Principals promoting sound teaching methods

Back after a break in the north west iron ore country of Western Australia.  You've got to see that vast red earth land.  It even rained while we were there courtesy of a summer low pressure trough that was the remnants of one of the cyclones that we have each year in what we call the Top End.  The local paper "The Pilbara Times" carried an article about the Karratha High School pointing out that the number of students in 2017 obtaining a university entrance score in their final year was dropping.  Bit tough when you know that some of the students would have moved schools a lot in their lives as the breadwinner in their family was a worker who followed the vagaries of the mining industry.  Also there would be many indigenous students who don't have a good record of school attendance.  Karratha is one of the iron ore hubs of the north west with big ore trains and big ore carrier ships.

I find this criticism a bit tough as I said above.  The Principal and teachers would be busting themselves to do the best that they can for their students.  I would like to have seen in the article other markers of success relating to educating the whole student.  I also acknowledge the constant work of indigenous community leaders in ensuring improved school attendance from their youngsters.

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Now to best practice teaching methods.  The Principal as the educational leader in the school has to be seen to be deeply involved in encouraging best practice teaching methods.  The menu needs to include a variety of approaches.  'Discovery learning' has been the super food of schooling for a long time and I am an advocate of it, but there is a place for 'explicit' teaching.  By this I do not refer to 'direct instruction' which has a very special psychologically constructed base.  Although there is a place for this and I have seen it work in certain situations.

By 'explicit' teaching I refer to the teacher presenting a new process or concept, by being active on their feet, keeping the students focussed as they hear the teacher explanation and then reveal their knowledge through skilful teacher questioning and in the case of a math's process doing some examples that the teacher marks over the shoulder.  It is not learning by rote as the explanation of the teacher seeks to reach student understanding of what is occurring.  The enthusiasm of the teacher is paramount in this process as it is always.

Some rote learning is also needed.  I am still in the camp that wants rote learning of multiplication tables and number facts as a grounding for functional numeracy. Oh dear some will now write me off as an educational dinosaur.  Hopefully rote learning can also be built on understanding the underlying mathematical relationships.  Sometimes however a student can do a process successfully and yet not reach true understanding until some future time.

I don't think things have changed in chemistry to the extent that one still just has to learn by heart the outcome of the interaction of certain chemicals.  For example the reaction of various concentrations of nitric acid (HNO3) on copper (Cu) results in the production of different gases dependent on the concentration of the acid.

If as often happens a teacher in your school comes up with innovative teaching methods that result in innovative learning experiences for the students it is appropriate to give that teacher a leadership role in spreading the good news.  This is 'distributive leadership' in action.  The climate in the school is not to be that this teacher is better than this one, it is about the whole cadre of teachers being always on the lookout and open to new and more effective ways.


May the Force be with you as 2018 gets under way!

GD