Svinicki, M. & McKeachie, W.J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmost, CA: Wadsworth.
In the book McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers, the authors write a chapter about vitality and growth throughout your teaching career (Ch. 23). This is an easy to read and digest look at how to maintain professional momentum and continue to thrive professionally. Topics include developing effective skill and strategies through reading, discussion, and observing. Getting feedback from peers is considered most effective when it happens between those who are not direct stakeholders in hiring or pay scale decisions. Instead, having retired teachers or like-minded peers share information is beneficial. Further, Dr. Joseph Clark’s method of small group study, labeled SGID (small group instructional diagnosis) combines feedback with observation in a structured way in order to foster professional development. Feedback from students is also considered an effective way to improve one’s teaching skills, with the authors providing specific prompts and strategies. The authors share their exuberance for education, and encourage others. This chapter is a practical read, with concrete tips and strategies that any educator can use. Although it was brief, I was able to make several connections. I too agree that continued development as a teacher is just as important as development in our students. I like that the authors expose their own weaknesses at the start, talking about how the length of their teaching career has the downside of lacking connection to current trends and practices. Yet their joy in the profession is evident, and encouraging. “It is clear that teaching offers great potential for continued vitality, growth, and satisfaction.” (pg.332) I couldn’t agree more! I was also able to connect to the idea that the best teachers have a connection with their students not just in the classroom, but also outside. For example, when a student in my Tuesday night class complained that she wished someone had specifically shown her how to set up her blog tabs when she was starting out in our program, I was able to elicit her help in teaching my junior level seminar the following week. We worked together and she designed a short 15 minute presentation showing how to set up and tag blogs. The seminar was a success, and this student and I now have a new connection, having taught and planned together to solve her problem (or at least help others avoid the same problem), outside of class. The student expressed her happiness at being able to do this, and actually gave me a hug. It made my day. Dinkleman, T. (2003). Self-study in teacher education: A means and ends tool for promoting reflective teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 6-18. Similarly, the 2003 Dinkleman article, Self-study in teacher education: A means and ends tool for promoting reflective teaching, stresses that teachers should constantly working to develop professionally. In this case, self-study and reflection are expounded upon. I was able to personally connect with one of the main ideas, in which educators should model for students their own continued reflective practice. I do this with my pre-service teachers. While they are working on their own inquiry studies, I share what I’m doing in the same vein. The comments I received when they saw me at the MOSI inquiry conference alongside them this past April were all encouraging. My hope is that I conveyed the value of the inquiry process through my example. “Self-study by teacher educators, a form of deliberate and systematic reflection that is oftentimes visible to students, promotes reflective teaching by the very example it sets” (p. 11).
1 Comment
9/10/2015 06:47:59 pm
I just smiled as I read your connections to your teaching. What a great way to empower students! I just loved your idea of having the student co-teach a seminar with you. What kind of learning theory were you employing here?
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