By Hannah Anderson,
Life-long learner and professional educator for nine years
Passions & Teaching Essentials
When it comes to passion, not a single person on the planet can say they are passionate about the exact same concepts in the very same ways. How neat is that?! Just as everyone on the planet is a unique learner, every individual also has goals and dreams that make them completely unlike any other living being.
So the real question is... As an educator, what am I most passionate about? What ideas do I believe to be essential and most crucial for learning environments and overall knowledge integration? So to get started, I’ll share with you my list of must-haves and non-negotiables when it comes to education:
Within My Classroom… Every Teacher Must:
Engage in lifelong learning, both personally and professionally (Garzón Artacho et al., 2020)
Seek inquiry and invite “difficult” questions (Reznitskaya, 2012)
Show and encourage a growth mindset (Zeeb et al., 2020)
The Learning Environment Should:
Foster a sense of community (Gallavan & Davis, 1999)
Proliferate questions and open dialogue (Segedy et al., 2012)
Be a safe learning place for everyone (Smith, 2011)
Students Will:
Respect one another and themselves (Osiname, 2014)
Ask questions, try their best, and never give up (Kern et al., 2015)
Feel supported and cared for on an individual level (Lee & Jang, 2019)
Emerging Issues
When analyzing the state of our world and the education systems we have created throughout the last few hundreds of years (Cantor & Gomperts, 2020), there are many key points that must continue to be improved upon. Two of those major elements include the WAY in which we teach and the SYSTEM in which students are learning. These have not changed since the industrial revolution and so there should be a re-evaluation of these basic foundational properties.
The current way school systems teach looks like a square room with concrete walls and twenty-five to thirty-five desks all lined up in rows facing one instructor at the front of the classroom. This layout and learning environment has been found to not follow best practice teaching techniques any longer since it does not foster inclusion, encourage discussion and inquiry, and also cannot allow for differentiated learning approaches (Malacapay, 2019).
The traditional learning system should also seek a strong overhaul. Stereotypically, you’ll see students in the movies listening quietly to the teacher and recording notes onto paper as they sit in their metal chairs, playing the role of a “good student.” This way of learning has also become outdated and must shift to more of a student-centered approach to meet the needs of all unique learners.
Image source: (Romero et al., 2019, p. 180)
Empowering an Educational Shift
Fixing some of these issues will not be easy, but taking the first step can be simple. Thankfully, the right direction isn’t too far away! The first problem I mentioned was the way in which we teach. This can start to be solved through the use of blended learning which incorporates technology tools, assists with differentiation, and also creates authentic learning tasks while strengthening student authenticity and autonomy (Angelone et al., 2020). The second problem mentioned was about the systems in which students learn. One simple way to improve learning would be to change and adapt to best practice seating arrangements such as a flexible learning space (Stapp, 2018). Another way to positively shift learning would be to try new styles for students to receive information, such as flipped learning (Winter, 2017). The more ways you try to teach and adapt learning to meet the needs of your unique learners, the better the outcomes will be and more successful their learning will be!
Image source: (Raghava, 2019)
My Personal Impact
Throughout my past and present education jobs both in the United States and abroad, I have encountered countless amazing teachers all making significant positive changes within their students and within their learning environments. I have gathered strength from them, modeled their practices, received both positive and constructive feedback, held pedagogical debates, discussed best practices, laughed and cried together, reflected upon growth moments of teaching, and so much more. These model educators have helped make me the teacher I am today!
In addition to me learning from these teachers, I also know that I have been making positive impacts on my learners and have strengthened their learning as well! Some ways I have connected with learners by going above and beyond typical classroom duties include: directing several middle school plays, creating new volunteer and service groups, staying after school to assist with tutoring, coordinating school field trips, leading after school activities such at global art club and website making, curriculum design, and more. I am proud to reflect back between my first year teaching to today and notice how I’ve grown by recalling each small success from the journey.
I am aware that my learning hasn’t yet finished, I remain an open book to see what the world will seek to teach me next. I certainly enjoy learning alongside my students and letting the future come as it may into the present. With a growth mindset attitude and a skip in my step, I continue to look forward to my next new adventures in the field of education and beyond.
References
Angelone, L., Warner, Z., & Zydney, J. M. (2020). Optimizing the technological design of a
blended synchronous learning environment. Online Learning Journal, 24(3).
https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i3.2180
Cantor, P., & Gomperts, N. (2020). What learning and developmental science says about
optimal learning environments. National Association of State Boards of Education,
20(2), 12–16, 48. ERIC.
Gallavan, N. P., & Davis, J. E. (1999). Building community with young adolescents: practical
economics for the middle school classroom. The Clearing House: A Journal of
Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 72(6), 341–344.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00098659909599422
Garzón Artacho, E., Martínez, T. S., Ortega Martín, J. L., Marín Marín, J. A., & Gómez García, G. (2020). Teacher training in lifelong learning—the importance of digital
competence in the encouragement of teaching innovation. Sustainability, 12(7), 2852.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072852
Malacapay, M. C. (2019). Differentiated instruction in relation to pupils’ learning style.
International Journal of Instruction, 12(4), 625–638.
https://doi.org/10.29333/iji.2019.12440a
Kern, M. L., Benson, L., Larson, E., Forrest, C. B., Bevans, K. B., & Steinberg, L. (2015). The
anatomy of developmental predictors of healthy lives study (TADPOHLS). Applied
Developmental Science, 20(2), 135–145.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2015.1095642
Lee, C.-S., & Jang, H.-Y. (2019). A Double Mediation of stress and growth mindset between
school violence victimization and happiness of adolescents. Medico-Legal Update,
19(2), 520. https://doi.org/10.5958/0974-1283.2019.00229.9
Osiname, A. (2014). Transformative leadership framework: designing a peer mentoring
program for middle school students. BU Journal of Graduate Studies in Education, 6(1),
52–56. ERIC.
Raghava, K. (2019, June 13). Flipped Classroom Approach. Designing Instructions for
ELearning. https://designinginstructionwithk.com/2019/06/13/flipped-classroom-
approach/
Reznitskaya, A. (2012). Dialogic teaching: rethinking language use during literature
discussions. The Reading Teacher, 65(7), 446–456. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.01066
Romero, M. del C., Buzón-García, O., & Touron, J. (2019). The flipped learning model in
online based education for secondary teachers. Journal of Technology and Science
Education, 9(2), 176-208. https://doi.org/10.3926/jotse.435
Segedy, J. R., Kinnebrew, J. S., & Biswas, G. (2012). The effect of contextualized
conversational feedback in a complex open-ended learning environment. Educational
Technology Research and Development, 61(1), 71–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-
012-9275-0
Smith, S. M. (2011). Creating safe learning environments for at-risk students in urban
schools. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas,
84(4), 123–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098655.2011.564970
Stapp, A. (2018). Alternative seating and students’ perceptions: implications for the learning
environment. Georgia Educational Researcher, 14(2).
https://doi.org/10.20429/ger.2018.140204
Zeeb, H., Ostertag, J., & Renkl, A. (2020). Towards a growth mindset culture in the
classroom: implementation of a lesson-integrated mindset training. Education Research
International, 2020, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8067619
Comments