Talkin' 'bout my cerebration.

It is that time of year when many teachers are responsible for the development of a pre-service teacher (university student) who is inevitably in the final practicum of their degree.  Whilst some teachers avoid working with per-service teachers, and some of my students openly disagree with having to learn from a pre-service teacher, I find this responsibility one of the most important aspects of my role.  There are a number of reasons for this.  First and foremost, I seriously consider myself a significant influence on the development of a few pre-service teachers.  I want students to learn, enjoy learning and grow from learning.  The pre-service teacher is also a learner.

Secondly, my particular subject area is one marginalised by the push for a national curriculum.  Health and Physical Education has always been seen as non-compulsory and a poorer cousin of the big three (English, Maths, Science).  Without a guernsey on the national curriculum, the status and inclusion of HPE is under threat in many schools.  By nurturing teachers in my subject area I can help that little bit by ensuring HPE trained teachers are always part of the teaching workforce.  They will advocate for HPE in their schools and continue to promote the benefits of physically active learning.

However, the most significant reason for wanting to incorporate a pre-service teacher into my learning environments is that I need my students to learn how to learn from others.  I pride myself in the relationships and rapport I have with my students.  I take pride in the learning the demonstrate from learning activities within my learning environments.  But I also realise I will not always be there for them.  They need to learn from others, and learn how to manage their own learning.

A colleague posted recently on her blog, Making Connections: Proud moments about nervousness in taking a step back.  She has regularly tweeted about this nervousness.  To me this is great.  It signals here is a teacher who is concerned about the learning of her students.  Here is a teacher who is focused on her students and the engagement she has managed to engender in a subject area not normally embraced by today’s students.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling nervous about drawing back.  Especially when you consider the class she is speaking about is year 11.

Yet I pose these questions to her, and others who are hesitant when it comes to “handing over control” to a developing teacher;

1. Is the learning you are proud of existent due to you?
2. Could the students (and do they) demonstrate the same learning in other classes?
3. Are you establishing yourself or the students as the dependent factor in this learning equation?

If you answer these thinking that the students are the central reason behind the learning, then it should not matter who is teaching.  If you really establish the student as the dependent factor, they will demonstrate learning despite the teacher or the learning context.  To me this was the central theme, and most exciting area of personal development, of the Digital Pedagogy License Advanced when I undertook the course last year.  It is my interpretation of the concept of transformative learning.  I see the benefits daily.  Learning processes nurtured in my learning environments transferred across contexts.  Other teachers talking to me about what little Johnny does in their class that they said I taught them (students’ words).  The learner becomes the dependent factor.

So I want my pre-service teachers to be the dependent factor in their personal learning equations, and my students will learn reagrdless of who “delivers the content.”

I have challenged my pre-service teacher in this unit we are currently doing.  There is not a lot of “content” that the students need to know.  However they must be able to form an educated opinion and validate that opinion through evidence and discussion.  I have challenged my pre-serice teacher to not deliver content.  Any content she requires them to consume or pay attention to can be delivered to the students by students, guest speakers or research.  I have told her she is not allowed to provide them information about the topic.

This has caused her some stress, noe the least because it is completely different to anything she has been taught in her university study.  However, only 2 weeks in she can see the benefits.  She realises when she walks into class she is going to engage in conversations with the students, not content delivery.  If you relate this to Bloom’s Taxonomy of the cognitive domain then foundation thinking (knowledge, understanding, application) is completed by students under their own management.  We as teachers then concentrate on developing the higher order abilities (analysis, evaluation, synthesis / creation) when we have direct contact with them.  How she has managed this is impressive.  Essentially the class is split in two.  One half is provided access to the computers to manage their own learning, the other half is taken outside where they discuss a topic in a community of inquiry.  At the halfway mark they switch.

So in reality, we have reduced our dependence on the learning equation.  And what we are witnessing is impressive.  Students learning from each other.  Students reaching out into the world in search of relevant knowledge.  Students teaching us also.

Does this reduce the importance of the teacher?  No, in fact I think we become more important as we guide students along a path of discovery and encourage them to learn from each other.  We are still responsible for the measurable product of learning (which is a debate for another time) and the relationships within the learnign environment.  I think this approach requires more work outside of traditional class time, and significantly increases the maount of time in conversation with students.  But it is worthwhile, and a system I am happy to dwell in.

So should my colleague be nervous about “letting go?”  Definitely.  But please don’t let that stop you, it is important for the development of both the students and the pre-service teacher.