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Well, i think this is a great article. I came across your first and read it out of mere curiousity, i liked the organizing part.
The fact that most reaserchers go into teaching i assume is for the economical factor, as it is pretty difficult to make a living when you are pouring your time into improving your knowledge on a given subject so i think many people could read your article and benefit from it. And it is very different, knowing a subject and teaching it. and to who is very important also. Some people are good at learning and have a really broad knowledge on a subject. Others are really good at teaching. Some are good at both. In the end i believe we are all students and all teachers, like you said some more along the way than others.
I' ve been trying to explain Starcraft Broodwar to a relative. Suddenly i found that something of which i have a broad understanding, was extremely difficult for me to explain to this person. I found myself struggling when they asked me, what is a strategy game? Later i though about it, and realised i needed to think more about what this person knew about strategy games and video games in general. I though hard and luckily being a member of my family i had somewhat inside intel on what that person knows. I tried a different approach next time, explaining the history of Protoss and how the Xel' naga related to it. Suddenly this person started to understand much more about it and could relate to it. In the end, i might not have been able to explain a 5 factory push off two bases, but i sucseded in my objective, to bring this person closer to my world and hopefully having a better understanding of the game i love.
And i realize the reason now that i read your article, to put oneself in the other person' s shoes. And these basics seem really useful and really important to me.
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How long have you been teaching? I wonder how you are like in the classroom? Writing about teaching and actually teaching are two different things.
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United States24484 Posts
On November 28 2012 09:28 XX wrote:
How long have you been teaching? I wonder how you are like in the classroom? Writing about teaching and actually teaching are two different things.
I agree 100%. I have taught in public school for five years plus my preparatory experience. In addition I have done private tutoring and taught review classes at a local community center.
Writing about anything and being good at that thing is generally two different things. Being good at this thing doesn't necessarily mean what you write about it will be helpful, and being bad at that thing doesn't necessarily mean what you write about won't be helpful.
This is pretty much the same as teaching: being an expert on a topic doesn't mean you are a good teacher of it. Of course, if you are really bad at something then you probably shouldn't be teaching it, even if you generally are good at teaching, but people tend to exaggerate this too much when it comes to things like credentials. The problem is it's very difficult to measure how good of a teacher somebody is (almost impossible, actually).
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You never really talked about the student aspect of teaching. Like someone before me has pointed out that what you described is under extremely ideal conditions. If you are a teacher teaching in a rough area and the kids have 0 interest/respect in school, none of what you said matters. So you cannot just go on with the rhetorical approach, in reality a lot of factors come into play.
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United States24484 Posts
On November 29 2012 12:42 Franthier wrote:
You never really talked about the student aspect of teaching. Like someone before me has pointed out that what you described is under extremely ideal conditions. If you are a teacher teaching in a rough area and the kids have 0 interest/respect in school, none of what you said matters. So you cannot just go on with the rhetorical approach, in reality a lot of factors come into play.
This is about the essence of teaching, not specifically classroom teaching. Of course you are not wrong about how important it is to consider the difficulty of teaching real life classes of kids, but I wouldn't say that makes this guide "ideal conditions."
I challenge someone to write a legitimate, reasonably complete knowhow article on how to teach classes. As I said, I believe it to be virtually impossible, and there's a reason why I haven't attempted it myself.
I just want to highlight a line from the introduction to this knowhow article:
Instead of discussing classroom teaching this article addresses much more generally how to help another person understand something.
Please take me seriously when I say this.
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On November 29 2012 13:27 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2012 12:42 Franthier wrote:
You never really talked about the student aspect of teaching. Like someone before me has pointed out that what you described is under extremely ideal conditions. If you are a teacher teaching in a rough area and the kids have 0 interest/respect in school, none of what you said matters. So you cannot just go on with the rhetorical approach, in reality a lot of factors come into play. This is about the essence of teaching, not specifically classroom teaching. Of course you are not wrong about how important it is to consider the difficulty of teaching real life classes of kids, but I wouldn't say that makes this guide "ideal conditions." I challenge someone to write a legitimate, reasonably complete knowhow article on how to teach classes. As I said, I believe it to be virtually impossible, and there's a reason why I haven't attempted it myself.
I just want to highlight a line from the introduction to this knowhow article: Show nested quote +Instead of discussing classroom teaching this article addresses much more generally how to help another person understand something. Please take me seriously when I say this.
Well, everybody's approach to teaching is different. Some prefer to use humor, some prefer to use technology,etc... For someone to write a perfectly sound knowhow article on how to teach a class. I think no one can do it for the reasons I have listed above. it depends on the teacher, it depends on the students and it depends on the environment.
Your article is good but like I have mentioned that you didn't address the student aspect, if you can edit your article and write about the student aspect, like how to deal with trouble some students, students with emotional trauma, etc... Then your article is as good as any research paper on how to teach a class.
Obviously, I think you gonna need a lot more experience to complete this article. So just put it on hold and continue teaching. Come back to this in 10 years time or something.
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United States24484 Posts
On November 30 2012 11:03 Franthier wrote:
Your article is good but like I have mentioned that you didn't address the student aspect, if you can edit your article and write about the student aspect, like how to deal with trouble some students, students with emotional trauma, etc...
That is getting rather specific and I don't think I can do as good a job with that as I can with the more general areas I chose to focus on. Some other things I could talk about (besides what you already suggested) would be a good way to revisit material as review or how to motivate a topic/lesson/student. This guide is definitely not comprehensive, and it was not intended to be. I don't see how dealing with 'trouble' students is the missing link in the article, though, as you have implied. It's another very important thing to consider when teaching... mostly when classroom teaching, which again, was not a focus for this.
Obviously, I think you gonna need a lot more experience to complete this article. So just put it on hold and continue teaching. Come back to this in 10 years time or something.
I actually am on the fence about this issue in general. I think it's obvious someone who has no experience with something shouldn't be lecturing about it, but 15 years of teaching experience doesn't necessarily mean you are better at teaching, or better at teaching how to teach, than 5 years of experience.
It seems like common sense that more experience = better, but I have two counterpoints, with regard to classroom teaching (it's less of a factor for the more general word 'teaching'):
- My observation is that there is not a direct relationship between experience and quality of teaching for most teachers beyond the 3-5 year mark. Some of the best lessons or comments from students I've noticed were from teachers who were catching their stride after getting over the initial hump (historically 3-5 years). There is often teacher burnout on the other end of the spectrum. For many teachers, they get better at the administrative/preparatory aspects of teaching, but not necessarily the pure teaching aspects.
- It's hard to relate to a new teacher if you don't remember what it was like to be learning how to teach. Everything just comes naturally and it's hard to express how or why you do what you do. This makes you great to observe but not as good for trying to directly share your ability with someone else. Similar to the 'master learner' concept I mentioned in the article, it's easier to learn from someone who can be considered a learner (of the art of teaching) themself rather than a master (teacher).
But more experience definitely helps with conveying the core underlying principles of teaching and learning, which was a major part of what I did in this article. On the other hand, claiming I don't have enough experience for what I attempted to accomplish here isn't fair without criticism of the accuracy of what was presented... if I am off target anywhere please let me know. If nothing else it could help me with my own teaching during this next 10 years 
edit: I forgot to mention, I completely agree with your reasoning in why we can't write a one-size-fits-all guide to how to teach classes. In fact, we have probably only scratched the surface with why but your reasons are good ones.
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I agree your article does serve a good introduction to teaching for teachers that are just starting. This is like teaching 101, and I was just referring to more specific issues. Nevertheless, it is good.
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Nice article, I work part time at my university as a tutor and I'm gonna definitely try to keep some of these points in mind when I tutor.
I was just wondering, what would you do if you encounter a student who is trying to learn, but really can't seem to grasp the material at all? There is a student I've been seeing pretty regularly for the last year and a bit, and the sessions went well as it started, but recently as the content gets more and more complex, I can see he is struggling immensely to keep up. I've been trying as many tactics as I can to get him to understand, but am running out of ideas. It's getting to the point where it's frustrating for both me and the tutee. Do you have any suggestions?
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United States24484 Posts
On November 30 2012 13:23 Draconicfire wrote:
Nice article, I work part time at my university as a tutor and I'm gonna definitely try to keep some of these points in mind when I tutor.
I was just wondering, what would you do if you encounter a student who is trying to learn, but really can't seem to grasp the material at all? There is a student I've been seeing pretty regularly for the last year and a bit, and the sessions went well as it started, but recently as the content gets more and more complex, I can see he is struggling immensely to keep up. I've been trying as many tactics as I can to get him to understand, but am running out of ideas. It's getting to the point where it's frustrating for both me and the tutee. Do you have any suggestions?
You might want to help them plan what studying/work they do aside from your tutoring sessions (or at least find out what is already happening). Attending class + doing homework + attending tutoring will often not be enough for students who are generally finding the material very difficult... they need to put in some additional independent effort. If you help them plan how to study this particular material independently it might make the tutoring more effective.
It's hard to provide more specific help without knowing the type of course, type of content, type of student, etc.
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uh man. I just only finished high school and taking my final exams of my life, if this thread exist earlier I maybe would have better results during school days :p
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another good read. as a longtime high school tutor (8 years on and off), onetime summer teacher, and soon to be university TA, I definitely appreciate all the work you've put into trying to explain all the nuances and complexities of teaching.
i'm hoping you can provide more specific examples of how you've accomplished some of the things you discuss. in particular, the "not winging it" part about making sure you plan your visual examples and explanations--can you give an example of how you prepared a particular lesson? i often am caught by surprise by some of the questions my students ask me (which is a good thing, of course), but as a result I find myself putting together an explanation on the fly. just wondering what your prep strategy is for those explanations.
i'm also curious about how you pick up on student needs and generally how you're putting yourself in their shoes--what is your mindset, what cues are you watching for? I try my best to pay attention, but I guess I've been spoiled by one-on-one tutoring, so it's hard for me to track more than a few students' understanding of and response to the lesson at once. currently, I just ask the class, and usually there's a few vocal enough to help me figure out how certain students of certain levels are doing, but i'm certainly missing a lot of information. i'm hoping you have some tips or advice for me here, i'm going from one-on-one tutoring to a class of 30 students in about two months.
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United States24484 Posts
On November 30 2012 18:22 6xFPCs wrote:
i'm hoping you can provide more specific examples of how you've accomplished some of the things you discuss. in particular, the "not winging it" part about making sure you plan your visual examples and explanations--can you give an example of how you prepared a particular lesson?
Any time you have planned ahead of time to show students something, you want to have it saved/printed/whatever, decide exactly when you are going to show it, decide what questions you plan to ask or statements you plan to make as you show the thing (picture, animation, video, diagram, whatever), and think about how it might be confusing. I'll try to give an example at the end of the post.
i often am caught by surprise by some of the questions my students ask me (which is a good thing, of course), but as a result I find myself putting together an explanation on the fly. just wondering what your prep strategy is for those explanations.
If the question is something you didn't anticipate, then there isn't much you can to prepare except generally be more knowledgeable on the content/equipment/etc. As you gain more experience teaching this class/topic, the questions will catch you by surprise less. One thing you probably already know but should keep in mind is that it's okay to not have an answer to a question... when you are completely caught off guard, you can simply say as much and promise you will get back to them next time. For example, if they ask why apparatus A has to be on its side, you might be thinking "wow, you know, I'm actually not sure about that." You can just say "Good question; I'm not sure, but I will find out." There's no need to spend 10 minutes trying to think about it and explain it right then and there if it's going to be a problem. Next class after you've looked into it you can start by saying "Last time <student x> had a good question about why we need apparatus A to be on its side. What forces is the sample exposed to with the way we had the equipment set up last class?" From there, you can use whatever your normal teaching methods are to have the student help you answer the question instead of just answering it for them. If the question really isn't relevant to what students are learning though, then feel free to skip over this process and just give a brief answer (as a time saver).
i'm also curious about how you pick up on student needs and generally how you're putting yourself in their shoes--what is your mindset, what cues are you watching for? I try my best to pay attention, but I guess I've been spoiled by one-on-one tutoring, so it's hard for me to track more than a few students' understanding of and response to the lesson at once. currently, I just ask the class, and usually there's a few vocal enough to help me figure out how certain students of certain levels are doing, but i'm certainly missing a lot of information. i'm hoping you have some tips or advice for me here, i'm going from one-on-one tutoring to a class of 30 students in about two months. A few things I do, before I have started to teach the class, that help:
- I inspect the planned content/activities (often before the course has even begun) to see exactly what students will need to learn, and what information/observations they will have access to in order to learn this material. From this I can tell what prior knowledge generally is necessary to succeed, and what I will probably need to supplement (or at least check) even though it's not technically in my job description for this class.
- I plan how I am going to assess prior knowledge, again, before class has ever started. I look into what classes the students have already taken, if possible, or other information about them that is available. For example, if I am going to be teaching physics 2, I look at the curriculum physics 1 and find out about how physics 1 went last semester, who taught it, etc. From this I might even be able to find out where the students are strong/weak, or that the previous teacher completely skipped topic X due to time constraints and had neglected to tell me this.
- I mistake I see instructors make a lot is to decide to ask a question to check for understanding, see that the class is clearly confused since nobody is willing to try to answer, and everyone has a face like you are speaking another language, then (s)he panics and tries to explain the current topic over and over and it sorta spirals out of control. In this type of situation you have a couple of choices. If the students are relatively mature (especially college) you can just poll the class for things like "how confusing is this part compared to what we've done before" and "which is the last thing we did that made a good deal of sense so far" and just find out what the source of the confusion is (it might take a good deal of effort to illicit out of students why they are confused, but it is worth it). Another option is to mention that you will revisit the current topic, move on, and carefully plan outside of class how to address the problem you faced today (it's much easier to think about what went 'wrong' when you aren't standing at the front of a class). Obviously you can't always get away with this if the next thing to teach follows strongly on the part the students are still confused about.
Dealing with a larger class (of 30) of course poses challenges that you don't get used to tutoring 1 on 1. It's harder to keep track of each student's progress and needs, so you need to rely more on data. What I mean is, you need to give tasks for students to attempt that you can review outside of class. Only an expert teacher (and even then not necessarily) can tell at the end of a lesson how each student was doing, but if the end of the lesson featured a short assignment that was carefully designed to check for understanding (not an easy task either), you can grade it and use the grades as a brief indicator of which students are comfortable with the lesson.
As promised, let me try to explain how I would prepare a visual/demo when teaching an actual lesson. Suppose I was teaching a mechanics (physics) class and we had covered one dimensional motion, and inclined planes already. I then find out I will have access to the following apparatus next class:
![[image loading]](http://www.physics.umd.edu/lecdem/services/demos/demosc2/c2-11.gif)
This is a great tool for thinking about how forces in different directions affect motion, and how velocity and acceleration differ. It can also be a great motivational tool in that it makes the activity into a 'game/competition.' Some classes/students will appreciate this more than others. You might want to read the description on this page if you aren't familiar with this device: http://www.physics.umd.edu/lecdem/services/demos/demosc2/c2-11.htm
In the situation I described, some instructors would say "Oh good, I'll do that at the beginning of the class now that students have learned about inclined planes. Let me start planning the next topic." This means that they have failed to plan how they are going to use the visual/device. In contrast, I would address the following:
- Would the device be visible as students come in, or would I whip the device out at some point after?
- What would I say/do to introduce it and explain what exactly it is that I'm asking students to do?
- How do I want students to provide their predictions for which marble will reach the end of the track first, as well as their explanation for why?
- After I run the device, how do I ensure students understand the result? How does this help them think more scientifically the next time they are posed with a scenario with more than one possible outcome?
- How do I even explain the result? I need to prepare this as I prepare to teach any other theoretical topic.
For the activity I've laid out, here's how I might do the lesson:
- The device would be prominently displayed on the desk as students enter the room. The marbles would be secretly in my pocket so students don't start playing with it (you'd be surprised how even adults will do this lol)
- When students asked me about it I would ask them what they thought. They would guess what the point of it is. If they are getting warm I will admit they are right and subtly congratulate them.
- Once class is started I would ask a student (probably one who already showed they knew the answer) what the purpose of the track is. I would confirm this, add anything that may have been left out or worded confusingly by the student, and then ask students to start thinking about which marble will reach the end first.
- Depending on the class, I might ask them to write a couple of sentences explaining why one marble will reach the end first, or why both will reach at the same time. Time permitting I might let students discuss their result with another student.
- When I'm satisfied, or have to move on, I run the experiment, and give students a moment to process what the heck actually happened.
- I would ask students to explain, based on what they observed, why we had the result we did. Most likely by now I kinda have to 'move on,' so a point will be reached where I will supplement their explanations with my own, however this isn't necessarily required if I have enough time to dedicate to the activity. Most likely my explanation would involve drawing a free body diagram (force diagram) for the ball on the lower track, so I should try drawing it before I teach the lesson to make sure I know how I want it to look.
I think I hit upon a lot of important points there, but of course no lesson goes exactly the way you plan. One class will seem to understand why the lower track is quicker, while another class might not believe you even after you show it to them! In cases like these involving cool/fun demos you need to be flexible as much as possible.
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As a veteran math teacher that's taught in high school and college, and a teacher mentor that's mentored beginning teachers, I'd like to say your article was so good.
I'm glad you make a point to give general best practices in your original post. Especially in teaching, it is so easy to be distracted from the core fundamentals and start going into detailed "what if..."'s that distract. What you've said lines up with the best practices I've been trained in and see working in my classes.
And, I think you are so correct that most of it is common sense. This is precisely why so many don't improve as teachers. They "know" the common sense things to do, but they don't do them.
Anyways, your article served as a good reminder for me to stop and think about how I've been teaching  Thank you!
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Wow, just wow. Very nice article, I've been teaching martial arts for 10+ years now and it's the most rewarding and difficult thing i can imagine.
Personally your second point of 'put yourself in their shoes' is the biggest point for me. Clarity is definitely important, but I teach a variety from 5 to 75 years old. People far smartest then I could ever hope to be and special needs students. Everything from ADHD to autism.
All of your points are very useful, and hard to remember/implement all at once even thought they are common sense. I find that I can always use some improvement and this article has reminded me that it is up to the teacher to get through to the students.
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My experiences that involve doing a good job teaching basically come down to explaining everything without missing ANY logic steps along the way. I think most of the time a work or logic step is not clear and leads to a huge amount of confusion. This means that the teacher needs to be well versed in every argument or logic step in the whole process. Generally when I am explaining something i try my hardest to keep this in mind: The listener is completely ignorant of any process you are talking about so be sure to start from the very beginning and dont skip anything.
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good article, i make a lot of homework help myself and for me it is always very important, that my "students" learn the results by themselves, i really like the Concept of the Master learner, i think i will try it out next time when i do homework help.
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Great post. I feel you covered the basics in a great way.
The only thing i would add is the method of going from very simple real life applications to apstract models. Motivation is a big factor in learning and teaching in public schools can be difficult. If a child gets the feeling that it is unable to understand the matter it is very hard to get them back on track and no matter how good your presentations and animations are, the child will not follow.
In combination with clarity and helping kids not feel bad about answering wrong, i feel it is the key to successful learning.
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This is an amazing guide. I particularly like the emphasis on trying to understand the position of the learner because I think that's the right mindset to actually figure out what you need to do when teaching and it emphasizes advance planning, which is great.
I do have one quibble. I've personally never had difficulty remembering something after a teacher wrote it down on a chalkboard and I put it in my notes. So if a teacher ever did something like try to get me to figure out the dates of World War II as in your example (assuming I don't have access to wikipedia at that moment) I would be extremely annoyed. I think it would be different if you were trying to explain the annexation of Czechoslovakia followed by the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War and trying to get the students to understand the flow of events. But I think teachers should differentiate between the important and the banal. History teachers wasting everyone's time figuring out dates they could have written down in 3 seconds (or better yet, on a timeline printed out before class and available to each student) is an example of poor teaching imo.
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Loving these knowhow guides
If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I think a lot of us would be extremely interested additionally in a guide on how to learn more effectively as well hehe. Strategies to better understanding/long-term comprehension based on your experience that kind of stuff. Thanks for doing these <3
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EPT
