7. Teaching: What & How
Description:
There are three basic concepts or theories that make up teaching: curriculum, instruction and assessment. This page will focus mostly on the what is taught (curriculum) and how it is taught (instruction). Curriculum refers to the selection and organization of content and learning experience. There is many types of curriculum included formal, inner and hidden curriculum. Formal or planned curriculum includes a subset group of curriculum that includes learner-centered curriculum, needs-of-society curriculum and academic-subject curriculum. Common curriculum includes curriculum such as state standards and high-stakes testing such as state standardized testing (Armstrong, Henson & Savage, 2009). Instruction refers to the art, practice or profession of imparting knowledge on individuals. Instruction can be influenced by the teacher's own disposition and their level of engagement in active teaching.
Illustration: the two pictures below show how instruction, assessment and curriculum work together in unison to facilitate student learning.
Practical Example:
A practical example of teaching: what and how, is observation. I observed a 8th grade teacher instruct her students in algebra. She was a active teacher and highly engaged with her students, answering questions and reinforcing interest in the subject through effective lessons. She modeled expected behaviors and expected products of learning (i.e. what she wants their answers to look like). She provided opportunities for learner's to practice what they had learned by having them work on the next question on the whiteboards at their desks and she monitored learner's progress by having them show her their work and she told them whether they were correct or not. If they got the answer wrong, she went back and walked them through the steps until they realized their mistake and fixed it.
Integral Components:
Integral concepts of curriculum and instruction are as follows. Formal, inner and hidden curriculum. Formal curriculum refers to the planned curriculum set forth by the schoool - i.e. content and the books, guides and materials used. Formal curriculum can be further broken down into three groups, learner-centered curriculum (the belief that learners interests and needs should drive the curriculum), needs-of-society curriculum (the belief that learners need to recognize and respond to important issues and they also need to be taught the skills necessary to make a living) and academic-subject curriculum (separating lessons into specific subjects). Inner curriculum describes learning that occurs within learners as they process new information. Hidden curriculum refers to curriculum that is taught implictly such as rules teachers implement in their classroom or content teachers focus on sends a message of what is important and appropriate in the classroom. Moving to the curriculum, common curriculum includes curriculum such as state standards (i.e. Common Core) and high-stakes testing such as state standardized testing to measure the student's success of learning (Armstrong, Henson & Savage, 2009).
How teaching relates to me and my future classroom:
Curriculum, instruction and assessment all relate to my future classroom class because all three of them make up the important, integral parts of student's learning. How students are taught and what is taught makes a difference in the way they learn and remember ideas, concepts and big themes. From knowing myself and my own (brief) experience in the classroom I have a feeling my curriculum will incorporate both planned curriculum and learner-centered curriculum as my instruction and assessment will focus on skill based learning.
Scripture:
"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you" - Psalm 32:8. I chose this Scripture because teachers are very influential in their students world and what and how they teach their students can influence those learners for many years to come.