Michael Gelotte
“Education” is based on the Latin “educare”, which means to “draw forth”, as in another English word based on the same root - “educe”. This is a large part of my teaching philosophy - assisting students in “drawing out” and organizing information, and assisting them in anchoring new facts, skills and insights into a coherent framework.
I also feel that students (and other people!) rise to the level of their expectations, or to the expectations that others present to them. If you establish high standards that are reachable, students will strive for that, and will reach the goal; if you set them low - they will meet those expectations... but not much beyond the mark. High expectations also help students prepare for the real world, which is often market-driven, and with very high expectations.
Allied with high expectations is personal responsibility and accountability; creating an awareness in the student that ultimately, they are responsible for their own learning, and for their own success or (gasp!) Even their own failure. I feel that a teacher’s role is to create opportunities for students to explore, to learn, and to stretch themselves - to test their limits and abilities.
Along with high expectations needs to also come frequent feedback, and especially recognition for a job well done. The feedback allows students to know how they are progressing, and whether they are meeting the expectations; recognition becomes part of the “reward” for good and excellent work. Humor eases the path; happiness makes it more pleasant.
What about students who do NOT meet the expectations? The “art” of teaching here
becomes motivational - “inspiring”
the students to strive, to stretch, - to achieve. When most of the
class is doing well, and one or two are not, often better students can be persuaded to act as
“mentors”, to assist the struggling ones; and these mentors frequently find that in so doing, THEY
learn the concepts and skills even more firmly. In reaching out and helping others, we are blessed
also.
As a teacher, I am also a role model, so I need to model the behaviors and standards that I expect my students to manifest. When I debug student code, I need to demonstrate how they should go about it; my sample code should reflect my formatting, naming, and documentation standards.
Why do I teach what I teach is a fairly simple question, since the “standard” curriculum for a CS2 course is fairly well laid out; I get to pick a few peripheral parts, but in order to be accepted as a CS2 course it must “cover” certain topics.
My favourite teaching methods, as previously mentioned, are the Socratic Method (Questioning), and Role-Playing. Why these? How do they fit with my philosophy?
Questioning allows me to direct a discussion, allowing the students to see connections, to test hypotheses, and to have to defend their positions. I often state that my job is to teach these students how to THINK - they will learn the actual “material” from the text, or from experimentation with code. In this way, the students also teach each other, by raising questions of their own, and often the class will make connections and see possibilities that a single student (or even a single teacher!) would miss.
For example, when we are discussing Linked Lists, and talk about the code provided in the text for insertion at the head of the list, and a separate method for insert elsewhere, I propose to the students that we come up with a better insert method - that will insert ANYWHERE in the list. The students then discuss, as a class, or in small groups, HOW to accomplish that goal. Since the Search method provided in the text is a generic one, for non-sorted lists, we develop a better one - for sorted lists ... that allows us the ability to insert, delete, display, etc.... from anywhere in the list. As a result, the students are able to get code they can use in their programs, and they learn to extend the ideas presented in the text. They learn, by doing, to generalize and transfer concepts from one place/language to another.
Role-playing is also useful; when discussing new concepts, if the students act the parts, they often understand more fully, and can internalize them more fully. Having students be “nodes”, “pointing” to another node, across the room, with strips of paper representing their data and link fields, helps them see that linked lists are different than arrays - not necessarily contiguous, and have to have a way to get to the “next” in the list.
What assumptions do my teaching choices embed? First and foremost, I assume that students will prepare for class - by reading the text, by preparing questions, by trying code snippets, and by doing additional research. I also assume that students will ask questions if they are uncertain or unclear; I know that this is often a stretch for them. In order to facilitate this, my classroom must be a “safe place” - where questions are welcomed, and any viewpoint is allowed, and no one is ridiculed.
In summary - my roles as a teacher are those of guide, facilitator, mediator, and a little bit of ringmaster, lion tamer, and entertainer.