing professional learning. He explains the relevance of mentoring based on trusting relationship to teacher education. His concluding chapter re-echoes the importance of practice or pedagogy as well as self-study in teacher education and why these must be modeled explicitly for PSTs. It is through these practices that the educator could improve his/her professional skills and at the same time creates an effective platform for PSTs to see the realities in the teaching profession and be equipped with the skill to combat the uncertainties. It is through these practices by both teacher educators and PSTs that we can blend or balance the two important worlds (teaching about teaching [theory] and learning about teaching [practice]) in teacher education to achieve the desired results.
Reflection:
Reading Svinicki & McKeachie’s (2014) chapter 21 opening quotation “the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled” this week reminded me of an instructor I had during my undergraduate program who will joyfully tell us about how he could fail more than half of his students because such students could not recall the fact he taught. I could still remember verbatim what he used to say (“If you can’t remember what I say, you fail this course and mind you no mercy for the cripple”). His questions are always factual and he expect students to ‘give back’ the notes we copy from his class. It also made me assess my own teaching (past to present) to see how my students may see me. Regarding the authors’ discussion of how learning styles could influence thinking development, I remember most of my present students telling me they like more visuals in class discussions during our first day meeting and it reflects in their group presentation (for the co-teaching we adopted in the course of the semester) indicating that such students belong to the concrete experience group. The authors’ discussion of the 15 strategies that adult educators could use to facilitate quality thinking development in learning were revealing. I like that the authors acknowledged that ‘teaching thinking skill…, but … more gratifying’ indicating that though it is difficult, it can be done. From my own experience in the doctoral program, I can attest that it is doable and must be encouraged because it is through this that education can produce functional literates.
I see Loughran’s (2006) chapters 11 and 12 as buttressing the importance of teacher educators modeling teaching for their PSTs to authenticate what they teach as well as making them (PSTs) see the reality in the profession that his previous chapters discuss and that of Svinicki and McKeachie (2014) discuss. As shown in his discussions, learning in teaching (through modeling, reflection and inquiry) is a lifelong practice as we can never fully remove all the uncertainty from teaching no matter how long we stay in it. As Loughran (2006) rightly puts it, “Developing scholarship entails becoming much wiser about how to anticipate and deal with the uncertainty of practice and sharing such wisdom in professionally meaningful ways with others” (p. 164). This benefits the practitioner her/himself as well as the people (students and colleagues) s/he works with. As I was reflecting Loughran’s (2006) discussion of critical conversations, I saw our CFG as an example of an environment or platform for critical conversations. His discussion of the six ways that effective mentoring influences learning about teaching reminded me of a similar discussion we had on these aspects in supervision II course regarding effective supervision.
The reading this week all showed the importance of appropriate and effective feedback provision as vital to achieving success in the teaching of thinking skills as well as thinking about practice and this links with my present inquiry. I also end this week’s reflection with Loughran’s (2006) statement, “Teacher education is a beginning for teacher’s professional learning, rather than an end unto itself” (p. 163).
Reference
Loughran, J. (2006). Developing a pedagogy of teacher education: Understanding teaching and learning about
teaching. London: Routledge.
Svinicki, M., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college
and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.