To get started on my Pedagogy Statement, I think I will take you up on the offer to answer questions first, and soon, I will revise it and organize it into themes.
First, I would identify myself as a tutor and as such I have to consider each of my students
individually. For ELL students it's about progress, but I feel this is the right attitude for all
students. You take students where they are and help them to make substantial progress. I
suppose I incline to go for mastery, when teaching skills. Whether it be writing a summary, or a
letter, or using quotation marks, I do want them to be within like 80 -85% proficient before I
move on. If I am with a large group and I have to move on, then I will try to give that one or two
students extra time for more practice. I measure mastery by number of mechanical errors in
their piece. However, I also pay attention if the student can both perform and feel confident
that he knows he knows and he realizes that he can do it.
I am not sure what your meaning is between mastery, or competency or transformational. I will
gues that I aim for a bit of all three. I have noted in my blogging that I would like my students
(especially the older ones) to wake up and be conscious of the world around them and the needs
of others. I am not talking about guiding them toward saving the world but just realize what
prejudice is, how insidious it can be in subtle ways. I want them to be exposed to if not text then
movies and discussion and then writing so they can realize and say," I have experienced
prejudice and perhaps racism and I don't want to add to that in this world and so being friendly
and kind to all is a noble and necessary way to live. ( So am I an idealist?) . That is one part.
Another part is what I consider life skills( albeit academic) I have taught children and adults
how to use the telephone book, use a ruler ( middle school) , how to use a dictionary and value
that. Study skills are a big thing with me. I believe kids who fail , fail for a great part because
they have never learned to find a way to be organized, to ask questions, to talk to the teachers
with concerns, to study. Too many students do not know how to study!! Also I want students to
fall in love with reading and writing. I want to prove to them that their are books they will enjoy
and that writing gets a bad rap. I do this by finding ways like the 1850 guys Morley and Frost.
I want to encourage students to write form their thoughts, feelings and experiences and
compare themselves to characters they read about. I want them to write poetry easily and
admit that it is not what they thought. I am always collecting new but simple ideas that will
make writing for natural and meaningful and so more enjoyable. Let's see, for example I am
going to use more pictures!
I want my students to grow in every way including academic skills. I want them to grow in
confidence, that they can do what they want and they can make goals and reach them. In writing
I want their writing to become more theirs, more sophisticated in style - dabbling with
techniques- maybe using foreshadowing and flashbacks in stories subtle inferences; in
nonfiction being able to make a sound argument in a provocative attention getting way. I want
them to grow and continue to grow their vocabulary and master the skill of giving great
examples that really work. I am impressed that the example has been valued since antiquity.
For ESL students and most,cooperative learning creates success. Students often learn better
from a peer than a teacher. The power may be more equal. I try to encourage and arrange
students who have different strengths and I am explicit in explaining the advantage of this.
One student may be strong in computer skills or organization or mechanics and another may be
good with ideas bit doesn't know how to do these other things.
I always want to be certain that my students hae some backgorund before getting into an
assignment or I must help them connect or build their backgorund knowledge. I feel strongly
that students learn best in their sphere of proximity. I have to be sure to push students to
reach their ability but I also need to be aware that I need to back up a bit because it's over their
heads conceptually or just in their level of skills mastered. I am also convinced that teachers
must be learning as they teach. teachers of reading should be reading and teachers of writers
must must be writing and using their personal writing as an example, in the sense that I have
good ideas but I need to revise and I enjoy writing. I write about whatever I ask them to write
about.
I have not covered all the questions I am sure, but I believe it is a good start for a first draft attempt.
I like your ideas, Nancy. It seems to me that many of the skills you stress were once taught at home by parents. Even when we were fairly young, my mother had us sitting around the kitchen table taking spelling tests, copying from the dictionary and the encyclopedia, and writing letters to our relatives. We also wrote out our times tables and did math problems. She checked over our work and pronounced it good enough or not, and sometimes made us do it over. We also learned poems by heart and listened to music. Perhaps my mother was a frustrated teacher, but I don't think so. I think she believed it was the job of parents to be part of their childrens' education. Because she was willing to spend time and energy on us, we were successful in school and were competent enough to manage college-level work.
ReplyDeleteOf course, all this presupposes parents who have some amount of education and competence, and are committed to doing a good job as parents. Also, we didn't have a TV in the house until I was in high school, so that distraction simply didn't exist for us.