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How would you currently describe your overall approach to teaching in your classroom: traditional, process mastery, or constructivist? What works well in your approach? What needs improvement?
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I would describe my overall approach to teaching as more traditional process mastery. My strengths lie in understanding the fundamental assumptions and skills that a student needs to critically engage and master to meet an outcome and building diverse pathways to support that mastery. I encourage student choice, exploration, and discovery but do not encourage the more exaggerated sister of constructivism–subjective tendencies in my classroom. I tend to spend a lot of time attending to the Author’s meaning and fundamentals as I am a teacher of God’s Word. I think incorporating a more inquiry-styled approach would allow more of the uniqueness of my students to surface in our sessions. However, I would use an inquiry-based approach with a clear frame.
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I am at the point still of mastering the material and ways to teach the material. I sometimes like to veer into letting kids use their own ideas and joys in learning, but cannot at my level seem to help them make meaning from those activities. Perhaps I need to be too much in control and too much to measure their success. When I am better able to get a flow for the class, then I could offer more variance.
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I support Traditional Teaching. I have learned by setting this structure for my class, it allows be to quickly identify those who need support in different areas. For example, If I have a student that physically can’t stop kicking legs or feels the need to stand, I can accommodate and identify exactly what that child needs plus this has now given me some feedback about what the student may need help with in the future when we approach different topics.
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I’m very traditional, which works well for mature students. However, students who are not interested in learning struggle in my class. I need to find a different approach for those students
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I use a bit of each: traditional requiring mastery and as much hands on as possible. With traditional we use the best of the past and I try to include bits of (common) knowledge wherever possible. There is also testing and basic mastery required. Once the foundational material is learned, it is applied in various circumstances. This allows thought and creativity. I believe we could improve if the students had more practice. I liken my field to music students mastering their instrument by repetitive practice or football players running complicated plays repeatedly until it becomes second nature. I would like my students to know the foundations and keep practicing them until the information is second nature and easily applicable in ever more complex situations.
