Introduction
The
underlying principles of current practices of student teachers are probably of
extremely ancient lineage. Bruner (1966) discusses the way in which Bushmen
pass on adult skills to their children. There is very little explicit teaching,
what the child knows to those typifying our current approaches to student
teaching, Nellie is the factor worker who has long been doing the job for years
to whom new recruits are attached while they learn the job. Sitting with Nellie
has long been recognized by industry as an ext.
We
believe that preoccupation with the need for this type of school experience
reflects an attitude to the job of the teacher, which is grossly at variance
with some of highfalutin language sometimes used about the profession. We
profess to value the freedom of the teacher to develop his individual style, to
be creative, to enthuse his pupils and, often less explicitly, to teach them
some pretty complicated concepts. And yet we treat our aspirant paragons as if
they were sitting at to tighten a nut. Plaskow (1969) was justified when he
said that it is extravagant and kinkily to think that by putting students in
schools for days and weeks they will somehow be trained to be teachers.
When
the student does get to school bearing in mind that he is a guest and
eventually stands in front of a class he is likely to model his behavior on his
memories of the teachers he had when he was a pupil, his college teaching and
the example of the teachers he has observed. The teachers who taught him, and
the teachers he is now observing, all in their time went through the same
system so that all the pressures on the students are in the direction of
conforming to the unadventurous stereotype.
The Concept of Teaching Practice
Until quite recently the term all
concerned with the preparation of teachers has accepted “teaching practice”
almost universally and uncritically and its use has embraced all the learning
experiences of student teachers in schools. The concept has been handed down
from the earliest days of the development of training colleges in this country;
it seemed such as ‘commonsense’ concept, completely accepted by the teachers,
the college tutors and the students. Yet from the very earliest years of the
training colleges there was tension between schools and colleges and this
tension has centered on teaching practice. Students while frequently preferring
teaching practice to other elements of the college course have yet been
critical of their experiences in the participants. But the concepts itself was
rarely questioned. We now wish to question this concept since it appears to be
both anachronistic and ambiguous.
The Historical Concept
Historically the concept was based on
craft apprenticeship. The pupil–teacher movement had at its core the initiation
of the apprentice into the mysteries of the craft by processes of telling,
demonstrating and initiating. The master teacher told the students what to do
showed them how to do it and the students initiated the master. This process
depended for its success on certain prior conditions: the existence of an
established body of subject matter, rules of thumb to be transmitted and the
acceptance of the authority of the master by student.
These
conditions continued to hold good during the first decades of the present
century. After the Second World War, however, the bases for their continued
existence have been steadily undermined. The accepted bobby of knowledge
appropriate for schools has been increasingly called into question by
curriculum innovators led by Nuffield and schools council workers the
traditional teaching skills and techniques have been challenged as being inadequate
for the curricula the exercise of critical faculties, which college staff were
urging as one of the goals of education has been taken to heart by the students
and their willingness to submit to a master teacher’s authority and to follow
his techniques has been weakened. At the same time, partly as a result of the
impact of the newly developing study of philosophy of education, the concept of
education has been widely discussed. The recognition that the term education
and training denoted differences in aims, content and procedure led to the
change in title from training colleges to colleges of education. But changing
the name of the colleges did not transmute teaching practice into a more
rigorous theory based activity.
I. CONNOTATION
The term teaching practice has three
major connotations: the practicing of teaching skills and acquisition of the
role of a teacher, the whole range of experiences that students go through in
school; and the practical aspects of the course as distinct from theoretical studies.
We presumably have in mind the first when we talk about a student teaching
practice mark; the second when we.
II. CURRENT APPROACHES TO TEACHING PRACTICE MODEL THE MASTER
TEACHER
Master teacher approach: The master teacher is the mast craftman and
teaching practice is viewed as a process of initiation in which the master
teachers teaching skills, performance, personality and attitudes are acquired
by the student through observation, imitation and practice. The arguments
advanced in support of this approach stress its effectiveness, simplicity and
commonsense. ‘If you want to become an effective teacher, do what the effective
teacher does; Peters who in general seems to support this approach for it on
more sophisticated grounds (Peters 1968). On the basis of an examination of the
nature of teaching he concludes that teaching is a highly personal business.
The teacher cannot be expected to adopt and put into operation the findings of
research couched in general terms as teaching principles since principles are
impersonal. The teacher should model himself on a more skilled exemplar
adapting what he sees to his personal use. The arguments against this approach
are both theoretical. A master teacher, however versatile, can offer a student
only a limited set of skills, artiness and personality traits teacher looks,
like sonally, have an ever greater problem, we don’t know what a master teacher
look like. We have some idea what he shouldn’t look like but that is a
different matter. This problem relates to the question of the identification of
teacher effectiveness, which we discuss later. Here we merely wish to say that
there are no universally accepted criteria to help us identify master teacher.
There
is one further problem in the master teacher approach; there is a practical
difficulty of finding sufficient master teachers in the right places to go
round. Pedley (1969) calculates that statistically this is feasible, but
clearly it will be quite impossible at certain times and in certain areas. An
approach to teacher practice that is dependent for success on the chance
distribution of master teachers must have serious disadvantages on practical
grounds alone.
In
sum, the model the master teacher approach, which seems to be the approach most
widely favoured by teachers, results in a tendency to conservatism and
traditionalism and operates against experimental innovation. Ultimately it
stands for imitation rather than analysis and it puts obstacles in the way of
understanding the processes of teaching.
‘Everyone
knows that the teacher not only influences student (pupil) behavior but that he
is also influenced by the student behavior. The teacher is constantly observing
the student and modifying his own behavior in terms of his observations. We may
therefore say that instructional behavior consist of a chain of three
links–observing, diagnosing, acting.’ Strasser identifies four aspects of
instruction:
1)
Teaching
planning
2)
Teacher
behavior initiatory
3)
Teacher
observation
4)
Interpretation
and diagnosis of learner behavior; teacher behavior influencing/influenced.
‘Instruction is regarded as dynamic and, over
a period of time, self correcting, continually redirected,
influenced/influencing in reactive process’ (Strasser 1967). Strasser’s model
may be seen on page 177. Tabbah’s model for teaching strategies for cognitive
growth has been embodied in the Teacher Handbook for Contra Costa Social
Studies. Tabbah taught student teachers the strategies in ten days using this
model (Verdium 1967). Models of classroom nitration based on interaction
analysis (to be discussed later) are now being used both in America and Britain
to describe and predict verbal behavior in the classroom.
The
master the teaching model approach to practical experience makes possible, and
necessary, the integration of theory and practice. This integration becomes not
an abstract goal to be achieved only rarely, but a necessary, constant
occurrence. Tutors and students together develop models out of their
discussions of the theories of teaching and learning; the models are tested in
teaching learning situations and the results are evaluated. This approach
necessitates precision and rigour. A model is a commitment to a position and
can be tested if properly formulated. It is not a loosely assembled, unarticulated
set of statements that some theories can point at with pride in their
eclecticism (Stolurom 1965). Unlike the model the master teacher approach, t
his approach offers practical, usable help to all students irrespective of
their personality traits, attitudes and abilities. A model is infinitely
variable so that there is no contradiction between a student’s following a
theoretical model and his developing personal teaching style.
III. TEACHING CAUGHT NOT TAUGHT
Akin to the master teacher approach is
the view that it is impossible to teach anyone how to teach. Teaching is an art
form akin to poetry or painting. The creative teaching act, like the act of
writing poetry or painting a picture, can be facilitated by teaching but
cannot, itself, be taught. Teaching ability is largely innate and the born
teacher, the natural, owes little to training. Teaching performance is
described in intuitive terms: the born teacher knows the right moment for the
right activity. He is endowed with charismatic authority; the children never
question his power, he is a natural disciplinarian. Teaching practice is views
as providing the opportunities to display, recognized and refine the abilities
that are in the student.
This
approach which depends on unexamined premises and half truth, is inimical to
any rational understanding of the theory and practice of teaching and,
therefore, to any rational approach to teaching practice. It assumes, in the
first place, the existence of a general teaching ability operating in all
teaching situations. The validity of this assumption is by no means
established. On the contrary it seems likely that teaching behaviours are
specific and closely related to given sets of conditions such as age,
background and ability of children and type of school. A brilliant teacher in
one environment may be a mediocre performer in another. In addition, as we have
already intimated, born teachers are not so easily identifiable. Evidence is
given below of the considerable difficulties involved in recognizing with certainty
effective teaching but here we have a claim of complete certainty. Further, not
only is the effective teacher recognizable but his effectiveness is attributed
largely to genetic endowment. In the light of the discussion over the last half
century on the complexities involved in studying the genetic element in verbal
intelligence, it would be a brave man who would maintain the genetic bases of
so complex a set of abilities as those involved in teaching. Finally, this
naïve genetic argument is disproved by experience even though present methods
of practical preparation of teachers are of voice, stature, fluency and shyness
manage to overcome these disabilities.
IV. TEACHING AS A SCIENCE
A quite contrary approach, and one
closely related to the master the teaching model approach is adopted by those
who regard teaching as part of the behavioural sciences. Teaching is behaving
in a social context and is therefore amenable to scientific observation
analysis. We will discuss this at greater length later but here we may point
out that teaching behavior is modifiable by feeding back to the student teacher
data about his ongoing behavior in the classroom and the results of his
teaching in terms of the children’s behavior in the student, or approximations
to it, is rewarded to ensure its persistence, a practice that is explicable
with reference to learning theory. Similarly the student teacher’s teaching is
understandable and controllable only in terms of attitude and personality
traits. And the selection of skills and techniques is the master teachers,
reflecting the master teacher’s values, experience and personality. The
student’s values, experience and personality will be at least marginally, and
at most radically different from those of the master teacher. In its extreme
for this approach denies the individuality of the student. In a moderate form
it encourages the student to copy isolate bits of teaching behavior may well
hinge on their being a part of a total teaching behavior, when fragmented and
adopted by another, they may be ineffective or even harmful. Further, this
approach is only superficially easy to follow. In essence it tells a student to
adopt another person’s teaching style, which probably involves changing his
personality. If a student cannot do this, and the majority cannot, he can make
little progress towards effective teaching. The student is advised to change
his attitude or modify his personality traits, etc, advice that he does not
know how to follow.
We
have some ideas what he shouldn’t look like but that is a different matter.
This problem relates to the question of the identification of teacher
effectiveness, which we will discuss later. Here we merely wish to say that
there are no universally accepted criteria to help us to identify master
teachers.
There
is one further problem in the master teacher approach; there is a practical
difficulty of finding sufficient master teachers in the right places to go
round.
The
model the master teacher approach, which seems to be the approach most widely
favoured by teachers, results in a tendency to conservatism and traditionalism
and operates against experiment.
V. OBJECTIVES OF TEACHING PRACTICE
It is remarkable that no serious and
detailed study of the objectives of teaching practice seems to have been
carried out until quite recently. Presumably the objectives have been taken as self–evident:
“to practice being a teacher”. This question–begging and largely meaningless
statement corresponds to the undifferentiated concept of teaching practice
discussed above. However, as the numbers of students have grown more schools
and teachers have become involved in teaching, so the weaknesses of the present
system have become more apparent and criticism and dissatisfaction have been
voiced. Some teachers want to know more precisely what their contribution in
teaching practice should be. Some college tutors feel that, while they insist
that their students have statements of lesson objectives, they themselves are
not making clear to the students (and teachers) the objectives of the whole
exercise. Some are also influenced, by pressures from various sources, to see a
need to state their objectives in behavioural terms. It is particularly
important for students to have a clear grasp of the objectives since it is for
them primarily that teaching practice is organized and their future depends on
their satisfactorily fulfilling the objectives.
OBJECTIVES
1.
To
provide the student with an opportunity of establishing an appropriate
teacher–pupils relationship with children.
a)
Students
can get to know children as individual.
b)
Students
can learn to communicate with children.
c)
Students
can get to know children in groups and classes.
d)
Students
can have the experience of working with children.
e)
Students
can develop with their pupils a reciprocal relationship of respect and liking.
f)
Students
can develop a working relationship with children of different temperamental
abilities. Although all ranked these objectives in fact staff accorded it more
importance that did students (difference significant at 0.01 level) and
students more than teacher.
2.
To
provide the student with an opportunity for theory to be applied in the
practical situation and to assist him, where necessary, to make the difficult
discrimination between inappropriate theory and the inadequate implementing of
sound theory.
a)
Students
can try out apparatus based on theoretical approaches.
b)
Students
can try out ideas, which they have evolved in college.
c)
Students
can attempt to relate theories of learning and child development in the
classroom.
d)
Students
can test out in the school approaches suggested on the college courses.
e)
Students
can apply in the classroom the methodology of teaching basic skills and certain
subject’s areas.
f)
Students
can relate their reading in education to what happens in the school.
3.
To
provide an opportunity for evaluating the student’s potential as a teacher and
suitability for the teaching profession.
a)
Students
can discover if they experience satisfaction from teaching.
b)
Students
can find out if they are happy being with children.
c)
Students
can find out if they enjoy being in the school environment.
d)
Students
can find out if they are capable of promoting successful learning activities
with pupils.
e)
College
and school staff can detect students unsuited to the teaching profession.
f)
School
and college staff can assess the student’s potential as teachers and assign
grades.
4.
To
provide the student with an experience of success in the teaching situation so
that he acquires confidence.
a)
Students
are enabling to gain confidence from perceiving evidence of learning by pupils.
b)
Students
are enabled to gain confidence from their satisfactory handling of school
routine.
c)
Students
are enabled to gain confidence from the experience of talking effectively to
individuals and a class.
d)
Students
are enabled to gain confidence from the approval of other adults in a
professional situation.
e)
Students
are enabled to gain confidence from achieving in the classroom an atmosphere
appropriate to the task.
f)
Students
are enabled to gain confidence from the pupils’ enjoyment of an experience they
have provided.
The significant difference (at 0.01 level)
between students and others suggests that students teaching practice feel
insecure and need success.
5.
To
provide an opportunity in the practical situation for the extension and
deepening of the student’s self–knowledge.
a)
Students
can discover from the intellectual challenge of their pupils the importance of
extending their own knowledge.
b)
Students
may discover if they sympathize with or are prejudiced against certain children
and learn how to deal with their reactions.
c)
Students
can learn to cope with the physical demands of teaching.
d)
Students
can discover ways of responding to the demand imposed by their own expectations
of themselves as teachers.
e)
Students
can learn how to modify or utilize habits of voice, gesture or movement
revealed in the classroom.
f)
Students
can learn to accept responsibility for their actions in the classroom.
Staff/teachers’ difference significant at 0.05 level; others at 0.01.
6.
To
provide the student with practical experience in schools which will reveal some
of the problems of discipline and enable him to develop personal methods of
control.
a)
Students
can develop the ability to hold the pupil’s attention for appropriate periods.
b)
Students
can learn to contain the aggressive or destructive impulses of individual
children or groups.
c)
Students
can try to ensure that noise remains at an appropriate level.
d)
Students
can learn to channel the energies of children constructively.
e)
Students
can learn to ultimate control in the classroom while allowing appropriate
initiative to pupils.
f)
Students
can try out various procedures for engaging their pupils’ cooperation.
A very marked emphasis on class control form
the teachers.
7.
To
provide the student with opportunities for developing powers of organization.
a)
Students
can learn to take responsibility for the organization of equipment.
b)
Students
can learn to organize their subject matter so that it becomes significant to
their pupils.
c)
Students
can organize their classes into appropriate working units.
d)
Students
can learn to organize the keeping of notebooks and records.
e)
Students
can learn to take part in organizing the smooth flow of daily events at school.
8.
To
provide an opportunity for the student to develop and display qualities of
adaptability and sensitivity appropriate to the school situation.
a)
Students
can learn to adapt their procedures to the physical conditions of specific
schools.
b)
Students
can learn to improvise materials.
c)
Students
can learn to show tact in relationship with teachers and supervisors.
d)
Students
can learn to show adaptability in response to unexpected situations.
e)
Students
can show adaptability in varying their methods to the needs of different
groups.
9.
To
provide the students with an opportunity of becoming part of the school
community, familiarizing himself with its practices and entering into
appropriate professional relationships with its adult member, the most
significant of which is his relationship with the class or subject teacher.
a)
Students
can familiarize themselves with the day to day routine in schools.
b)
Students
can enter into a professional relationship with practicing teachers,
c)
Students
can experience the interplay of head, staff and pupils in the school community.
d)
Students
can become aware of the relationship of the school to associate groups – local
education authority, parents.
e)
Students
can learn from the professional expertise of class and subject teachers.
f)
Students
can become aware of the professional responsibilities of teachers.
10.
To
provide for the interchange of ideas and methods between schools and college by
college daffy and students perceiving new ideas, materials and equipments in
use in schools, and by college staff and students introducing new ideas,
materials and equipments into the schools.
a)
Students
can introduce new approaches to learning into schools.
b)
Students
can stimulate teachers to a reappraisal of their own procedures.
c)
Students
can introduce new materials into schools.
d)
Students
can introduce new work situations into classes.
e)
College
and school staff and students can exchange ideas on teaching procedures.
f)
Students
can introduce new apparatus and techniques into schools.
The remaining seven objectives refer mainly
to the staff of colleges and teachers in schools. They are that teaching
practice allows college staff to develop contact with schools.
11.
To
judge the student in schools
12.
To
keep in touch with schools
13.
Jointly
with the student to develop learning situations based on teaching
14.
To
evaluate the effectiveness of college courses
15.
And
to evaluate the result of colleagues’ work
16.
Its
also allows class/subject teachers to have time free from class.
OTHERS STATEMENTS OF THE OBJECTIVES OF TEACHING PRACTICE
Specific
studies and discussions of the objectives of teaching practice are sparse.
Morris (1969) has summarized in general terms commonly accepted objectives as
he sees them and has examined the conflicts arising from their fulfillment.
Davis (1969) reviews the scanty American research on the purposes of students
teaching, gives a list of non–behavioural objectives called from the American
literature, talks of ‘new concepts about the nature and purposes of student
teaching that are developing…out of the research on teaching and comments that
‘despite the importance attached to it [student teaching], behavioural
objectives are seldom identified. One set of objectives was recently proposed
by a conference or college staff, teachers and education officers (with college
staff predominating).
The Objectives proposed were:
1.
To
enable the students to acquire an understanding of the children in the
classroom situation: to find out how their minds work and to learn how to make
contact with them and to communicate with them.
2.
To
adjust their minds to the practical situation and to relate what they had
learned in child development lectures to it. To learn to be clear about their
own aims in a lesson or series of lessons.
3.
To
learn to be sensitive to the situation in the classroom and learn how to
structure it. To develop resourcefulness.
4.
A
major aim of teaching or study practice is to develop powers of observation.
5.
Ability
to make good relationships with children.
6.
Interest
in the learning process and ability to relate this to the learning situation.
7.
An
understanding of the need for organization and preparation in any situation,
and the ability to analyze.
8.
Personal
maturity (e.g. social confidence)
9.
To
give a chance for students to assess themselves.
10.
To
give students the opportunity of become more a part of the normal teaching
force as part of a teaching team.
11.
To
give the students awareness of and insights into the complex network of
relationships involved in school and classroom, in particular recognizing and
accepting that human relationships exist in depth.
12.
Diagnosis.
The first year’s teaching practice is a contribution towards a diagnosis year.
The Plowden Report (Department of Education
and Science 1967) gives an unequivocal statement of the objectives of teaching
practice. The purpose of teaching practice is to underpin and enliven
theoretical studies in child development and education, and to daily round that
will await them when they qualify. Through it colleges and schools can learn about
each other’s new ideas. Group practice (interacts) usefully with the more
theoretical aspects of the education course (and provides) valuable occasions
for experimental work in the schools and collaboration between schools and
colleges. Finally, two practical objectives are suggested. First, colleges
should help meet the needs of the schools as well as those of their students
‘especially in areas where there is a grave shortage of teachers.’ The
partnership between college and school and the close relationships often
involved in group practice would be especially helpful to schools in
underprivileged areas. Second, students on final teaching practice can ‘release
teachers for periods of in-service training or experimental work’.
To
come to terms with realities of a teacher’s duties, to see their way through
complexities of an unfamiliar organization, to gain familiarity with routine
tasks, to experience teaching as a continuous process rather than as a series
of expository exercises and to find out something about their own strengths and
weaknesses.
