Saturday, September 18, 2010
Welcome to Expert Teacher
For the last few years I have been grappling with the concept of teacher expertise. Part of this comes from the work I do with teachers of all levels of expertise who are already working in public schools, and the other from the fact that I teach university students who want to become teachers. Though I am usually working with teachers or prospective teachers of English as foreign language whose native language is Japanese, I find myself working more and more with teachers of other disciplines as well. Regular contact with both veteran and novice teachers has caused me to ponder the following questions: What is expertise? How do we get it? Is there some way to help teachers develop it? What do we mean when we say someone is an expert teacher? What makes them different from a novice or even competent teacher? Did they get that way just through years of experience and practice? If so, do all teachers develop expertise if they teach long enough? These are some of the questions I hope you will discuss with me here.
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The first question that came to my mind when I read your blog post was: “Is teaching an art or a science?” One of the hallmarks of science is that it can be replicated. For example, what pastry chefs do, that is, making pastries and desserts, is a science, though it may appear to be an art. Hironobu Tsujiguchi, a famed pastry chef in Tokyo, has got making pastries down to a science, experimenting with different temperatures and controlling all other variables, eventually producing perfect pastries all the time. On the other hand, tea ceremony is an art. Meticulous though it seems in the way every cup of tea is made, tea ceremony refuses to be replicated, saying every meeting never happens again! Having written this far, I googled “Is teaching an art or a science?” and found the following link to an article you may find relevant.
ReplyDeletehttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v42n3/pdf/editor.pdf
I like the two examples that you have given here. I would say that teaching for me is more tea ceremony than pastry making in terms of the descriptions you gave. However, I think we can say that both Tsujiguchi and a Tea Master bring expertise to the table. Imel (2003) tells us that expertise is a word associated with tacit knowledge. Tsujiguchi has made part of his expertise into explicit knowledge in that his method of making pastries can be reproduced by him and his assistants with near perfect results each time. The tea master, however, may or may not make his/her expert knowledge explicit. Part of what a tea master does is teach. There are probably some things the master will explain to his/her students. In this case, the master's expert knowledge is made explicit. However, I imagine that the master will expect his/her students to "pick up" many more things than are or can be explained. This is what Nonaka, Toyama and Konno (2000) refer to as the process of "socialization" or the transfer of tacit knowledge over time and through context. Going back to your question of art or science, if we say that teaching is more science than art, we should be able to make expertise explicit and have others replicate it. However, if we say it is more art than science, in that it it's different every time like tea ceremony, can we make that expertise explcit and teach it to novices?
ReplyDeleteLet me play devil’s advocate and ask this question: Can everybody be an Ichiro—the one of a kind Seattle Mariner? I followed up on one of the articles mentioned in the link above and found out that Brewer & Burgess (2005) examined how teachers’ (a) teaching methods, (b) personal qualities, and (c) classroom management enhance or deflate students’ motivation. Perhaps we can dissect and identify what expert teachers do and who they are, but I have a doubt in my mind if we could feed our findings to a person and make her a great teacher. Maybe we can try to teach other people to be like Icihro, but we will only get so much in a single person. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteReference:
Brewer, E. W. & Burgess, D. N. (2005). Professor's Role in Motivating Students to Attend Class. Journal of Industrial Teacher Education, 42(3)
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v42n3/brewer.html
Thanks for your willingness to play! I think I can rephrase your question to the following: Does every teacher have the potential to become an expert teacher? I don't know, there is probably an element of talent to it much like there is in sports, music, theater, medicine, etc. However, I do think that all teachers can benefit from the knowledge and know-how of expert teachers if it can be made explicit to them, e.g., through scholarly articles, mentoring, coaching, workshops, etc. This exposure may not turn novice or experienced teachers into the Ichiro's of the classroom, but it may help them become better teachers. For example, if we know that one thing expert teachers do is use reflection to improve their practice, then we could help other teachers learn how to be more reflective. You are right in saying that they may not be able to obtain the same results as the expert, but trying to do what the expert does might lead to professional growth and development and eventually improvement in their teaching, something that might not have happened without trying to do what expert teachers do.
ReplyDeleteHow can we avoid saying that expert teachers have expertise because they have expertise? There are so many things we don’t have to do or be in order to be an expert teacher, just as we don’t have to be rich, be married, own a Ferrari, or live in Paris in order to be happy. Happy people are happy because they are happy, aren’t they? Furthermore, does expertise matter? Anybody with a gun can be an expert teacher. Who wouldn’t study like hell with the gun pointed at their head? I’m curious what you have to say.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your first question, we can try to define what an expert teacher is. There is a fair amount of literature on the subject. Some describe the way the classrooms of expert teachers "look.” Classrooms of expert teachers have the following characteristics: an atmosphere of working with students rather than controlling them; students talking to and asking questions of each other as well as the teacher; students actively involved in problem solving activities; less emphasis on facts and right answers and more emphasis on thinking, listening, and problem solving; mutual respect between learners and teacher (Kohn as cited in Varella, 2000). Other literature describes the characteristics of expert teachers. Expert teachers have extensive subject matter knowledge, which is hierarchically organized so they can remember more (Schempp, Tan, & McCullick, 2002). Expert teachers know how to integrate subject matter knowledge into their teaching (Tsui, 2009). Their teaching is easy, graceful, and activities flow seamlessly from one to the next; expert teachers are able to quickly observe a situation and make a decision about what is important and what is not. In addition, they are patient and don't jump to early conclusions when confronted with a problem (Schempp et al., 2002). Expert teachers are reflective and never stop learning or trying to improve themselves (Tsui, 2009; Schempp et al., 2002). They have fewer goals for each lesson and goals are clear and oriented to student achievement; thus, they teach less, but teach better. Expert teachers also know how to engage students in active learning (Schempp et al., 2002). Would you agree with these lists or like to subtract from or add to them?
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your extensive feedback to my question. I do agree with the list, but having asked the jaw-dropping second question, I am beginning to wonder if we might fare well by focusing more on the students rather than on what expert teachers do, because motivation is the key for any learning to take place on the part of the students. I suspect that expert teachers have a raft of means at their disposal that motivate their students to learn. In addition, when it comes to language learning, given the amount of learning that is necessary, expert teachers motivate the students to learn outside the classroom as well as inside, I think. In my opinion, expert teachers know what motivates the students, and they tap into this most powerful resource for any learning to take place: motivation and curiosity. I am curious to know if there might be a panacea that can be prescribed to any student under any circumstances, as it is a constant struggle for me to find what turns on the switch in my students’ head. I hope this comment of mine is on track.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was a jaw dropping question and yes, I think your comment above is right on track. I would agree that there is something that expert teachers possess that allows them to connect with students and tap into what engages students or motivates them to learn. Tsui (2009) finds that expert teachers engage in exploration and experimentation in their own learning and teaching. This fits with my experience of watching and working with teachers I consider to be experts. Do you think that expert teachers are able to engage students' curiosity and motivation because they are good at doing it in their own learning? Another possibility that comes to mind is that expert teachers may be so engaged and interested in their subject area that this "rubs off" a little on students. This is similar to the simple physics experiment you can do with two tuning forks. If you set off one tuning fork and the other tuning fork is in close proximity it will start ringing even though it hasn't been struck. There is a technical term for this that escapes me for some reason, but Caleb Gattegno, the founder of the Silent Way approach to teaching foreign languages, believed it happened in people as well. The other question is how do teachers who can touch or spur on motivation in students learn how to do that or develop that ability.
ReplyDeleteWhen I asked the second question, referring to the hypothetical effectiveness of teaching with a gun, what I had in mind, in fact, was colonialism. If we look at the world map and review world history, examples abound of successful language imposition on the indigenous population by the colonists. However, I will sign off on this subject as we don’t want to veer into irrelevance, I think.
ReplyDeleteYour last comment reminded me of an ABC News podcast in which two “teachers with the secret to success” were featured.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/secrets-americas-greatest-teachers-9961455
And, you can learn about “Teaching As Leadership,” on which the podcast was based, at the following link:
http://www.teachingasleadership.org/
Writing this to you makes me feel as if I were “preaching to Buddha,” but I will go ahead and post this comment, hoping it will somehow contribute to your research.