1.1: Problem of Practice
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Problems of Practice: Student Leaders
In any given classroom, each and every student brings their own set of strengths and weaknesses with them. One quality that many teachers focus on and try to enhance is the leadership capability that every student has in different manners. However, in my classroom, I’ve been experiencing some difficulties in harnessing all of the different kinds of leadership within a lesson.
Normally in class when I am lecturing, I have about five to six students who regularly interact with me as I am talking to the class: they ask me questions, have answers when I pose questions, and they are the ones I know I can rely on to tell me when something is confusing, or if what I just said makes perfect sense, and they are speakers for the class. However, this group of leaders fade into the background when I try other activities.
I’ve begun veering away from straight lecture whenever I can, and getting students instead to move,
and show me a concept, or using art to demonstrate principles in chemistry. One day, I was teaching the class about the nucleus and how both protons and neutrons exist in it, in a very tight format. So I showed them a couple of pictures of it and taught atomic and mass number, but then instead of just moving on to the next topic, I decided to make a game out of it. I divided the class into two different groups and had them form human nuclei from the mass and atomic number I gave them. What amazed me the most was that the 5-6 people who are usually my core people and the leaders during lecture, fall to the wayside when these other methods of learning are implemented. New leaders all of a sudden emerged, and the sleepers in my class become the most active participants. They were actively engaged in managing their teammates and applying the concepts of atomic and mass numbers to forming a nucleus in as accurate a format as possible. So my problem is that there are at least two distinct groups of learners in my classroom, each of whom becomes a leader under one activity, and then fades away in the other. So why do some students participate in some activities and other students participate in other activities, and how can we get all students to participate in one lesson while still relaying the content information?
First off, why are there these two distinct groups of leaders? As mentioned before, there are two distinct types of teaching going on in my classroom: one more lecture-oriented, and the other more activity-based. These two styles are very in line with Llewellyn’s (2005) traditional and inquiry-based classrooms. According to Llewellyn (2005), the traditional classroom is very teacher-centered: it is very lecture based, and students answer the teacher’s questions, who then deems whether the answers are right or not. The portion of my classes in which I directly lecture the students would therefore be considered typical of the
traditional classroom, and the students who become leaders in that portion of class may thrive off of this more teacher-centered style (Llewellyn, 2005).
On the other hand, the more activity-based teaching that I do could be considered inquiry-based. Inquiry-based classrooms are much more student-centered: allowing students to create the project and figure out the answers (Llewellyn, 2005). There are several different ways to do inquiry: design testing, product testing, black boxes, discrepant events, and simulation programs (Koehler & Wang, 2012). Looking back, these all fit in with activities that I have done with the students. For example, I have used is the black box activity to introduce the concept of how hard an atom is to study, and the human nucleus activity I described earlier is a form of design challenge, in which students were given specific instruction to produce a product. Therefore, these “alternative” activities I have been doing have been forms of inquiry, and the students who become leaders during these tasks may be more inquiry-oriented. Yet the one group of students who become leaders during inquiry may not just become leaders because they are more inclined to it, but also because they may have been introduced to it earlier.
Llewellyn (2005) mentions that inquiry-based teaching requires a lot of scaffolding—it does not just occur overnight. Therefore, the group of students who “come alive” when I do more inquiry-based activities may be more inclined towards inquiry because they have had more scaffolding in it: they may have had teachers who have introduced them to it early on, and are thus used to it. Inquiry-based learning is very different, as it is mostly-student oriented, which many students may not be used to; getting students to ask their own questions and come up with ways to figure out the answer is hard to do, as many of them have grown up in the teacher-centered classroom. Because of this, students who have not done it before may not know what “it’s all about,” and this group of students may be my lecture leaders: they may just not be used to inquiry, and this might be why they fall to the wayside whenever I try an inquiry-based activity.
However, students becoming leaders in the traditional and inquiry-based aspects of my classroom may not just be due to the manner of teaching they have grown up with, but also with their natural intelligences. Gardner (1998) discusses eight different kinds of intelligences that people have different distributions of; logical-mathematical, spatial, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential. Therefore, I think that the two different groups of students may be “strong” in two different combinations of multiple intelligences; the leaders in lecture may have a very keen linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, while as the leaders in the other activities I do may have more developed spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and interpersonal intelligences. In other words, the two different groups of students in my classroom that participate in the different kinds of teaching may just have a natural inclination toward a certain kind of learning because they have a certain combination of intelligences. So in the end, what it comes down to is not the style of teaching, but the style of learning; it may not be possible for the two groups of leaders to become leaders in the opposite areas because of the theory of multiple intelligences.
In conclusion, the reasons behind why I have two groups of leaders that come alive either in the traditional classroom or the inquiry-based classroom may be due to a combination of three factors: preference for a certain classroom-style, how early they were introduced to inquiry-based learning, and their individual distributions of intelligences. Yet even though these two groups of people may be more at ease with different teaching styles, how can I get all students to participate in one lesson and still get the course material relayed?
Based on this conclusion, it seems that different students excel at different tasks within the classroom. It could thus be possible that students feel more mastery of the material when it is delivered in a manner that is good for them, and this may be why they become leaders. In other words, my students who are leaders during lectures may be leaders in this type of classroom because the manner in which the information is delivered fits with them, and thus they can feel like masters of the subject matter, and thus feel confident enough to lead in class. On the other hand, they fall to the wayside, and are not leaders when inquiry-based techniques are used. Therefore, the manner in which the material is delivered may be reflective of which student get it and which don’t, and is thus also reflective of which students lead in class versus which don’t.
However, since the ultimate goal of teaching is to relay content material to students, it should be done in a manner that is applicable to most students. Therefore, reflecting back on it, when I use the inquiry-based questions to teach content material, this may not be fair to the group of students who do not become leaders in those scenarios, for they may not learn it as well. Similarly, if I only use lecture to teach content material, this may not be fair to the students who thrive in inquiry. Therefore, if I am going to maximally include as many students as possible in my lessons, I need to somehow combine both lecturing and inquiry so as to include as many students as possible.
Wilson and Corbett (2001) did a study on what the “ideal” teacher was, and two of the characteristics that they mentioned were being able to explain a topic in multiple ways so that everyone understands, and also to vary classroom activity. It seems that this is what I need to do: deliver the information both in the classical classroom format, but then also tie in inquiry for those students who are more abstractly-oriented. In this sense, both formats should be used to supplement each other so that material is delivered in as many ways as possible thus allowing as many students as possible to become leaders, and this masters, of the content material.
There was one time this happened, but I was unaware of why it happened. I was teaching Pauli, Aufbau, and Hund’s rules for filling electrons into their orbitals. So I took each rule at a time, and first taught them (in lecture format) what each rule meant. Then, I demonstrated what each rule meant by having the students be electrons, and having them fill in the seats of the classroom (which were “orbitals” at the time) in the correct order, using the three rules. Therefore, the first part of the lesson had a more traditional format, and the latter half had a more inquiry-based format. Towards the end of the lesson, the entire class knew what I was talking about, and they all called out the answers. I even had students who were neither leaders in either the traditional classroom or the inquiry-based classroom before start to participate. This situation was thus an example of when differentiated instruction was used to help multiple students become leaders in class.
In conclusion, there is a way to harness the multiple leaders in the classroom. The reason that there are those two main groups of leaders in my classroom may be because there are two very distinct types of teaching being used: the more traditional and a more inquiry-based form. Students may thus be more inclined towards or the other based on how early they have been introduced to inquiry, and how used to it
they are, but also based on what distribution of the multiple intelligences they have. Because of this natural inclination towards one or the other, students are more likely to become leaders in class when the style that suits them is used, as they are more likely to master content when it is delivered in a manner in which they understand. Thus, in order to harness all the forms of leadership in my classroom, I must not just differentiate instruction by using either lecture or inquiry to teach individual subjects, but I must use both of them together, so as to relay to the same information in as many ways as possible. This method will allow me to reach as many different types of learners was possible, which will allow them all to become masters of the content. This actually played out when I did this unknowingly when teaching the three rules of orbital diagramming. Now the challenge is just figuring out a way to include differentiated instruction in every content area of chemistry. But hey, who ever said it was going to be easy?
Problems of Practice: Student Leaders
In any given classroom, each and every student brings their own set of strengths and weaknesses with them. One quality that many teachers focus on and try to enhance is the leadership capability that every student has in different manners. However, in my classroom, I’ve been experiencing some difficulties in harnessing all of the different kinds of leadership within a lesson.
Normally in class when I am lecturing, I have about five to six students who regularly interact with me as I am talking to the class: they ask me questions, have answers when I pose questions, and they are the ones I know I can rely on to tell me when something is confusing, or if what I just said makes perfect sense, and they are speakers for the class. However, this group of leaders fade into the background when I try other activities.
I’ve begun veering away from straight lecture whenever I can, and getting students instead to move,
and show me a concept, or using art to demonstrate principles in chemistry. One day, I was teaching the class about the nucleus and how both protons and neutrons exist in it, in a very tight format. So I showed them a couple of pictures of it and taught atomic and mass number, but then instead of just moving on to the next topic, I decided to make a game out of it. I divided the class into two different groups and had them form human nuclei from the mass and atomic number I gave them. What amazed me the most was that the 5-6 people who are usually my core people and the leaders during lecture, fall to the wayside when these other methods of learning are implemented. New leaders all of a sudden emerged, and the sleepers in my class become the most active participants. They were actively engaged in managing their teammates and applying the concepts of atomic and mass numbers to forming a nucleus in as accurate a format as possible. So my problem is that there are at least two distinct groups of learners in my classroom, each of whom becomes a leader under one activity, and then fades away in the other. So why do some students participate in some activities and other students participate in other activities, and how can we get all students to participate in one lesson while still relaying the content information?
First off, why are there these two distinct groups of leaders? As mentioned before, there are two distinct types of teaching going on in my classroom: one more lecture-oriented, and the other more activity-based. These two styles are very in line with Llewellyn’s (2005) traditional and inquiry-based classrooms. According to Llewellyn (2005), the traditional classroom is very teacher-centered: it is very lecture based, and students answer the teacher’s questions, who then deems whether the answers are right or not. The portion of my classes in which I directly lecture the students would therefore be considered typical of the
traditional classroom, and the students who become leaders in that portion of class may thrive off of this more teacher-centered style (Llewellyn, 2005).
On the other hand, the more activity-based teaching that I do could be considered inquiry-based. Inquiry-based classrooms are much more student-centered: allowing students to create the project and figure out the answers (Llewellyn, 2005). There are several different ways to do inquiry: design testing, product testing, black boxes, discrepant events, and simulation programs (Koehler & Wang, 2012). Looking back, these all fit in with activities that I have done with the students. For example, I have used is the black box activity to introduce the concept of how hard an atom is to study, and the human nucleus activity I described earlier is a form of design challenge, in which students were given specific instruction to produce a product. Therefore, these “alternative” activities I have been doing have been forms of inquiry, and the students who become leaders during these tasks may be more inquiry-oriented. Yet the one group of students who become leaders during inquiry may not just become leaders because they are more inclined to it, but also because they may have been introduced to it earlier.
Llewellyn (2005) mentions that inquiry-based teaching requires a lot of scaffolding—it does not just occur overnight. Therefore, the group of students who “come alive” when I do more inquiry-based activities may be more inclined towards inquiry because they have had more scaffolding in it: they may have had teachers who have introduced them to it early on, and are thus used to it. Inquiry-based learning is very different, as it is mostly-student oriented, which many students may not be used to; getting students to ask their own questions and come up with ways to figure out the answer is hard to do, as many of them have grown up in the teacher-centered classroom. Because of this, students who have not done it before may not know what “it’s all about,” and this group of students may be my lecture leaders: they may just not be used to inquiry, and this might be why they fall to the wayside whenever I try an inquiry-based activity.
However, students becoming leaders in the traditional and inquiry-based aspects of my classroom may not just be due to the manner of teaching they have grown up with, but also with their natural intelligences. Gardner (1998) discusses eight different kinds of intelligences that people have different distributions of; logical-mathematical, spatial, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential. Therefore, I think that the two different groups of students may be “strong” in two different combinations of multiple intelligences; the leaders in lecture may have a very keen linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, while as the leaders in the other activities I do may have more developed spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and interpersonal intelligences. In other words, the two different groups of students in my classroom that participate in the different kinds of teaching may just have a natural inclination toward a certain kind of learning because they have a certain combination of intelligences. So in the end, what it comes down to is not the style of teaching, but the style of learning; it may not be possible for the two groups of leaders to become leaders in the opposite areas because of the theory of multiple intelligences.
In conclusion, the reasons behind why I have two groups of leaders that come alive either in the traditional classroom or the inquiry-based classroom may be due to a combination of three factors: preference for a certain classroom-style, how early they were introduced to inquiry-based learning, and their individual distributions of intelligences. Yet even though these two groups of people may be more at ease with different teaching styles, how can I get all students to participate in one lesson and still get the course material relayed?
Based on this conclusion, it seems that different students excel at different tasks within the classroom. It could thus be possible that students feel more mastery of the material when it is delivered in a manner that is good for them, and this may be why they become leaders. In other words, my students who are leaders during lectures may be leaders in this type of classroom because the manner in which the information is delivered fits with them, and thus they can feel like masters of the subject matter, and thus feel confident enough to lead in class. On the other hand, they fall to the wayside, and are not leaders when inquiry-based techniques are used. Therefore, the manner in which the material is delivered may be reflective of which student get it and which don’t, and is thus also reflective of which students lead in class versus which don’t.
However, since the ultimate goal of teaching is to relay content material to students, it should be done in a manner that is applicable to most students. Therefore, reflecting back on it, when I use the inquiry-based questions to teach content material, this may not be fair to the group of students who do not become leaders in those scenarios, for they may not learn it as well. Similarly, if I only use lecture to teach content material, this may not be fair to the students who thrive in inquiry. Therefore, if I am going to maximally include as many students as possible in my lessons, I need to somehow combine both lecturing and inquiry so as to include as many students as possible.
Wilson and Corbett (2001) did a study on what the “ideal” teacher was, and two of the characteristics that they mentioned were being able to explain a topic in multiple ways so that everyone understands, and also to vary classroom activity. It seems that this is what I need to do: deliver the information both in the classical classroom format, but then also tie in inquiry for those students who are more abstractly-oriented. In this sense, both formats should be used to supplement each other so that material is delivered in as many ways as possible thus allowing as many students as possible to become leaders, and this masters, of the content material.
There was one time this happened, but I was unaware of why it happened. I was teaching Pauli, Aufbau, and Hund’s rules for filling electrons into their orbitals. So I took each rule at a time, and first taught them (in lecture format) what each rule meant. Then, I demonstrated what each rule meant by having the students be electrons, and having them fill in the seats of the classroom (which were “orbitals” at the time) in the correct order, using the three rules. Therefore, the first part of the lesson had a more traditional format, and the latter half had a more inquiry-based format. Towards the end of the lesson, the entire class knew what I was talking about, and they all called out the answers. I even had students who were neither leaders in either the traditional classroom or the inquiry-based classroom before start to participate. This situation was thus an example of when differentiated instruction was used to help multiple students become leaders in class.
In conclusion, there is a way to harness the multiple leaders in the classroom. The reason that there are those two main groups of leaders in my classroom may be because there are two very distinct types of teaching being used: the more traditional and a more inquiry-based form. Students may thus be more inclined towards or the other based on how early they have been introduced to inquiry, and how used to it
they are, but also based on what distribution of the multiple intelligences they have. Because of this natural inclination towards one or the other, students are more likely to become leaders in class when the style that suits them is used, as they are more likely to master content when it is delivered in a manner in which they understand. Thus, in order to harness all the forms of leadership in my classroom, I must not just differentiate instruction by using either lecture or inquiry to teach individual subjects, but I must use both of them together, so as to relay to the same information in as many ways as possible. This method will allow me to reach as many different types of learners was possible, which will allow them all to become masters of the content. This actually played out when I did this unknowingly when teaching the three rules of orbital diagramming. Now the challenge is just figuring out a way to include differentiated instruction in every content area of chemistry. But hey, who ever said it was going to be easy?