Week 6: Foundations of Instructional Design
This week's readings were especially fun because they started to move from the theoretical into the practical, and specifically, with the Rosenshine (2012), they started to move into the classroom. And I could talk about pedagogy all day long.
The two articles worked especially well for the questions I started asking myself about my own institution. Wiggins and McTighe's explanation (2011) of the Understanding By Design framework explains that UBD stresses the idea of designing for the transfer of learning. I find this particularly relevant because I work in higher education, and the teaching here--even the freshman and sophomore level courses offered at my two-year community college--is so different from the teaching in the secondary education classroom.
Instructors at my college expect that students come in knowing how to be self-directed learners (I literally just had a conversation with a psychology instructor who told me about a student complaining they're just "teaching themselves"); but our students don't really know how to do this. Instructors, then, need to teach both their content as well as the meta-cognitive skills the students will need to be successful in the course and in college.
I think that this is easier in disciplines that are "skills-based" like many of the disciplines given as examples in Rosenshine's article. In a math, reading, or writing class, breaking the material up into smaller pieces and providing exemplars, modeling, and scaffolding is a natural way to teach. I teach writing and that's exactly how I do it. But how does a teacher do this in a "content" class like history or anthropology? How can I explain this concept to my philosophy instructors who need to fill a large chunk of each week's meeting time with lecture? Is it enough to promote the breaking up of lecture/material with more discussion? And if this happens, will the instructors have enough time to cover all of their material?
The questions I started to ask when reading Rosenshine's article brought me to another question: is pedagogy in a high school classroom fundamentally different from pedagogy in a college classroom? And if it is, should it be?
Last night I observed one of our speech instructors, and this morning I observed one of our painting instructors in a studio class. What both of these teachers did well--something that Rosenshine and the research he describes would be happy with (if research could be happy...)--was to ask questions. The speech instructor not only repeated key concepts frequently, he also provided multiple examples and asked students to identify what, why, and how. He reviewed at the top of class and gave a few call-backs during his lecture to the material the students had learned in earlier weeks this semester.
The art teacher, as well, asked her students many questions, though in a one-on-one approach as they painted. She asked them about their intentions with their projects, their compositions. She offered guidance and clarity, and sat down to illustrate techniques.
But I know that the methods of these two teachers, at least at my institution, may not be common. Many times I leave an observation and the teacher has only asked some variation on the question, "What questions do you have?" instead of asking specific questions that require students recall, think, and summarize the information that has (hopefully) been learned. So now I wonder if getting faculty members to ask better questions will solve a big part of the problem.
But I don't know if that's enough, and I still feel the tension between the high school and the college classroom. Why are the two so different? Is it only the level of work, the level of thinking? Is it only the rigor? Or is it something else?
The two articles worked especially well for the questions I started asking myself about my own institution. Wiggins and McTighe's explanation (2011) of the Understanding By Design framework explains that UBD stresses the idea of designing for the transfer of learning. I find this particularly relevant because I work in higher education, and the teaching here--even the freshman and sophomore level courses offered at my two-year community college--is so different from the teaching in the secondary education classroom.
Instructors at my college expect that students come in knowing how to be self-directed learners (I literally just had a conversation with a psychology instructor who told me about a student complaining they're just "teaching themselves"); but our students don't really know how to do this. Instructors, then, need to teach both their content as well as the meta-cognitive skills the students will need to be successful in the course and in college.
I think that this is easier in disciplines that are "skills-based" like many of the disciplines given as examples in Rosenshine's article. In a math, reading, or writing class, breaking the material up into smaller pieces and providing exemplars, modeling, and scaffolding is a natural way to teach. I teach writing and that's exactly how I do it. But how does a teacher do this in a "content" class like history or anthropology? How can I explain this concept to my philosophy instructors who need to fill a large chunk of each week's meeting time with lecture? Is it enough to promote the breaking up of lecture/material with more discussion? And if this happens, will the instructors have enough time to cover all of their material?
The questions I started to ask when reading Rosenshine's article brought me to another question: is pedagogy in a high school classroom fundamentally different from pedagogy in a college classroom? And if it is, should it be?
Last night I observed one of our speech instructors, and this morning I observed one of our painting instructors in a studio class. What both of these teachers did well--something that Rosenshine and the research he describes would be happy with (if research could be happy...)--was to ask questions. The speech instructor not only repeated key concepts frequently, he also provided multiple examples and asked students to identify what, why, and how. He reviewed at the top of class and gave a few call-backs during his lecture to the material the students had learned in earlier weeks this semester.
The art teacher, as well, asked her students many questions, though in a one-on-one approach as they painted. She asked them about their intentions with their projects, their compositions. She offered guidance and clarity, and sat down to illustrate techniques.
But I know that the methods of these two teachers, at least at my institution, may not be common. Many times I leave an observation and the teacher has only asked some variation on the question, "What questions do you have?" instead of asking specific questions that require students recall, think, and summarize the information that has (hopefully) been learned. So now I wonder if getting faculty members to ask better questions will solve a big part of the problem.
But I don't know if that's enough, and I still feel the tension between the high school and the college classroom. Why are the two so different? Is it only the level of work, the level of thinking? Is it only the rigor? Or is it something else?
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ReplyDeleteI find the commentary you made about the expectations of the students at your institution to be self directed very relatable. My experiences as a learner in high school and then in college were vastly different. In my first year as an undergrad I found it difficult to navigate the collegiate environment and I felt very displaced because of my lack of preparedness for self direction. In reading the two articles for week 6, I found myself having similar inquiries as you. I did just OK my first year and wonder if I would have had more success with a better learning structure (especially during lectures where information is overbearing and leaves no room for retention).
I can imagine that perhaps in the lecture hall environment the Instructor might not have the time, as you mentioned, or the capacity to dynamically engage the amount of students in once class sitting. I did find myself then and now having more success in smaller class sizes. I think this is due to having the experiences that are suggested in “The Principles of Instruction” (student guided practice, classroom dialogue amongst peers, information management etc).
Thanks for sharing. I think your own experiences and opinions are very interesting. Although I don't know much about American education, I'm interested in the questions you ask because I also have such questions. First of all, I personally think that the teaching methods of high school and university are different. In China, high school students are under great pressure because they are qualified to enter a good university. But when they were in college, they were very relaxed. I think this is different from the United States. Because when I was in class with American undergraduates, I found that they always participate in the class actively and they do many assignments during the semester. This is more like Chinese high school students. Besides, I also agree that the teacher should ask specific questions. Because if the teacher just asks the students "What problems do you have?", it is too "student-centered". For the students who are not good at asking questions, this won't be helpful for their study.
ReplyDeleteThank your for your post. I am interested in your question that why pedagogy in a high school classroom is different from that in a college classroom. From my understanding, first, it depends on students' cognitive and knowledgable level and their ability of thinking. Second, it is because that educational purposes are different in different stages. The specific instruction should be decided basing on students' learning capacity and the purpose of education. High school students are at the stage of absorbing knowledge and develop their way of thinking under the guidance of teachers. Their ability of independent learning and thinking is developing on the basis of learning knowledges during this period. Thus, pedagogy in high school focuses on the content. However, as for the college students, they have some knowledge base to support them to think independently and critically, then the main task of education in college might be helping students equip capacity of lifelong learning. Then the pedagogy in college should be skill-based.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your posting and the questions the differences between the high school and the college classroom I think different countries may have different points. I have attended some undergraduate classes and I found that the students in America have many paper to read and have many homework to do and have many reading response to write. I think the goal in high school is to develop their own ideas and for college they should read broadly to study how to do a research. However, in China, we have many homework to do and we have college entrance exams. For me the aim of high school is to learn and pass the college entrance exams.And for college, we only select one or two textbooks to read and our teachers teach these books every class. The aim of the college is to let the students be more professional in their own major.
ReplyDeleteI feels interesting when you talk about how to question. A good question will allow students five into the topic. Students will have a perspective or direction of the topic. General question way sometimes will lead to classroom silence.
ReplyDeleteSelf-learning skills you mentioned are, I think very important for modern learn when thay are living the information Big Bang age. They are supposed to explore what they want and need by themselves.