Pedagogical Skills – Content Related Skills – Classroom
Management – Promoting Culturally Inclusive Classroom Environment
Pedagogical
Skills
Pedagogy is the discipline that deals with the
theory and practice of education;
it thus concerns the study and practice of how best to teach. Its aims range
from the general to the narrower specifics of vocational education . Paulo Freire referred to his method of teaching
people as "critical pedagogy". In correlation with
those instructive strategies, the instructor's own philosophical beliefs of
instruction are harbored and governed by the pupil's background knowledge and
experience, situation, and environment, as well as learning goals set by the student and teacher. One
example would be the Socratic
schools of thought. The word pedagogue was originally used in
reference to the slave who escorted Roman children to school. In Denmark, a
pedagogue is a practitioner of pedagogy. The term is primarily used for
individuals who occupy jobs in pre-school education
(such as kindergartens and nurseries)
in Scandinavia. The pedagogical skills that are essential for classroom
management are as follows:
§ Knowing your subject.
§ Being able to reflect on your
teaching practices and identify what works and what doesn’t.
§ Knowing your students – not just
academically, we need to know what makes our students tick; what their
interests are, their personality and their learning styles.
§ Being transparent – students should
be well aware of your expectations. In a constructivist learning environment,
students should be active participant in building and adhering to the culture
go the classroom. Teachers need to be consistent and equitable in their
negotiation of expectations and consequences for inappropriate behaviour.
§ Being able to provide stability and
structure in both the academic and cultural aspects of your classroom.
§ Being able to create a learning
environment that it challenging, open, engaging and rich which enables students
to meet their targeted learning outcomes as well as being interested and
motivated.
Content Related Skills
Pedagogy can
be defined as the art of teaching. Beyond simply understanding the content one
is teaching, pedagogy involves being able to convey knowledge and skills in
ways that students can understand, remember and apply. Although there is a
significant amount of overlap between the two, pedagogical skills can generally
be divided into classroom management skills
and content-related skills. Any good teacher knows that a class full of
out-of-control students is unlikely to learn much. A teacher's first major
task, then, is to learn to manage behaviour in his or her classroom. This set
of pedagogical skills involves establishing clear rules and expectations,
because students who do not know what is expected of them are more likely to
misbehave. Establishing expectations upfront keeps many problems from arising.
When behavioural problems do arise in the classroom, however, a skilled teacher
is able to handle them with a minimum amount of disruption to the learning
environment. The other major area of pedagogical skills is that of teaching
content effectively. These skills vary with the subject matter and level of
instruction, as those skills needed to teach kindergarteners to read are
significantly different from those needed to teach secondary students to build
sets for a theatre production. Regardless of the content, however, a good
teacher will present information in ways that actively engage the students in
the material that they are learning. Good pedagogy involves not only imparting
information, but also providing opportunities to apply that information. A
teacher must also be able to tailor content to the needs of his or her students.
In any given classroom, no two students will have exactly the same knowledge or
skills about the subject matter. A skilled teacher will be able to anticipate
and respond to individual students’ learning needs and challenges. He or she
will also present tasks that are appropriate to the students’ level of
cognitive development. These two types of pedagogical skills work together to
create a good learning environment. Engaging and appropriate teaching methods
help to reduce behavioural problems in the classroom. Students who are actively
learning are less likely to be disruptive. If the material is too easy or not
presented in interesting enough ways, students are likely to get bored. On the
other hand, material that is too difficult may cause students to become
frustrated. A term widely used by educators, content knowledge refers to the body of information that
teachers teach and that students are expected to learn in a given subject
or content area, such as
English language arts, mathematics, science, or social studies. Content
knowledge generally refers to the facts, concepts, theories, and principles
that are taught and learned, rather than to related skills such as reading,
writing, or researching that students also learn in academic courses.
Classroom
Management
Good
classroom management is nearly invisible. When classes are poorly managed,
however, disorder and chaos steal time from learning and exhaust the teacher.
Poor management can lead to student discipline problems, and sustained student
misbehaviour often inhibits teachers from using the engaging, interactive
instructional approaches that foster student achievement and active learning,
including cooperative grouping, learning centers, projects, experiments, and
the use of manipulatives. Classroom management is more than discipline. It
involves, among other things, the development of classroom rules and rational
consequences for breaking them. Classroom management also can be measured by
the seamless flow of papers between the students and the teacher, by the extent
to which social justice triumphs over the “teacher's pet” concept, and by a
teacher's ability to share control and promote student self-discipline. Loughran
(2010) asserts that pedagogy is the “relationship between teaching and
learning” Behaviour management is perhaps one of the most difficult skills for
pre-service teachers to master and ultimately, a lot of the time classroom
management and behaviour management go hand in hand. Having good
pedagogical skills is essential for classroom and behaviour management.
There are
a number of pedagogical skills for classroom management that teachers must
possess and exercise when utilising technology in the classroom. These include:
Ø Teachers
are charged with ensuring that their students are not distracted by
applications that do not relate to the subject at hand. Direct monitoring by
the teacher is vital to ensure that technoloy is being used appropriately in
the classroom to maximise its effectiveness in the classroom.
Ø Maintaining
equity: all students should have the chance to access and use computers in
order to achieve lesson objectives, whether in the classroom or at home.
Therefore teachers should ensure that they conduct research into the resources
of their school before proposing a technological lesson to ensure equity is
being maintained in the classroom.
Ø Teachers
must ensure that they personally have a good foundational knowledge of the
technology and resources they will be utilising in the classroom, so that
precious class time is not wasted with the teacher deducing the functions or
experiencing difficulties with the technology. Teachers must be organised prior
to and during the lesson to ensure good time management. This ideology also
pertains to how lesson time is spent teaching students how to use the
technology.
Ø Instructions
given by the teacher must be explicit in regards to using the technology, in
order to enable students to learn and discourage off-task behaviour (i.e.
students accessing and using the technology in ways that are distracting).
Ø As stated
previously, teachers must ensure that their students are able to operate the
technology being used in the class, so that lesson time is not used to teach
the students how to use the technology, but rather they can be taught content
knowledge while using the technology as an aid.
Ø Teachers
must ensure they have knowledge of copyright laws and regulations, and do not
breach these within their lesson: all resources taken from the Internet should
be cited or acknowledged. Students should also be made aware of these
regulations explicitly by the teacher, so as to eliminate the chances of either
the school or any students being open to legal action from the authors of works
that have not been properly cited.
Ø Lastly,
teachers should be able to use different resources and applications to cater
for students of mixed abilities. Tasks should be set to cater for students who
are at different levels of learning, including those with physical disabilities
and other special needs – there is an abundance of different technology that
can help eliminate these barriers that students experience when it comes to
gaining the best education that teachers should certainly make themselves aware
of.
Promoting
Culturally Inclusive Classroom Management
Inclusive teaching strategies
refer to any number of teaching approaches that address the needs of students
with a variety of backgrounds, learning styles, and abilities. These strategies
contribute to an overall inclusive learning environment, in which students feel
equally valued. “Even though some of us might wish to conceptualize our
classrooms as culturally neutral or might choose to ignore the cultural
dimensions, students cannot check their sociocultural identities at the door,
nor can they instantly transcend their current level of development. Therefore,
it is important that the pedagogical strategies we employ in the classroom
reflect an understanding of social identity development so that we can
anticipate the tensions that might occur in the classroom and be proactive
about them” (Ambrose et. al., 2010, p. 169-170).
Benefits
of inclusive teaching:
© You can
connect with and engage with a variety of students.
© You are
prepared for “spark moments” or issues that arise when controversial material
is discussed.
© Students
connect with course materials that are relevant to them.
© Students
feel comfortable in the classroom environment to voice their
ideas/thoughts/questions.
© Students
are more likely to experience success in your course through activities that
support their learning styles, abilities, and backgrounds.
How can
you teach inclusively?
¶ Be
reflective by asking yourself the following:
a.
How might your own cultural-bound
assumptions influence your interactions with students?
b.
How might the backgrounds and
experiences of your students influence their motivation, engagement, and
learning in your classroom?
c.
How can you modify course
materials, activities, assignments, and/or exams to be more accessible to all
students in your class?
§
Incorporate diversity into
your overall curriculum.
§
Be intentional about creating a
safe learning environment by utilizing ground rules.
§
Be proactive in connecting with and learning
about your students.
§
Utilize a variety of teaching
strategies, activities, and assignments that will accommodate the needs of
students with diverse learning styles, abilties, backgrounds, and
experiences.
§
Use universal design principleshg to
create accessible classes. For example, present information both orally and
visually to accommodate both students with visual or auditory impairments in
addition to students with various learning preferences.
§
When possible, provide
flexibility in how students demonstrate their knowledge and how you assess
student knowledge and development. Vary your assessments (for example,
incorporate a blend of collaborative and individual assignments) or allow
choice in assignments (for example, give students multiple project topics to
choose from, or have students determine the weight of each assignment on their
final grade at the beginning of the semester.)
§
Be clear about how students will
be evaluated and graded.
Strategies
to Create a Culturally Inclusive classroom Environment
1.
Awareness
of Diversity
ü Get to
know yourself and be aware of how you have been culturally constructed and the
implications of this has for classroom practices,
ü Be aware
of your basic assumptions about learning and teaching,
ü Understand
why you have designed your syllabus in the way that you have,
ü Recognize
that learning styles differ, and that your students may not learn well if you
use only your style,
ü Recognize
that any teaching style to the exclusion of others will also exclude those
students who do not learn best by that style,
ü Vary
teaching techniques and strategies into the classroom,
ü Establish
and maintain a climate of openness and interaction by disclosing personal
information about yourself,
ü Get to
know your students as individuals rather than as representatives of particular
groups. For example, schedule two required office hours for each student, one
at the beginning of your class and one at the end. Then, all students will feel
as if you know them and respect them individually. "Minority"
students in particular will feel more included if they have the opportunity to
speak to you personally. They are then more likely to participate actively for
the rest of the term.
ü Avoid
making assumptions of similarities,
ü Avoid
trivializing differences,
ü Accommodate
students’ diverse learning styles, and
ü Promote
collaboration between all students.
2.
Provide
Clear Instructions
o Speak
clearly at a comfortable pace,
o Use words
that describe a sequence: first, second, third…,
o Use
gestures or actions to illustrate what you are trying to communicate,
o Avoid
sentences with words such as "before, after, if (conditional), therefore,
however,
o Rephrase
complex sentences using different words,
o Check
frequently for understanding and break instruction into small fragments,
o Explain
meanings of words and phrases that cannot be found in a standard dictionary,
e.g. technical terms,
o Avoid
idioms, jargon and slang,
o Make
expectations explicit as they relate to course requirements including
assessment practices,
o Relate
the material being presented to what has come before, and what is still to come
in the same course,
o Relate
the material to the student’s personal experience, and
o Continually
summarize to establish mutual understanding.
3.
Support
Content
à Handout
lecture outline, notes, overheads to provide context of lectures prior to the
class and to reduce time needed to copy,
à Allow
students to copy other students’ notes and/or ask other students to use
carbon-copy paper to share notes,
à Use
visuals to illustrate what you are saying, e.g., overheads, notes, pictures,
etc.,
à Reflect
diversity in your syllabus, in your readings, and in other materials such as
visual aids,
à Provide
examples to reinforce what you are saying ensuring that the examples are
culturally relevant to newcomers, immigrants and visible minority students,
à Promote
opportunities for students to access relevant resources to maximize learning,
e.g. tell students they can watch videos again at the Library or let them take
video home to watch, allow students to tape lectures, allow students to use a
dictionary and/or translator in class, and
à Provide
opportunities for students to interact across cultures.
4.
Check for
Understanding
v Do not
just accept a "yes" or "no" answer or a nod when asking,
"Do you understand?",
v Do not
ask questions that can be answered with "yes" or "no",
v Ask for
verbal feedback: What did I ask you to do? What did you understand? How should
you…?,
v Be
sensitive to non-verbal cues that indicate confusion or frustration,
v Encourage
students to ask questions and to ask for clarification keeping in mind that
this may not be culturally appropriate for all students
v Be
patient and allow more time for second language students to explain and ask for
more information if necessary,
v Ask
students to write their questions or concerns down when you have difficulty
understanding them and as a way to provide a safe environment for them to get
clarification from you,
v Continually
monitor student progress, and
v Identify
at-risk students early and initiate culturally appropriate intervention
measures.
5.
Do’s and
Don’ts
Ø Be aware
that common, everyday gestures may mean something different to newcomers and
immigrants,
Ø Be aware
that your personal space might be larger or smaller than is comfortable for the
person you are talking with,
Ø Be aware
that some cultures touch more or less than you,
Ø Be aware
that language that sounds rude or abrupt may just be a direct transfer of the
intonation from the other language,
Ø Try to
pronounce the person’s name correctly and do not give English nicknames unless
requested,
Ø Learn
something about each of your students’ cultures,
Ø Learn
something about each of your students’ learning styles as they relate to the
course content, e.g. hold meetings with each student, ask students to submit
autobiography or journal,
Ø Try to
find opportunities for students to share their diverse experiences when this
relates to course content,
Ø Promote
opportunities to meet with students individually,
Ø Use
inclusive language,
Ø Do not
misinterpret lack of eye contact,
Ø Do not
misinterpret laughter because for some newcomers and immigrants this is an
indication of embarrassment or uncertainty,
Ø Do not
stereotype individuals and/or groups of students, and
Ø Do not
hold one group’s experience as the norm against which others’ are measured and
evaluated.
Reference
¶ Pedagogy
– http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/teacher/pedagogysummary.html
¶ Pedagogical
Skills for Classroom Management – https://kgermanos.wordpress.com/
pedagogical-skills-for-classroom-management/
¶ Inclusive
Classroom Strategy – https://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/building
inclusive-classrooms/inclusive-teaching-strategies.html
¶ Strategies
to Create an Inclusive Classroom – http://air.rrc.ca/Classroom%20Support
/Strategies%20To%20Create%20An%20Inclusive%20Classroom.htm
¶ Pedagogy
– http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-pedagogical-skills.
htm#didyouknowout
¶ Content
Knowledge – http://edglossary.org/content-knowledge/
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