Gallery of Teachers (and Learners)

The following are two pictures that - more or less - represent what I saw in various forms of education when I was a teacher / teacher-trainer overseas, particularly while working in sub-Sahara Africa and at a refugee camp in Thailand. The first one I call the Sage at the Temple. It represents various things for me: the idea of the elderly sage so important in traditional societies; listeners being attentive. (I particularly like the image of the woman on the left, chin resting in her hand, listening and thinking of what is being read and, probably, discussed.) The picture represents a willingness to learn no matter what the circumstance and participate in meaningful dialog.

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The second picture I saw many times (weather permitting) in Lesotho and Kenya. Many times classrooms were not available or there was not enough room in existing facilities. It was common for teacher and class to set up their own portable class outside in the open and, as in the picture, under some tree that might provide some shade. Most of the time the instructor acted as sage and leader. However, it wasn't unusual to see some teachers breaking students into groups for interactive help. More often than not you would have classrooms with various age groups. I saw some where you had youngsters age 5 and older students (often relatives) age 12 or older in the same class. The eldest would typically assume leadership status and would guide their younger wards in the learning. The teacher would 'float' and offer help, guidance, clarification when needed. Therefore, the elder student-sage was a wonderful mediator of learning while learning at the same time. It was very wonderful to see and probably not very different from the Little House on the Prairie days with multi-level, multi-age classrooms.

As a teacher-trainer in Lesotho I would counsel the teacher to - in turn - tutor the eldest students for effective teaching. In a couple of circumstances teachers would then gather the eldest mentors and help them in their own studies, at times 'neglected' while they were busy in their tutor roles.

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My Style

I hope to be an effective sage-guide online. I've already mentioned elsewhere a f2f situation where I initiated (and which would not have been possible without a great class's help) a high-intermediate reading class that was multi-phased. I want to be the Guide-on-the-Side/(sage) but it seems that we'll need to adjust accordingly to the circumstances that will come our way (students' age, skills level, discipline of study, background knowledge of the discipline).

However, I very much want to become proficient in the technique known as 'scaffolding' within the theoretical paradigm of Vygostky's Zone of Proximate Development (ZPD):  to eventually more-become a Guide-on-the-Side / Constructivist leader online. I think it would be easier to adopt the latter through a well-honed idea and experience as the former.

Below is a presentation by by an instructor / trainer from YouTube. I think it a good introduction to scaffolding. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to specifically tie down who, where, under what circumstance of the presentation. 



Here's a YouTube presentation on ZPD. Vygotsky can be a bear to read, but his ideas are worth the attempt. I read Thought and Language many years ago as I began graduate-level classes at CSU San Francisco. Tough going, but got the gist of his ideas. ZPD was introduced to me a few years ago while taking a reading class at CSU Sacramento. (Great teacher to have as a mentor for that class.)

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Putting it Together

The above are enmeshed with / related to the article "New Technologies, New Literacies: Focus Discipline Research and ESL Learning Communities" by Loretta Kasper, an ESL instructor at Kingsborough Community College/CUNY. The was one of the first articles on ESL and computer-assisted learning I read a few years ago while taking online classes through TESOL. Because I'm interested in advanced-level reading and writing I keep coming back to Kasper's paper for ideas: in particular ideas relating to what calls 'focus discipline research' . . constructive f2f and online mediated learning.

The following is an excerpt that I wrote for my blog Issues in Education for a TESOL class taken about three years ago. You can find it at Loretta L Kasper.

Kasper reports on findings of ESL students' reading and writing pass rates at the high-intermediate level relating to focus discipline research. The study addressed three questions:

1. whether focus discipline research facilitated students' acquisition of basic literacy skills;

2. do students who use focus discipline research more likely to pass reading and writing tests at higher rates than those who do not use focus discipline research; and

3. whether technology has a significant impact when students use focus discipline research.

Briefly, focus discipline research provides students with the opportunity to develop and refine literacy skills and strategies as they build a strong knowledge base through sustained research in a discipline they have chosen to study over time. For optimum learning, focus discipline research is taught as a collaborative process and incorporates metacognitive and schema knowledge. Ideally, students should be familiar with metacognitive and schema processes and respond, through written and oral exercises, on their own learning styles, awareness of information that they already bring with them to the learning process and as to how best utilize these skills and strategies for effective and efficient learning.

In summary, Kasper found that focus discipline research does help to "develop and hone the multiliteracies they need . . not only in ESL learning communities, but also in academic, social, and professional contexts beyond the ESL classroom."

Because discipline research creates and fosters a rich learning experience in a communal setting the implications for any teacher is that learning communally, through disciplined research, offers rich and important opportunities for all students, no matter what level.

I'm not sure what Dr. Chico has in store for those of us taking EDUI6705 but I hope to further research on the ideas of Vygostky (and others) and constructivist techniques.  I also want to do more research on research and practical classroom skills and techniques reported on by Kasper and others.

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Explaining my teaching style (for a constructivist / scaffolding / ZPD approach to teaching an advanced level of ESL for reading and writing for academic purposes)

The following are a rough list of advantages and disadvantages for a effective sage-guide approach to a constructivist online course.  I doubt that the definitive justification exists below. I'm sure I'll be reevaluating, revising, researching more on this as I progress through the program. But, it's what I have for the time being and I welcome what others say about what I've written here.

Advantages

• Learning is contextual: We learn to what else we know; the 'personal schemata' that we bring to our learning task.  (Kasper maintains that it's important for students to be aware of metacognitive skills and personal schemata as a foundation for discipline research and help in building learning communities.)


• Learning is a social activity: Because different learners learn differently (by utilizing different approaches / techniques by it textual, auditory, visual, etc.) so it is in a constructivist environment where different learning styles mediate with each other, build together a new knowledge (scaffolding).


• Learning must be structured: so that it can be easily learned. What is needed a spiral, scaffolding effect wherein ZPD is an important ingredient of getting the learner from from level to the other.


• Learning is successful when students can repeat (but not parrot) what was taught: However, this must be demonstrated when analysis, evaluation, summarizing is used for reintegrating what has been learned.

Disadvantages

• Learning (within a paradigm that is constructivist / uses scaffolding and ZPD as a guide) is relative: that is, as one learns new material and constructs new meaning, what has previously been learned must be 'sufficiently learned' to help mediate further learning. (Must be sufficient for further successful scaffolding within a viable ZPD environment for further knowledge-construction.)


• Reader becomes confused: Learners become disoriented as they move from text to text and when they select links in hypertext. Time may be of essence and learners must become not only familiar with but also sufficiently proficient in navigating hyperspace, an especially challenging task for many/some ESL students.

The disadvantages become acute when you enter factors such as cultural / ethnic background, amount of fluency in the four language skills (listening/speaking, reading/writing), learning styles, previous education under systems using different, and possibly divergent, learning styles, etc.

Still, the overall advantages - particularly if the student (I'm referring to my usual ESL immigrant / foreign student population) continues to study beyond the community college level - and most do.  Among other important factors, the community college ESL student needs careful nurturing in social-mediated, constructivist online learning.