Teaching and Learning:
Taking It Personally Matters
Taking It Personally Matters
Amy D. Lawler
Texas Tech University
Abstract
One’s teaching style is as individual as the students they teach. How does an instructor know learning has actually occurred? What’s the best method for teaching material to students? Is there a best approach to designing environments that promote maximum learning outcomes? When considering my personal approach to teaching and my philosophy on learning, these questions and several more come to mind. The purpose of this paper is to articulate my learning philosophy, defining what I think it means to learn; define my personal statement of teaching; and explain how I think we, as instructors, can teach effectively and design environments for learning that promote the best outcomes for our students’ ability to learn. In a world where we are constantly reminded, “Don’t take it personally. It’s not personal, it’s business,” we must intentionally give ourselves permission to implement and personalize different practices and philosophies to meet the learning needs of our students because for our students, it is personal.
Teaching and Learning: Taking it Personally Matters
Learning Philosophy
“If you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t understand it well enough,” is a popular, misattributed quote of Albert Einstein derived from when Einstein spoke about the explanation of physical theories. The actual quote said that all physical theories, their mathematical expressions apart, ought to lend themselves to “so simple a description that even a child could understand them.” ("Albert Einstein - Wikiquote," n.d.) Ertmer and Newby state that learning consists of an ongoing change in behavior or the capacity to behave in a given fashion. (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 45) However, I believe learning has an additional component that is critically important for transfer and long-term memory of the concept. That component is what Einstein implied in his response on the explanation of physical theories. Constructivism states the learner is able to identify the context for which the information is valid and then apply that information in the appropriate setting, (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 58) but I believe authentic mastery occurs when the learner is able to articulate a simplified explanation of the concept so that “a child could understand.” In doing this, problem-based learning (PBL) is practiced and supported through cognitive scaffolds such as questioning, modeling, and argumentation which greatly facilitates long-term transfer (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012, pp. 69-70) Constructivism claims that a learner interprets reality based on his or her apperceptions. (Jonassen, 1991, p. 10) The principle of constructivism is further modeled with the use of these scaffolds, helping the learner build their own contextual meaning of the concept in which they are explaining.
Personal Statement of Teaching
“Love is the essence of teaching” (S. Sitton, personal communication, 1999-2001) is a statement one of my undergraduate instructors always used when describing her teaching philosophy. My personal teaching style models this through acceptance, safety and specificity. Providing these three things to my students at the onset of instruction creates an environment that fosters the best possibility for my students to create conceptual meanings for themselves. So, my personal statement is, “Love is the essence of teaching and meaning is the essence of learning.” My classroom is one where high standards are the “standard” and respect is expected from all parties, even me. My first year students attended a Title I school with 98% of the student population on free or reduced lunches. Many of my students were victims of learned helplessness, coming from dysfunctional homes in which they had little to no control over how to improve the situations that occurred in those homes. (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012, pp. 88) One of my challenges as their teacher was to provide them with as many tools and as much inspiration as I could in the eight hours I had with them each day in hopes they would find a way to better their potential outcomes. I keep contact with some of these students today. One is in nursing school and several work in the community. While my teaching style wasn’t the only factor in the futures these students are now experiencing, I do believe the expectations I set in my classroom for these students has impacted their lives in a positive manner, at least for the time they were in my class.
Effectively Teaching and Designing Environments for Learning
Effective teaching requires teachers to be informed about instructional theories, student motivation and volition, students’ academic levels, learning objectives, and boundaries in their institutions regarding designing teaching environments. As stated in our text, the field of instructional design fills the role of linking application of researched instructional design theories to appropriate instructional design strategies. (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 43-44) This bridge assists in building learning environments that help teachers be effective in the classroom. Environmental design can assist in ensuring cognitive load is appropriately balanced by stair-stepping students through concept difficulty. Jonassen states that learners have three levels of knowledge: introductory, advanced, and expert. He also states that constructivism is best used in the advanced level while behaviorism is best used in the introductory level. (Ertmer & Newby, 2013, p. 57) When environments are designed effectively, student motivation can be maintained and volition reduced by avoiding the ego-depletion effect. Volition can only be practiced for a limited amount of time, so minimizing distractions, even instructional distractions, can keep students motivated towards learning the content. (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012, pp. 86) If teachers use appropriate instructional strategies that have been researched to work most effectively in specific instructional levels, cognitive load is reduced which helps maintain manageable volition, thus increasing the probability that the student will be maximally engaged to process the instruction he or she receives. To conclude, designing appropriate environments for learning requires the designer to have knowledge of the theories and principles that have been researched, know when and how to apply the appropriate strategies from those theories and principles, and follow-up to evaluate the effectiveness of those designs so that modifications can be made to improve learner outcomes.
References
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features From an Instructional Design Perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71. doi:10.1002/piq.21143
Jonassen, D. H. (1991). Objectivism versus constructivism: Do we need a new philosophical paradigm? ETR&D, 39(3), 5-14. doi:10.1007/bf02296434
Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2012). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
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