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Dear students,

Welcome to the ‘super practical’ part of the module Practical Preparation for Teaching 1, which I like to call Classroom Experiences!

This module is designed to offer significant learning opportunities for you; ‘significant learning’ is defined by Fink (2013) as the learning that changes us and enhances our lives. How’s that for a goal? :)

So, how does significant learning happen? This is what we know so far:

It’s grounded in previous experiences, beliefs, gut feelings

It’s embodied

It starts when learners ‘notice’ (Mason, 2002) something salient and are thrown in doubt, i.e. when they experience moments of confusion

It relies on the learner engaging in ‘productive struggle’ (NCTM, 2014)

It’s open-ended and exploratory; action and reflection on the world in order to transform it (Freire, 1970)

It’s self-discovered, self-appropriated, one’s own (Rogers, 1969)

It’s dialogic, with self and with others, in an environment of acceptance and trust

It develops care for the subject

It can’t be prescribed, so judgementoring, i.e. “a one to one relationship between a relatively inexperienced teacher (the mentee) and a relatively experienced one (the mentor) in which the latter, in revealing too readily and/or too often her/his own judgements on or evaluations of the mentee’s planning and teaching […] compromises the mentoring relationship and its potential benefits” (Hobson and Malderez, 2013: 90) can be harmful

It’s practically useful, it’s relevant for life

It develops ‘learnacy’ (Claxton, 2004), i.e. learning to learn

It takes time.

If learning, at its core, is experiential, we’ll start from our own experiences of teaching/being taught, our beliefs and gut feelings, and use what we know from educational theory to help us make sense of our experiences and prepare us for new experiences going forward. The environment will inevitably throw you moments of confusion; I’ll also look to chip in as and when.

An on-going theme will be exploring what care in the teaching profession, i.e. care for our learners’ learning and their overall wellbeing, looks like; we will reflect on the care we observe in ourselves and in others, and develop so we’re able to care more and care better.

I’m aware that this kind of learning represents a stark departure from what you/I may have been exposed to during our education; most of us will have been ‘told’ things, which we went on to remember, repeat in an exam context, and largely forget soon after. This may be because we were not invited to bring ourselves to the classroom and make the target knowledge our own, so we remained spectators of teaching rather than active participants in our own learning. Even if we were invited to take an active part in our learning, was it safe to explore/experiment, laboratory-style, without the fear of losing face? Was the task worthwhile in the first place?

Also, learning is not only a cognitive process; rather, it’s embodied, emotional and social. How often did we get to explore the arts, e.g. poetry, film, music, drawing, painting, theatre, dance, as part of our formal education? Have we made a tangible contribution to the community from the position of learners? Were we encouraged to reflect on who we were in the process, where we were headed, what we learnt, how to continue to learn on our own? In other words, were we supported to develop a strong sense of self as a learner, ready to set our own goals and design out own learning experiences going forward?

If most of what we did at school was to be observers/note-takers of teaching largely in the form of ‘telling’, we need to do some unlearning if we are not to replicate the same outdated approaches which seem to waste everyone’s time. Modern educational theory has abandoned the view of teaching as ‘transmitting knowledge’ in favour of teaching as creating opportunities and designing experiences conducive significant learning. This is arguably a very challenging process, especially when a teacher has a class of 30 learners, each with their own set of needs: how do you design suitably exciting learning experiences for all?

Learning is also supposed to be a challenging process for the learner. As we know from our own experiences as learners, if the learning goal doesn’t require productive struggle, it’s unlikely to change us significantly. Think of physical fitness contexts for illustration of this, e.g. swimming. If you merely observe others swim without having a go yourself, you can’t expect to have developed any swimming skills. You may be able to talk about swimming, but are not able to do any swimming – not without doing the workout.

This module is designed in such a way as to engage you in your own journeys of discovery, shaped by the experiences you bring and those you will have in the various schools in which you will be assigned to do your teaching (more on this soon). The module will therefore be organised in a workshop style, with lots of trying out and questioning going on throughout. In doing so, we’ll be countering social phenomena that are not exactly conducive to human development: competition, polarisation and compliance. Instead, we’ll engage in collaboration, discussions of unorthodox ideas/practises to be curious about (not frightened by!) and resistance, even of module contents – everything, including my own teaching is up for discussion and challenge! I’ll be inquiring, (dis)agreeing and sharing alongside you, and we’ll process any difficult emotions that might emerge from such inquiry together, as a group, because they, too, can be springboards for growth!

Since the module relies on active engagement, a minimum of 80% module participation is required: you can’t catch up on missed experience! Back to the sports analogy, if you miss a training session, you think about how to make it up so it does not affect your fitness. Instead of being given ‘feedback’ on your performance, you will be encouraged to notice and reflect on the feedback your learners will constantly be giving you, in many different forms, verbal and non-verbal. This is how teachers develop into reflective practitioners, willing and able to engage in self-directed learning, modelling learnacy for their learners. So, instead of offering our own judgements to colleagues (I certainly won’t be judgementoring!), we’ll try to help them think more deeply so they can arrive at their own, informed judgements – a process which will be visible in your evolving digital logbooks (more on this soon), which will inform your end-of-term self-assessment, subject to negotiation with me. The results from this part of the module are then passed on to prof. Nikolovska for moderation.

To summarise the roles I see myself as having on this module:

providing a variety of tasks to engage you in productive struggle so you’re able to experience significant learning and feel good about your achievements in a year’s time

helping the group develop into an increasingly safe space for inquiry, collaboration and resistance

providing all the support you may need, in terms of:

resources (as available on this Coda web space)

human support through school-based mentors, personal mentors, group support (do join our WhatsApp group, see QR) and my on-going support – you’re welcome to get in touch about any questions or concerns you may have and I’ll aim to get back to you as soon as possible, but no later than up to 24 hours (weekends are non-working). Feel free to visit me in my office, too, it’s in the corridor behind the cafeteria, the chances are it’s stocked with coffee and biscuits! I’ll also try to be in P7 well in advance on Fridays – that’s how much I value punctuality, particularly important for teachers as it can be seen as a display of care! In other words, please don’t suffer in silence!

AI support (through the Noticing application – more soon).

unfortunately, also assessing, but hopefully you’ll alleviate the emotional toll associated with this role through your increasingly more accurate self-assessment as you go.

Anything else I’m forgetting about? :) Drop me an email!

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