Teaching+Cycle

toc =Audio File for This Page= Download the mp3 by right-clicking on the link. Play them directly by clicking on the Play button. media type="file" key="Teaching Cycle.mp3" =Introduction= Although there are many ways of characterizing the relationship between, planning instruction, teaching, and assessing what has been taught in order to make new plans, perhaps the simplest just involves those three elements: plan, teach, assess.

=Planning= We can start with planning, because this is where we, as teachers begin our intervention into our students' lives. I would like to use this class as an example for a couple of reasons. One is that over the years I have taught this, I have been through this cycle many times. In fact, Summer, 2012 is the first summer for this wiki, and my migrating the course to the wiki and changing its structure has come about because of my assessment of students' work, which is actually an assessment of how well I have taught the material. Secondly, for educators, this class is the "test prep" for a high stakes standardized test, the Praxis PLT. Students need to be able to pass this test in order to be licensed as teachers in the state of Ohio. In this sense, this fact puts me in the same position as K-12 teachers whose students have to take high stakes examinations.

Goals
My overall goal for this class is for any student taking this class to be able to apply the information to real life situations he or she may face and therefore to be able to influence outcomes as positively as possible.

Educational Psychology is a set of concepts and tools that, when well-applied, can benefit teachers, parents, instructors, trainers (formal or informal), and--most important of all--learners. Capital University's Education Department's mission is: " to prepare competent, caring, and committed professionals to teach, lead, and serve diverse communities of learners" which, to me, captures who good teachers are and what they do. Educational Psychology as a course can play a central role in the department living up to its mission statement and therefore teachers and their learners knowing that their efforts are a worthy use of their time.

Objectives
Objectives are the steps that make a goal possible. If my goal is to get a driver's license, my objectives include studying the driver's manual so I can pass the written portion of the test, learning about how a car operates, and practicing driving beginning in large parking lots and working my way to streets and highways.

My objectives for Educational Psychology include: Providing the information students need as a foundation for using Educational Psychology in their endeavors. Providing examples of how that information can be used, as a foundation for teaching the application of that information. Providing opportunities to apply Educational Psychology principles, strategies, and tools to real life situations.

Beyond that, there are some details. For example, I want to provide information in the clearest, most engaging form I can find. I want to connect the work we do in this course to things my students will actually be doing professionally and personally. I want to find ways for students to apply the information that are interesting, connected to real life, and engaging. In short, I want students to leave this class feeling that they have personally and professionally benefited from the effort they have put into the class.

In terms of the high stakes test associated with this class, I want my teaching to be indepth enough that I am teaching well beyond the terms of the test. If you have a really strong understanding of the concepts, such that you can apply them to situations around you, then you have more than enough information for a test which barely scratches the surface. If I teach to the superficial test, then you have a superficial understanding of the material, which means you don't understand it well enough to really use it and the process by which I would teach such a superficial level of understanding would not be engaging or interesting.

The methods by which the course gets taught are also significant to the course. It is an online course, which presents some special challenges. Some people are comfortable with doing a course online and some people struggle with online courses. As an undergraduate, I would really have struggled with this type of class because I needed to actually have to sit in a classroom a couple of times a week for a course to be significant to me. I was a music major and all the other fun and special things music majors do such as endless rehearsals, practicing, performances, lessons, etc., would have taken over the time I would need to put aside for an online course. So one additional goal I have is for students to learn how to do online courses successfully, since I believe more and more college- and graduate-level courses will be delivered this way.

I have decided to add to my differentiation of instruction by creating opportunities that are in line with the kind of reading and thinking that happen in graduate school. These optional activities (which could actually be done even after the course itself is over) will allow those who are already ready for that level of thinking to exercise their abilities in this direction. These activities can also be used by students who want to explore what graduate school may be about in a very supportive, low stress (optional, no grades) atmosphere.

Finally, I put this course on the wiki as a way of supporting people taking the Praxis PLT. One goal I have is that students would not have to pay the Educational Testing "Service" any more money than they have to, since that organization has an unfair monopoly on testing, since their testing practices include getting test takers to lose points based on how the test is structured rather than a lack of knowledge, since the organization was founded by eugenicists, and since their tests do not even do what they purport to do--in this case, the Praxis PLT does not differentiate between good teachers and bad. Time and time again, I have added students to my Blackboard for Educational Psychology so they could get review materials. Now, they just have to get to this wiki and they will have everything they need.

=Implementation= This wiki is the foundation of the implementation of my goals and objectives. It contains the information as well as the learning instructions that lead to application of the information. Some of the materials on this wiki are materials I developed when I first began teaching the course and that seem to contribute to student learning. Others of the materials are new to me and my choice of these are based on having been dissatisfied with materials I have used in the past.

Another aspect of implementation is my practice of providing feedback to students based on the idea that we are all working together to gain a deeper understanding of these ideas. I believe that intellectual discussions increase the kind of in-depth learning I like to support.

My policy of problem solving with students who struggle with the online format of the class insures that the maximum amount of students will be able to learn the material and use it, rather than limiting success to students who already know how to handle online courses.

Since Educational Psychology is such an important foundation for teaching, the material itself has many implications for my own teaching. As I learn about strategies that successful teachers use, I like to model these for my students so they will experience how these things feel from the student side of the teaching equation.

=Ongoing Assessment= Students in this course demonstrate their understanding through their application of the material, which they write about. Their writings demonstrate:

Understanding of the information Ability to apply the information

If you look back at the Objectives, you will see that this assessment is congruent with the goals and objectives of the course. In other words, this assessment allows me to see how students are doing in relation to the objectives I have stated. I could give a test, but I believe that a test would be a lower quality assessment than the one I have selected.

Those who seek standardization of assessment may not understand the richness of the assessment data I collect. Yes, it is different for each student, but then each student is different and students may differ drastically in terms of what their careers are or will be and where they are in their careers. Some students I have will be teachers in a year or two and others have been teaching for over twenty years. Teachers who are currently in classrooms are able to produce a different level of engagement with the material from those who might be first year students at Capital University and relatively brand new at thinking like a teacher. Some students taking this course might go into business or social work or some other field. Tests and that sort of assessment require me to set a level of engagement (not much engagement if I do a multiple choice test where students only have to recognize the right answer) that may not be applicable to the majority of my students. What is worse, with testing, I miss out on the unique ideas students bring to the class and other students miss out, also, since people generally make their responses public on the discussion board.

My assessment is not so much about grades as about the two things that are important: understanding and application.

=The Cycle Begins Again: Planning= When I assess, I then plan for teaching or reteaching material. Even though I lay out the material in an online course at the beginning of the semester and it does not change, I can still do some reteaching based on assessment.

There are a number of ways that I can teach or reteach:

In my feedback, I can clarify information for better understanding, and I can deepen or widen applications of the material. Since others can read my feedback, this kind of teaching can benefit more than one student.

I can also send out a clarifying email to the entire class if I notice that several people have misunderstood something. Later on, I can add new material to that unit in the course so that the material is clearer the next time I have a class.

I can send a private email to students if there are misunderstandings or I have any other concern about the student. Often this leads to a conversation between myself and that student that truly allows me to individualize the course for each student's needs.

At the end of the semester, I decide if there are better ways of teaching a given topic. If there are, I add those. Sometimes, as in May, 2012, I do a major overhaul on the course so that it is fresher in my mind, more up to date, and more responsive to student needs I have witnessed in the past.

If my goal is for as many students as possible to be able to apply the material in this course to real life, then my assessment practices should be based on the idea of helping students to learn rather than simply judging students for a difficulty with learning (which actually could even be my fault, for not providing the support a given student needs). These assessment practices need to lead to planning for new teaching that will help people succeed in learning.

=Relationship of Teaching Cycle to Learning Material in Educational Psychology=

This chart shows how various topics in this course relate to the cycle of plan, teach, and assess.

=Your Turn= What are some of the big goals you have for any teaching situation you might find yourself in? What would be one or two of the objectives for these goals?

What are some teaching plans you could make around these goals? What kinds of differentiation of instruction could you do? What kind of assessment would be logical to use in light of these goals? What kind of reteaching could you do?

In many settings, what and how a person teaches is restricted by various types of authorities. Suppose you are given a curriculum you must teach or a high stakes test your students must pass, or any other constraint on your teaching. How can you make the material applicable to students' lives despite the limitations you might have on your teaching? How can you fully use the plan, teach, assess cycle (including reteaching)? In other words, how can you make something you must teach relevant to students? What can you add that will help your teaching in this setting meet some of the larger goals that are implicit to the whole field of education (helping students to be resourceful, problem-solving, team-working, responsible adults)? This is one of those deep philosophical questions to which there is no one answer and therefore a lot of possibility for many valuable answers.