Module 1

Module 1

Concept 1: Efficacy

Summary

In chapter 1, Woolfolk addresses the question of what makes a good teacher. She looks at different tools and techniques to effectively teach students. On page 5 she stated that most of her research is based on the “teachers’ sense of efficacy, defined as a teacher’s belief that he or she can reach even the difficult students to help them learn.” As teachers succeed in their day to day teaching, their confidence and sense of efficacy, or their ability to meet a certain goal, will grow. As Woolfolk says, “teachers with a high sense of efficacy work harder and persist longer even when students are difficult to teach.” One skill Woolfolk notes that helps to increase efficacy is relationships. As teachers form relationships with their students, they have more success in reaching students and increasing their chances of learning. Woolfolk’s research revealed on page 8 that “when teachers established warm, caring relationships with their students, similar to those of an extended family, the students were more engaged.” Favorable relationships between teachers and students has been found to increase the student’s academic performance which in turn increases the teachers’ sense of efficacy.

Reflection

It comes as no surprise that a good relationship between a teacher and student would foster improvements in behavior and performance of students. But, what surprised me was the data that Woolfolk shared on page 8 about the positive effects on test scores for students who had favorable relationships with their teachers for three years in a row, and then the contrast to the negative effect on test scores for students who had poor relationships with teachers over a period of three years. This brought to light how important it will be to establish positive relationships in the classroom with my students to not only help built their own confidence and grow academically, but also to help increase my sense of efficacy and confidence in my ability to help every student, even those who seem hard to teach, to grow on many levels.

I remember one year when I was in 4^th grade, I had a wonderful teacher who went out of her way to form relationships with each of her students. She asked questions about our families and our hobbies and was genuinely interested in each one of us. She even came to our sporting events and birthday parties held outside of the classroom. She really went above and beyond the expectations of a teacher, but the extra time and energy she put it really made a difference in the student’s academic performance. Her classes were known around the school for having the largest growth jumps on the MAPS test each year, and the parent attendance at school sponsored science fairs and math family nights from her classrooms were always the highest in the school. Every kid in third grade wanted to be in this teacher’s class for fourth grade, and every parent wanted their kid to be in this teacher’s class too.

My sister is a second grade teacher at a public charter school in Milwaukee, WI. The administration places a huge emphasize on forming relationships between the teachers and the families. The teachers are required to make home visits with each of their students prior to and into the beginning of the school year. Visiting the family’s homes and seeing the environment that the student lives in is valuable information for the teachers. Meeting the siblings, the parents, grandparents and even cousins and aunts that live in the house with the student helps the teacher relate her classroom to the different living conditions of the students. The kids are thrilled to have their teacher visit their houses. For those students nervous about that first day of school, having meet the teacher in the comfort of their own homes is a real benefit. The adults in the house also form a bonding relationship with the teacher after welcoming the teacher into their homes. At the visit, the teacher and the parents exchange cell phone numbers and keep in contact throughout the school days via text messages. These formed relationships are a valuable motivator for academic performance too because now the students have an additional incentive to apply themselves because they want to please their teacher so that she will text their parents to let them know they are doing well. As this school is very data driven, they measure growth in the classroom by standardized tests, and they relate and record positive growth jumps back to the successful partnering between the teachers with the students and the parents. The classroom has become an “extended families” as Woolfolk discussed on page 8. This bonding and growth and the ability to touch even the “difficult” students and help them to grow, helps to increase the” teacher’s efficacy” which leads to confidence and increased incentive for the teachers to be even more deliberate in their actions to be an effective teacher.

In my future classroom, I want to be deliberate to make positive relationships with my students to foster academic and social growth in my students. Evidence that Woolfolk presents and evidence from my sister’s school, as well as my own experience with teachers, show the importance of these relationships. Even in the shorter amounts of time I have in my observation hours this summer, I have become cognizant of forming relationships with the students and observing the relationship that the teachers have with the students. These relationships will be key to reaching the more difficult students and ket to increasing my sense of efficacy.

Concept 2: Assisted Learning

Summary

In chapter 2 Woolfolk discusses cognitive development by analyzing Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s theories. One idea she highlights from Vygotsky’s theory is called “assisted learning.” On page 65, Woolfolk restates what Vygotsky’s theory “suggests that teachers need to do more than just arrange the environment so that students can discover on their own. Children cannot and should not be expected to reinvent or rediscover knowledge already available in their cultures.” Instead, students need to be guided with additional “information, prompts, reminders and encouragement at the right time and in the right amounts.” This will allow the students to learn at a pace that suits their individual learning level while at the same time, helping them to build on what they are learning.  The teachers also guide the students to “make their own discoveries.” Learning from doing helps students to remember better what they have done to get to a solution, plus it helps students to learn new things as they branch out into new areas. In order to keep the students on track as they are learning on their own, teachers need to be “asking questions that refocus students’ attention.” This assisted learning will guide students into new areas of learning, while helping them to feel confident and willing to step into new discovery areas knowing that they are being supported by their teachers.

Reflection

Reading through chapter 2, there are a lot of logical ideas that can be helpful to teachers, but some of the ideas, like assisted learning, did not come to mind until I read about them. Once I read about the technique, I realized that teachers have used this concept in my classes here at Trinity, and it has been a very valuable learning tool for me. Woolfolk mentioned “giving detailed feedback and allowing revisions” as an example of assisted learning.  I had recently been discussing how helpful it has been for me when teachers allow for turning in a “final rough draft” for a research or English Literature paper, and then the professor takes the time to read through it, provide comments and give you the opportunity to revise the paper for your final draft. This practice was implemented in my English, Criminal Justice and history classes here at Trinity. Having the opportunity to see areas for improvement based on the professor’s comments, and then taking the time to actually learn from the comments and make the changes, was a great learning experience for me. The comments, along with the revisions were not only helpful on the final draft of the paper for that class, but they also helped me take what I learned, and apply it in other papers that I had to write. Revising a paper after receiving comments was so much more valuable to me than just writing a paper, receiving comments and never doing anything with the comments. You learn so much more by actually correcting and doing, than just reading about something.

As a teacher, this practice of assisted learning will definitely take more time and energy. Now, thinking about the time it took my professors to read through the 12-page research paper rough drafts of each of the students in my class, and the time it took to actually write up all of their comments, and then read through all the final drafts of those same papers, I know the extra time that it took. The comments the professor provided for the rough draft were much more detailed so that the students could understand and apply the direct changes to their papers. I learned so much through this process, and I have now gained a greater appreciation for these professors, and the time they put into allowing us this option of assisted learning.

Seeing the great value in this process, when I become a history teacher, I will definitely use this assisted learning technique to allow my students to turn in their rough draft of papers for comments and then allow them to revise their papers and turn in final drafts.

Another examples of assisted learning that I see in my classes here at Trinity is from this class, Educational Psychology.  Dr. Snoeyink, provided us with a sample of a blog post. This helped us to see the expectations for the assignments and gave us something to refer back to as we are doing our own assignment. Without the example, we could have gone off in our own directions and not completed the assignment as was expected. It is so helpful to have an example to know and be able to complete the assignment as the professor expects.

When I become a teacher, I will think back to the examples of assisted learning from my own classes, and I will use these ideas in my classroom. I will also look for unique ways that will help the students in my class learn based on directing and guiding the students to explore learning in new ways. I’m learning the value of my own experiences as a student in the classroom that I will be able to take with me as a become a teacher.

Concept 3: Relationships

Summary

This concept of the importance of positive relationships was carried forward from chapter 1 into chapter 3 on page 92 where Woolfolk said that “Research has documented the value and importance of positive relationships with teachers for students at every grade level.” Woolfolk relates something that seems so simple and expected, like a teacher’s respectful communication through direct eye contact with a smile to increasing students’ desire to excel and their interest in studying. Woolfork talks about two types of caring: academic caring which she defines as “setting high, but reasonable expectations and helping students reach those goals,” and then personal caring which she defines as “being patient, respectful, humorous, willing to listen, interested in students’ issues and personal problems.” On page 93 she says that students “need to be cared for before they could care about school.” Woolfork’s research concludes that good academic instructions, coupled with positive teacher/student relationships, are the key to creating motivated students who will wants to learn, and this, in turn, helps test scores to improve and academic gaps to lessen.

Reflection

In my past experience as a student, I can now look back and see the effect of positive relationships on academic growth and performance. I was fortunate to have developed good relationships with the majority of my teachers throughout the years. These positive relationships truly created a desire inside of me to try harder because I wanted to please my teacher. I remember in 3^rd grade, I had a teacher that would get so excited each time we did well on a test. Specifically, I remember we had math timed tests that she called “mad minutes.” There were four sets of these test, one for addition, one for subtraction, one for multiplication and one for division. We were timed and had to get through as many of the problems as we could in one minute. The goal was to have everyone get through all the problems in one minute. This teacher worked really hard to help us practice and come up with strategies to learn the math so we could quickly recall the answers and write them on our paper. She was so encouraging and never gave up on the students who took longer to reach the goal. Since she was so kind and so sincerely wanted each student to move on to the next level, the students were all motivated to study harder so they could pass.

Since students spend the majority of their day at school with their teachers, establishing a good relationship is important. As Woolfolk notes on page 92, “teachers are sometimes the best source of help” for “students facing emotional or interpersonal problems.” I noticed as I was completing my observation hours last semester that the teacher I was observing had formed a very unique relationship with a student that allowed him to know her well enough to be able to tell when something was bothering her. This student was usually a very bubbly student who typically was a very active member of the daily discussion in class. One day she came into class and was extremely quiet, and when the teacher called on her, she said she didn’t do the reading and could not answer the question. As soon as the teacher completed the lecture time, and gave the students time to work on their homework, the teacher went over and quietly talked with the student. He had already developed a positive relationship with this student on a daily basis so that he could recognize when something was wrong. The student felt comfortable with the teacher too, so she was willing to open up to the teacher and look to him for guidance and support with the issue she was facing.

As a teacher, it is so important to be kind and caring on an academic level as well as a personal level as Woolfork discussed. When I become a teacher, I want to be able to encourage my students to succeed academically by giving them the tools they need to succeed, but I also want to form personal relationships with my students by getting to know what they like to do outside of class, and by getting to know things about their families. Developing these personal relationships with my students will help me to be able to recognize when something is out of sorts in their lives, like I witnessed with my cooperating teacher, so that I can reach out and help them too. Getting excited about my student’s academics successes will help to keep them motivated to try their best and will ultimately lead to success in the classroom too.