Great teachers know when to teach and when to guide.
In his book What the Best College Teachers Do Ken Bain (2004) articulates what I believe to be the most powerful description of a college teacher’s responsibility to his or her students. In doing so, he says,
[The] best teachers often try to create what we have come to call a ‘natural critical learning environment.’ In that environment, people learn by confronting intriguing, beautiful, or important problems, authentic tasks that will challenge them to grapple with ideas, rethink their assumptions, and examine their mental models of reality. (p. 18)
As I have worked in teacher education for seven years, I can speak to the importance of a well-established learning environment. There are in fact entire volumes written on this topic (i.e. Teaching with Love & Logic: Taking Control of the Classroom by Jim Fay and David Funk (1995), The First Days of School by Harry and Rosemary Wong (2001) & Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments by David Joassen and Susan Land (2012)). It is widely understood that by creating the right conditions, learning will often occur. I believe that by understanding their role in the classroom, great teachers can make an honest attempt at creating such an environment.
If I were to combine every effective strategy, approach, belief and method from my personal professional practice in a large stock pot and boil it down, I believe two simple elements would remain: teaching and guiding. As a teacher, I am an expert in composition studies, I understand there are aspects of the writing process that can be taught effectively to emerging writers. I am an expert in curriculum studies, and I am passionate about infusing instructional technology throughout the landscape of education. My expertise in these areas, as well as related fields in the language arts, is often the focus of my courses. And through a rather traditional model of higher education instruction, I deliver lectures and facilitate discussions on theory, form, structure, analysis, and authorship. As a teacher, I assess and measure student development throughout the entire course. I adjust and adapt my content delivery in order to address questions or concerns from students. I create assignments and determine deadlines. And, when it is all over, I assign grades—marks of achievement, outcomes of learning, or one more number in figuring the cumulative GPA. In my opinion, this is only part of the teaching profession.
Whether in the classroom or in the field observing pre-service teachers, there are times when a professor must step back and allow students to advance their own understandings. In doing so, the teacher operates more as a guide, providing support and advice as students work to solve problems and demonstrate their skills in a given task. Admittedly, teachers take a risk in devoting time within the course to allow for student-directed study. However, there are significant advantages to symbolically dropping the reins and allowing the course to run wild for a bit. From a purely existential stance, such instances offer learners the opportunity to carve their own path, to experience learning on their own terms.
Looking back once again on my own education, I can honestly say that I remember very little of what was said in a class. However, I have very clear memories of what was experienced in Kindergarten through my graduate course work. In these moments, the teacher allowed me to find my own path to success or failure. When I visit with former students, whether they are students I have worked with in the middle school or college classroom, they rarely reflect on a lecture I provided on writing pedagogies or plot structures. Instead, students tell me how much they enjoyed creating, discussing, analyzing and experiencing the content of the course.
Author and educational philosopher bell hooks (1994) refers to these experiences as part of a “progressive, holistic engaged pedagogy” (p. 15) that has the power to press the limits of traditional teaching styles. hooks (1994) explains further,
I have been most inspired by those teachers who have had the courage to transgress those boundaries that would confine each pupil to a rote, assembly-line approach to learning. Such teachers approach students with the will and desire to respond to our unique beings… (p. 13)
Clearly, hooks is calling for a more engaged approach to teaching, and in doing so she is calling on participants, teachers, students and supervisors not to settle into a “passive consumer” (p. 14) role. Rather, hooks encourages everyone connected to the classroom to contribute regularly to the progress of everyone else involved. While hooks suggests this is a courageous approach to teaching, I would hesitate to categorize active teaching strategies as dangerous. When a teacher allows for self-actualization or student-guided instruction, he or she does gamble with the time allotted for the class. However, in returning to the second core principle, “Great teachers know when to teach and when to guide,” a good teacher knows how to utilize these approaches to the benefit of his or her students. He or she weighs the risks and the rewards and seizes moments in a class to lead through a dynamic lecture, as well as guide students to new appreciations and perspectives. Striking a balance between teaching and guiding requires finesse and professional judgment that develops through experience in the classroom.
Transitioning from the teacher to the guide establishes a new dynamic in the classroom. In this way learners can stretch their own understandings in directions that the teacher in front of the room may have neglected to emphasize or highlight in his or her lectures and presentations. This new dynamic has the power to provide fresh context and perspective to the content of the course. And, in courses specific to the humanities, I believe there is always room for expansion in this regard.
No matter the level of course I am teaching, I believe the students can bring valuable information and insight to the rest of the class. When operating as a guide, I ask students to develop a deep understanding of a topic or text related to the content of the course. With my guidance students then prepare a short presentation for the class on the new information they have gathered during their time of research and preparation. This single approach allows each student to take ownership of one critical component of the course and it expands the content covered and digested by the class exponentially.
When choosing to operate as a guide in the classroom the teacher takes an opportunity to be inspired as well. In an environment where the teacher and the students are actively engaged there is no limit to where the combined efforts of everyone involved can take the content of the course.