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?

[Austin]

I would describe my approach to a more traditional and process mastery. Student need to have a commitment to learning as well as teachers having a commitment to teach. Teachers should not only teach through lecture but through living as well. The traditional way of teaching has come a long way. Students have been able to learn the traditional way but with the change in the world through technology, the traditional way is enhanced.

[Austin]

I would say my approach is traditional. I always focus on the course as a whole.

[Austin]

As an Art teacher, I am mostly traditional and process mastery but there is definitely room for me to observe what the students are enjoying the most and include a little more of those activities. I am a little more of a constructivist with my after school courses because they are smaller and more for their enjoyment and not built to accomplish certain lessons.

[Austin]

I find my classroom has a mix of the three approaches. While some days appears to be teacher-centered in which I, or the curriculum, selects the content and I monitor students’ work; other days are student-centered in which the classroom is not especially quiet because students are collaborating. I often have students work in groups to develop a better understanding of content. Towards the end of my science unit, I provided students with the opportunity to choose a topic and develop an experiment, yet it was still teacher-monitored. I am working towards a more student-centered classroom in which the teacher is still the authority, but students are more active in the learning process.

[Austin]

I don’t know that I see much difference between traditional and process mastery as defined by the last lesson but I am mostly one of them. I do regular science “experiments” that have specific step-by-step directions and then hope students get the proper results. Lab reports and presentations have set guidelines and each lesson comes with a set of goals to be reached and information to be garnered. This mostly works and most students tend to reach a level of mastery of the content within the required time. I would like to add in more inquiry-based lessons that allow the students to have the opportunity to be creative and inquisitive, allowing them to use the scientific process to answer their own questions.