Effective Teaching-Learning Concepts

By Bill PagecloseAuthor: Bill Page Name: Bill Page
Site: http://www.billpageteacher.com
About: About Bill Page ... Bill Page, a farm boy, graduated from a one-room school. He forged a career in the classroom teaching middle school “troublemakers.” For the past 26 years, in addition to his classroom duties, he has taught teachers across the nation to teach the lowest achieving students successfully with his proven premise, “Failure is the choice and fault of schools, not the students.” http://www.amazon.com/Risk-Students-Understanding-Accepting-Defensive/dp/0977386309 Bill Page is a classroom teacher. For 46 years, he has patrolled the halls, responded to the bells, and struggled with innovations. He has had his share of lunchroom duty, bus duty, and playground duty. For the past four years, Bill, who is now in his 50th year as a teacher, is also a full time writer. His book, At-Risk Students on Amazon.com and on Bill’s web site: http://www.billpageteacher.com In At-Risk Students, Page discusses problems facing failing students, “who can’t, don’t and won’t learn or cooperate.” “The solution,” he states, “is for teachers to recognize and accept student misbehavior as defense mechanisms used to hide embarrassment and incompetence, and to deal with causes rather than symptoms. By entering into a democratic, participatory relationship, where students assume responsibility for their own learning.” Through 30 vignettes, the book helps teachers see failing students through his eyes as a fellow teacher, whose classroom success with at-risk students made him a premier teacher-speaker in school districts across America.See Authors Posts (68)

makes all the decisions, the teacher is fully responsible.  Students need to participate actively and assume a part of the responsibility for the learning, the procedures, and the decisions. Since students must internalize new learning and integrate it with previous knowledge, they must help make decisions regarding the strategies and their involvement.

11.  “Good classes” or “bad classes” depend on teachers, not kids

As long as I am in charge and charged with leadership, I am responsible for the behavior of the classes.  They are my classes and I determine what happens–for better or for worse.  I have a choice of coming in with a smile or a scowl. I can complain that they “wiggle” or get them up moving.  I choose the lesson and the involvement. Whether kids pay attention and participate depends on the decisions I make as I teach.  Whether kids are interested and learning, or bored and disruptive depends on me, my lessons, my responses, and the class activities. The decisions I make and don’t make determine the class climate.

12.  A summative statement

Teachers don’t choose school policies, their teaching conditions, or class schedules.  But, teachers certainly do choose how they relate and interact with all students who show up in their classes. What kids do or don’t do affects the teacher, and what the teacher does or doesn’t do affects the students. The teacher is a paid, trained, professional adult with certification, and voluntary contractual responsibility for teaching.  Students are compelled to attend. They are expected to have minimal civility, but they do not usually sign an agreement to follow rules, work hard or learn—they just show up as required for whatever the teacher offers.

And, some more concepts

Following are some more concept titles that I identified for myself as a part of my everyday efforts to teach.

Feedback from students is essential.

Time is a fixed factor; it determines priorities.

Cheating yourself is impossible.

Errors or mistakes are essential to learning.

Discipline cannot be separated from teaching.

A classroom is a mini society, a community.

We teach the “whole” child; there is no other choice.

Kids are all different; shall I treat them all alike?

Take time to reflect

What concepts are a part of your beliefs?  How do they manifest themselves? What are other concepts that underlie your teaching philosophy and serve as a basis for your decisions about grades, discipline, missed assignments, homework, and dozens of other teacher functions? It could be worthwhile to be sure the ones you consider important are at a conscious level. That’s the way teaching techniques are created and chosen to help kids learn.

With joy in sharing,
Bill page
billpage@bellsouth.net