Teaching and Learning

The selections that we read about Teachers and fundamental philosophies that guide how we interact with our students in learning communities were all very good and encouraged me to think in a more theoretical way about my teaching style.  However, none rang as true as Vygotsky’s supportive assistance to the learner, and especially the concept of “fading.”  I have also seen this concept referred to as “vanishing”. The concept of scaffolding has been something that I have done for literally decades, and it has been very successful in producing confident learners that have a desire to go on and continue to learn more.  People love to learn, we are build to acquire information.  As Bill said, “try to go a day without learning something.”  We just have to convince the students that 1) they are learners and 2) what we are trying to show them is important and achievable. It is often negative experiences that cause people to think that they can’t: write, do math, sing, draw, learn a language, or acquire any new skill.

Since I work primarily in helping students with writing projects I’ve probably had over a hundred students tell me, “I can’t write very well” or “I hate writing” and after working at the Writing Center for several sessions to later tell me, “I wish I had known this before” or “this is really fun”.  One of the students who I first met a few years ago came in saying he hated writing, wasn’t very good at it, and just wanted to pass the class.  He loved to talk and he had a lot of opinions, once he learned the tools for writing he started getting 4.0 in all his classes (he had a 1.5 GPA before).  He now works at the LCC Writing Center and is majoring in Professional Writing. I used the principles of scaffolding and vanishing, but I also added quite a bit of direction in the very beginning of our interactions.  This student had a very poor self image, he had faced a lot of failures in his life and he wasn’t at the point where I could even give him a simple task and let him finish it alone.  We had to walk together through it. 

 I find that students often are very insecure at first, I know that I am also this way, and it helps tremendously to have initial guidance and simple tasks, so both the facilitators (instructor) and the learner (student) are able to work together through the task. First of all I think it is important to talk to the student and find out their goals…in a one-to-one setting this is very easy.  In an online setting this can often be accomplished through guided introductions –people love to talk about themselves and through their disclosure we can often find clues that help us to see their overall goals and their apprehensions in writing. I like to be more directive at first, demonstrate how things can be done.  Note: I always emphasize this is ONE of the MANY ways to approach writing, there is no “right” or “wrong” method.  I like to work like a chef on a cooking show.  I always discuss each step that I  suggest and tell the learner(s) why I do things in this particular way.  Then I step back and work more as a cheerleader and when needed sometimes give more specific guidance like a mentor.  But always giving honest evaluation, looking for areas that are really promising. Even the most basic reader can tell when something is written effectively. False praise doesn’t help them and they lose respect for the instructor.  But just criticizing doesn’t help at all either.  There needs to be a balance and a recognition of what elements are good in the learner’s writing and what elements need revision.

As I look to better refine my own writing, and especially my teaching philosophy statement, it helps tremendously to look at the theoretical background that other experts have already developed to see what we can learn.  And I guess that brings me to one of my other key beliefs.  The best teachers are also learners.