How to Learn Models of Teaching: Building a basic repertoire

Despite our attempts to illustrate in practical terms what the alternative approaches to teaching look like in classroom practice, this book is not intended to provide the instruction necessary for a complete practical application. By using it and the sources from which it draws, a highly skilled teacher can begin to explore some of the approaches, and working together, teachers can bring themselves to a considerable level of expertise. The companion books, Infoemation-processing Model of Teaching, Social Models of Teaching, and Personal Models of Teaching, contain the relatively complete instructional systems to help people acquire competence in eight models selected from those three families. If used with their accompanying video tapes, which demonstrate ways of carrying on each og the eight models, nearly every motivated person can learn to carry on those models in a reasonably powerful form.

          In this chapter we will explore a few of the questions about how to learn a repertoire of models, including how many to acquire, how to choose them, how to go about learning them, and how it will very likely affect one’s teaching style. For a relatively complete review of the research into learning a repertoire of models of teaching, the reader is referred to “The ‘Models of Teaching’ Community: what Have We Learned?” in the Texas Tech Journal of Education.¹

_{1 Brice Joys, “The ‘Models of Teaching’ Community: What Have We Learned?” Texas Tech Journal of Education, 2, no. 2 (1975), 95-106.}

HOW MANY MODELS SHOULD I TRY TO LEARN ?

We recommend that the first step be to explore one model from each of the four families, and that teachers candidates develop competence in those four models as early as possible in the student teaching experience. There is no teaching role that can be carried out adequately with the use of a model from one family only. Every classroom has a need for techniques for helping students understand themselves better (personal family); work together more effectively to analyze group process and values (social family); acquire and process information (information-processing family); and master skills (behavior modification-cybernetic family).

This first set of models will be the most difficult to acquire. However, we have found that each succeeding model becomes easier. The time to master the third model will be about half of that required for the first if their complexity is about even. From a basic four, the teacher should go on to master the ones appropriate to his or her particular teaching role. It is well within the capacity of every competent teacher to be able to use eight to ten models comfortably, and we regard that as the minimum for carrying out any complex teaching role.

HOW SHOULD I CHOOSE THE MODELS ?

The answer  comes from an analysis of the particular role one is playing in a school. There is some relationship but not a strong one between the families of models and particular teaching specialties. There are more models appropriate to the social studies in the school family than in any other group, but as we indicated earlier, a social studies teacher needs more approaches than are contained within the social family alone.

Probably the best basis is to examine one’s learning outcomes in the way we have done in chapter 26 and to pick those models most appropriate to the objectives one is pursuing. The real question to ask is, What combination of models does one want to use with one’s classes in the course of the year? Which models will set the tone for the year? One might build the year around group investigation, nondirective teaching, or one of the inductive or inquiry-oriented models, and then decide which models are needed to boost particular learning outcomes.  A  social studies teacher, for example, might choose the inductive thinking model as the basis for many of the unit of work. At certain points, however, roleplaying or the Jurisprudential Model might be employed. The Nondirective Teaching Model or awareness training might be held in readiness for self-exploration.

The important task here is to consider one’s curriculum and choose the mix of models that will make it a lively, vigorous, and humane environment for one’s students.

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE

TO LEARN A NEW MODEL OF TEACHING?

The answer varies, of course, depending on the amount of time one can devote to the task, one’s motivation, and the opportunity to receive help from others. The experiences from some of our workshops, however, give a rough idea of how long it will take.

In the course of a two-day workshop we find it is possible for persons to read adequately about the theory of a model, see three or four demonstrations, and practice the model with other teachers acting as student (peer teaching). After two days of such activities, most teachers are then able to begin practicing the model with small groups of children. After four or five practice sessions, especially if one is in a situation where other teachers can observe the practice sessions and provide feedback, most people are ready to begin using the model with their regular classes and are able to carry it out in a recognizable form. The model vary in the time it takes to become fully comfortable with them. We have found that most people can apply synectics and concept attainment fairly read-ily; some of the exercises in awereness training and parts of the Inductive Thingking and Inquiry Models are relatively easy to master. Nondirective Teaching, Group Investigation, and Scientific Inquiry Models all require substantial periods of time and experience before one fully understands the complexities of the model and is completely at ease with the kinds of responses that children make to them.

We recommend that teachers practice the model in relatively short teaching episodes at first until it becomes familiar, before they use the model as the basis for a substantial unit of work. Even complex models such as the jurisprudential approach can be carried out in three or four class sessions in reasonably acceptable form, probably three or four trials would be necessary before a six-week unit of work could be built around it.

WHAT DIFFICULTIES DO PEOPLE ENCOUNTER?

The major difficulty is that many models of teaching are unfamiliar to us and it is our own feeling of personal discomfort that is our greatest enemy.

For example, if the teacher is accustomed to the role of information giver, the advance organizer approach will cause little discomfort because he or she continues to act as a presenter and advance organizers only serve to improve the presentation. Inquiry training, however, puts the students into the position of data gatherers, and the teacher is usually uncomfortable for at least a short while in the new role of analyst of inquiry, which is demanded in that model.

In the first few trials also, the students are unfamiliar with the model, and one has to take the time to teach them necessary skills and acquaint them with the purpose of the teaching. Students who are unaccustomed to metaphoric thingking will find synectics to be a strange animal indeed. Students who are unaccustomed to analyzing their own values will find roleplaying awkward and uncomfortable.

Patience, in the other words, is the watchword. With optimism, time to practice, and support from one’s peers, we find that the difficulties are not vast and the time to prepare is surprisingly short. As we indicated earlier the second model was easier than the first, and the third easier than the second. If one decides that one is going to increase one’s teaching repertoire and forms a habit of adding new models continuously, then the acquisition of new models eventually becomes a natural and comfortable business of adding to one’s teaching skills.

HOW WILL THIS AFFECT MY TEACHING STYLE?

The purpose of this approach is not to change one’s teaching style but to add to it. When you are carrying out synectics, you look very different from when you are carrying out concept attainment or working with a simulation game.  Rather than losing your own style, you acquire others, which gradually become natural and are incorporated into your basic ways of working with children. For example, teachers whose basic style is to lecture will find after using concept attainment and the advance organizer that they will use more concepts in their teaching, take greater care to link data to concepts, organize the framework of lectures and other presentations more completely; they will continue to lecture, but in a variety of small ways and occasionally a large one, their lectures will be improved.  After practicing nondirective teaching, nearly everyone becomes more careful to help students become aware of the goals of lessons, even when those goals are imposed, and to consult the student about the methods that will work most effectively with them. Even the occasional use of the Nondirective Teaching Model makes the teacher more student-centered and comfortable in negotiating with his or her students.

Thus the overall change in one’s basic style is not vast; It is the acquisition of repertoire that is so striking. Most teachers use recitations and lectures almost exclusively in their teaching, and other approaches only occasionally. We believe the primary reason for this is that most of us have not had the oppurtunity to learn the repertoire that can pull us and our students into richer and more delightful patterns of interaction.

WHAT METHOD DO YOU RECOMMEND ?

We recommend that one acquire models in a relatively straightforward way-the way that is incorporated into the companion books in this series. The major difference between this approach to teaching skills and the ones encountered in the usual teacher training programs at the preservice and inservice level is that models of teaching provide theory-linked skills. The skills we use in assertiveness training are those that enable us to implement the theory of assertiveness training, and so forth. The other difference is the direct relationship between theory and practice. Inserve teacher education programs built around for two-day workshops a year can help teachers acquire four models of teaching, provided that the organization permits people to practice in the classroom and obtain feedback from their peers. If youknow the theory, have observed it in action, have an opportunity to practice it, can discuss your performance with your peers, and have ways of using it on your teaching, you will acquire a fresh model in a remarkably short period of time. There is no reason why every teacher cannot have the kind of basic repertoire we suggest, that is, one model from each of the four families, plus five or six others that are directly related to one’s present teaching role. On assuming another teaching role one simply acquires the models appropriate to that role.

While there are more models than we have included in this book, the total range of modes described here is sufficient to enable almost any teacher to play most roles in most schools.