Are you aware of the most current methods of effective teaching?

Readership: All; Men;
Theme: Awareness and Introspection; Rationality;
Length: 1,200 words
Reading Time: 6 minutes

Intro

Most readers are probably not aware of this, but the field of Education has made some significant advances over the last 40 years. (This is a tangent to the topic of Meaning, but I think it’s extremely important to increase awareness of these methods, especially for parents and teachers, so I’ve listed some below.)  Many of these advances deal with techniques that ameliorate the aforementioned difficulties and streamline the learning process.  Some of them directly address the problem of incorporating Meaning.

New Teaching Strategies and Techniques

Here’s a bullet list of 20 relatively new teaching strategies, all supported by clinical research over the past 40 years.  (If these seem intuitive to you, then Congratulations!  You are ahead of the majority in the teaching profession.)

  1. Active Consciousness — Consciousness-raising activities accelerate learning more than consciousness-raising ideas, which tend to cause learners to become self-conscious and burden the learner with fears of making mistakes.
  2. Biber’s Breakthrough — Learners become aware of gaps in their productive knowledge when they are required to perform in unfamiliar venues.
  3. Bids and Demands — In situ Bids and Demands between teacher and student — Negotiation (see below) has non-verbal elements that contribute immensely towards encouraging the learner’s interest in engaging in Negotiation.
  4. Choking — Recent theories explaining the phenomenon of Choking may help learners overcome their Fear of a Negative Evaluation (FNE) and develop confidence more quickly.
  5. Cognitive Maps — Building “cognitive maps” that help learners identify weak areas to be addressed.
  6. Csikszentmihalyi Flow — Pushed Output must be balanced with the student’s level of comfort and skill.
  7. Emphasizing Intuitive Processes — Teachers must make a distinction between cognitive processes and intuitive processes.  Mastery of a subject requires that maladaptive intuitive processes should be cognitively addressed, while learned cognitive processes must be transformed into an intuitive process.
  8. Genuine Interest — Students are motivated to learn subjects that they genuinely want to learn. Thus, teachers should identify the student’s purpose for being interested in the subject, and begin from there.
  9. Negotiation — Teachers should acclimate students with a process of feedback and questioning to ascertain form and meaning of the subject.
  10. Observer Status — New learners learn more quickly if they spend >50% of their study time listening and observing, and are not pressured to perform too early.
  11. Positive Feedback — Correction should be objective and should emphasize the correct approach rather than focusing on the students’ errors.
  12. Recognition of Potential — Identifying students’ learning needs is a prerequisite for effective learning.  Without addressing this first, learning will be arduous, tortuous, and greatly retarded.
  13. Simplifications — Simplified perspectives are helpful for beginners to latch onto a general understanding of the subject, but if the student’s mind languishes in generalities and doesn’t move on to recognize contextual nuances and to develop a discriminating awareness of the essential characteristics of how the subject is applied, then these simplifications can become a crippling distraction.
  14. Stevick’s Social Perspective — Emotional and social factors prevent learners from mastering the subject.  For example, some minority group students may believe that only upper-class whites care about a particular subject, and thus are afraid to be ostracized by their peers if they take an interest in the same.
  15. The Centrality of Meta-Cognition — Having a critical awareness of one’s own thoughts, thinking patterns, and learning is crucial for effective learning to take place.  If learners cannot engage in meta-cognition, then they will lack insight about their own deficiencies and will remain unaware of what they need to do in order to improve their skills (e.g. the Dunning-Kruger Effect).  Therefore, teachers need to arouse meta-cognition in their students.
  16. The Output Hypothesis — Learners notice an in situ demand for a particular skill related to the subject.  They try out a response and then either confirm or modify their performance on the basis of perceived success and feedback.
  17. The Precise Ear — A teacher (or counselor, mentor, etc.) who has excellent listening skills will be able to comprehend what the speaker intends to say but which is NOT being said, and through a process of Negotiation, will help the speaker find more precise words to say exactly what they mean.
  18. The Time-On-Task Principle — The more time you spend doing something, the better you are likely to be at doing it.
  19. Triggering indicates an Information Gap that should be addressed.
  20. Walker’s Principle — In assessing a learner’s real ability, a direct observation when interacting with a learner through an oral examination is superior to a written test.
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Problems with Implementing these Methods

As described in the previous essay, the generative remedial classroom is intended to provide the social interaction through which learners are provided the means to absorb and/or develop “Meaning”.  However, many students are content to merely listen and observe, and NOT proactively interact towards the purpose of attaining “Meaning”.  Worse, many institutions of learning fail to provide the necessary environment that would enable the absorption of “Meaning”, most notably in courses that number hundreds of students and/or which do not provide regular one-on-one interactions with advanced technology, the professors, and other experts.

Other than these social environment conditions, I believe the predominant reason why these advances remain obscure and seldom employed within institutions of learning is that teachers themselves are poorly equipped with these new methods and are instead more concerned about ethics, classroom management, and time management.  I do not mean to say that these practical concerns are unimportant, but that the more essential purpose of teaching — equipping students with useful abilities, knowledge, and skills — should not be sidelined or underemphasized.

Theoretically, if a teacher approaches the subject in a dispassionate and factual way, and students are rather attentive, disciplined, intelligent, and intent on developing Meaningful knowledge, then all these problems would cease to exist.  However, in reality, this only displaces the burdens of learning and interpreting Meaning onto the student, which may only increase confusion among students who may be wholly unable to incorporate practical Meaning independently.  It also makes for a rather boring essay or lecture.

The more basic problem underlying this malady is that classrooms are no longer a place where authorities (both teachers and academic administrations) are permitted to enforce the kind of discipline required for students to feel safe enough to be humble and vulnerable, which is absolutely necessary for Meaning to be imparted, and for real learning to occur.

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Conclusions

Teachers should always be critical of any teaching method as a tool.  The main question should always be “Is it accurately and usefully describing reality?”

Teachers should assume that students, in general, are not capable or ready to use the subject information without misinterpreting it or abusing it.

As a corollary to the last point, teachers should always be aware of how students might misinterpret the subject by attaching any incongruent personalized Meaning and offer some commentary or further insights that will put things into proper perspective.

If you are a parent, I suggest you research the above methods, and the next time you have a parent-teacher meeting, you can offer probing questions to find out whether the teacher is aware of them.

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