ART OF QUESTIONING

	The Art of Questioning Wolf, Dennis Palmer. "The Art of Questioning." Academic Connections; p1-7, Winter 1987. [This article was originally a talk delivered at the Summer Institute of the College Boards Educational EQuality Project, held in Santa Cruz, California, July 9-13, 1986. At the institute more than one hundred high school and college teachers convened to consider how concerns raised by the education reform movement can be translated into improvements in everyday teaching practice. One topic given particularly close attention was that of questioning in the classroom. Dennie Wolfs remarks provided the keynote for these deliberations, and the version of her talk presented here has been expanded slightly to take into account questions raised by institute participants. The observations that appear in the article come from classrooms Wolf visited while working as a consultant to the College Boards Office of Academic Affairs and as a member of a research project on assessment in the arts currently funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. She especially thanks teachers in Boston, Cambridge, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and St. Paul for their generous cooperation. Wolf works with Project Zero, Harvard University Graduate School of Education.] Ask a teacher how he or she teaches and, chances are, the answer is, "By asking questions." However, if you go on and ask just how he or she uses questions or what sets apart keen, invigorating questioning from perfunctory versions, that same teacher might have a hard time replying. In itself this is no condemnation-there are many occasions when we do magnificently without explicit knowledge: Few of us can explain transformational grammar, but we can form questions, all the same. A major league pitcher is sure of dozens of algorithms for trajectory, though his theory is as much in his elbow as on the tip of his tongue. Still, a growing body of observation and research suggests that teachers' uncertainly about how they question cannot, or should not, be explained simply as a lack of explicit knowledge. Consider several observations that have emerged from recent educational research: There are many classrooms in which teachers rarely pose questions above the "read-it-and-repeat-it" level. Questions that demand inferential reasoning, much less hypothesis-formation or the creative transfer of information to new situations, simply do not occur with any frequency (Gall 1970; Mills, Rice, Berliner, and Rousseau 1980). The questions and answers that do occur often take place in a bland, if not boring or bleak, intellectual landscape, where student answers meet only with responses from teachers at the "uh-huh" level. Even more sobering is the observation that teachers' questions often go nowhere. They may request the definition of a sonnet, the date of Shakespeare's birth, the meaning of the word "varlet"- but, once the reply is given, that is the end of the sequence. Extended stretches of questioning in which the information builds from facts toward insight or complex ideas rarely take place (Goodlad 1984, Sadker and Sadker 1985). Classroom questions are often disingenuous. Some are rhetorical: "Are we ready to begin now?" Others are mere information checks-a teacher knows the answer and wants to know if students do, too. Missing from many classrooms are what might be considered true questions, either requests for new information that belongs uniquely to the person being questioned or initiations of mutual inquiry (Bly 1986, Cook-Gumperz 1982). The very way in which teachers ask questions can undermine, rather than build, a shared spirit of investigation. First, teachers tend to monopolize the right to question -rarely do more than procedural questions come from students (Campbell 1986). Second, the question-driven exchanges that occur in classrooms almost uniformly take place between teachers and students, hardly ever shifting so that questions flow between students. Moreover, classroom questioning can be exclusive. It can easily become the private preserve of a few- the bright, the male, the English-speaking (Erickson 1975, Erickson and Schultz 1981, Hall and Sandler 1982). Questions can embarrass, rather than inquire. They can leave a student feeling exposed and stupid, more willing to skip class than to be humiliated again (Bly 1986). While this account of classroom questioning is grim, it is also partial. In writing Academic Preparation in the Arts (College Board 1985) and working on a study of assessment in the arts funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, I have spent a number of hours in the back of classrooms. From there I have seen skilled teachers raise questions that ignited discussion, offer a question that promised to simmer over several days, or pursue a line of questioning that led to understanding. Those teachers suggest a counter-portrait of classroom questioning, one that contains detailed clues about how the language of classroom dialogue can be used to establish and sustain not just a momentary discussion but a lasting climate of inquiry. My examples happen to come from arts and humanities classrooms, but I can think of no reason why they should not apply in other subject areas as well -granting, of course, that transferring them may reveal interesting differences among subject areas. However, before turning to these classroom observations, I want to suggest that the issue of what questions are asked and how they are posed is, or ought to be, part of a much larger inquiry. Currently, there is a deep concern about how -or even if we teach students to think. There is startling evidence that many high school students cannot draw inferences from texts, distinguish the relevant information in mathematics problems, or provide and defend a thesis in an essay. We have apparently developed a system of education in which rote learning occurs early and inquiry late. We teach the skills of scribes and clerks, rather than authors and mathematicians (Reznick 1985, Wolf et al. in press). We have come to accept a view of education that sees the experience of schooling largely in terms of its power to produce employable, rather than intelligent, students and that suffers from basic confusion over the conflicts between pluralism and excellence (Lazerson 1986). Embedded in this broad concern, however, there is-or ought to be-a second critique-one that points out that the situation of disadvantaged, minority, female, and handicapped students is still more dire (National Coalition of Advocates for Students 1985). For many of them, skills such as analysis, hypothesis testing, discussion, and essay writing may not just be taught late and meagerly-they may be virtually unavailable. Hence, when we examine skilled questioning (or instruction of any kind), it is essential to learn from those teachers who understand how to engage a wide community of learners. As one college teacher put it, "It's not hard to teach philosophy to students who learned the rules of argument and evidence at the dinner table. That's a matter of dotting the i's and crossing the t's. The real issue is whether I can teach students who don't come already knowing." Independent of whom they teach, skilled teachers question in distinctive ways: they raise a range of questions, they sustain and build arcs of questions, their inquiries are authentic, they inquire with a sense of respect flail decency. A Range of Questions Thirty years ago, Benjamin Bloom (1956) suggested that the same information can be handled in more and less demanding ways-students can be asked to recall facts, to analyze those facts, to synthesize or discover new information based on the facts, or to evaluate knowledge. My own classroom observations suggest that there is an even greater range of challenging questions than Bloom's familiar taxonomy indicates: Inference Questions. These questions ask students to go beyond the immediately available information (Bruner 1957). For example, a high school photography teacher held up a black-and-white portrait of a machinist taken by Paul Strand, and asked, "What do you know by looking at this photograph?" Through careful questioning and discussion his students realized that the image contained hints that implied a whole network of information: clues to content (where and when the photograph was taken), technique (where the photographer stood, where the light sources were located), and meaning or attitude (what Strand felt about industry and workers). To push beyond the factual in this way is to ask students to find clues, examine them, and discuss what inferences are justified. Interpretation Questions. If inference questions demand that students fill in missing information, then interpretive questions propose that they understand the consequences of information or ideas. One day when her English class was struggling to make sense of Frost's poem, "The Silken Tent,' a teacher asked, "Imagine if Frost compared the woman to an ordinary canvas tent instead of a silk one-what would change?" Faced with the stolid image of a stiff canvas tent, students suddenly realized the fabric of connotations set in motion by the idea of silk-its sibilant, rustling sounds; its associations with elegance, wealth, and femininity; its fluid motions. In a similar spirit, during a life-drawing class, a teacher showed his students a reproduction of Manet's "Olympia" and asked them, "How would the picture be different if the model weren't wearing that black tie around her neck?" A student laid her hand over the tie, studied the image and commented, "Without the ribbon she doesn't look so naked. She looks like a classical model. With the ribbon, she looks undressed, bolder." Transfer Questions. If inference and interpretation questions ask a student to go deeper, transfer questions provoke a kind of breadth of thinking, asking students to take their knowledge to new places. For example, the final exam for a high school film course contained this question: "This semester we studied three directors: Fellini, Hitchcock, and Kurosawa. Imagine that you are a film critic and write a review of "Little Red Riding Hood" as directed by one of these individuals." Questions about Hypotheses. Typically, questions about what can be predicted and tested are thought of as belonging to sciences and other "hard" pursuits. But, in fact, predictive thinking matters in all domains. When we read a novel, we gather evidence about the world of the story, the trustworthiness of the narrator, the style of the author, all of which we use to predict what we can expect in the next chapter. Far from letting their students simply soak in the content of dances, plays, or fiction, skilled teachers probe for predictions as a way of making students actively aware of their expectations. For instance, as a part of preparing "The Crucible,' a drama teacher suggested the following. Teacher: Find a scene where you have an exchange with a character in the play. Then find a place where you can open up the dialogue and insert three or four new turns -ones you make up. I want half a page at least. Student 1: Yeah, but it's all done. Student 2: How can we know, anyway? Teacher: You have all the evidence you need in the scene. What are you going to build on? Student 1: It would have to be about the same thing. Teacher: Mmmm mmm. Student 2: They'd have to talk the same way they've been talking. I mean with the same kind of emotion. Also right for that character-just what they know. Teacher: Okay, you're on. Reflective Questions. When teachers ask reflective questions, they are insisting that students ask themselves: "How do I know I know?"; "What does this leave me not knowing?"; "What things do I assume rather than examine?" Such questions may leave a class silent, because they take mulling over. Nonetheless, they eventually lead to important talk about basic assumptions. Consider how, at the end of the year, students often read the chapters in their texts that discuss non-Western music, art, or drama. Consider, too, the power of the following question, which a music teacher asked his class on a May afternoon: "What would it mean if I called all the music we've listened to up until now, "non-Eastern music?" With that, he lifted the grain of a whole set of usual assumptions and asked that students consider what is implicit in terms such as "non-western" or "primitive." An Arc of Questions But simply posing a variety of questions hardly creates a climate for inquiry. At least as important is the way in which teachers respond to the answers their questions provoke. Thus, recent research (Sacker and Sadker 1985) suggests that too often students' replies meet with little more than a passing "uh-huh" Such responses can stop inquiry dead in its tracks. In place of such dead-end situations, skilled teachers give an exchange of questions a life-course. Across a long arc of questions and answers, they pursue an investigation in which simple factual inquiries give way to increasingly interpretive questions until new insights emerge. For an observer, there is an impression of a kind of mutually constructed improvisation unfolding (Mehan 1978, 1979). In this improvisation, teachers keep questions alive through long stretches of time, coming back to them days, even weeks, after they have first been asked. Take, for instance, this exchange, which occurred between a teacher and a student, as the student worked on an essay about the meaning of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Session 1 Teacher: Who is Eckleberg? Student: Not a real character, I mean, he's just a sign by the road. Teacher: What's he doing in the story then? Student: Well, Nick passes the sign when he drives to East and West Egg. Teacher: When does he show up in the story-every time Nick goes driving that way? (The student leafs through the book to pick out the instances. ) Teacher: So now what do you think? Student: (looking over the list) The times he gets mentioned are when Nick's driving and thinking. Usually when something bad is about to happen or did just happen. Session 2 (several days later) Teacher: Why does Fitzgerald bother to mention the Eckleberg sign, when there are probably hundreds along the way? Student: Maybe it's an odd sign. See, it's this giant pair of glasses that are up there advertising an oculist, you know, an eye doctor. Teacher: Why didn't Fitzgerald make Eckleberg a bumper sticker, instead of a billboard? Student: 'Cause if he's a billboard he can look out.... He's like a god, up above everything. Teacher: Why is he located out there between East and West Egg? Student: Maybe 'cause it's like being stranded, like in heaven, away from things. Teacher: Why do you think he's an oculist? Students: (puzzled, slightly exasperated at being made to dig like this) Fitzgerald said. . . because he's an ad for an oculist. The guy who put him up there was an oculist. Teacher: But it could have been a car dealer, too. Why those enormous yellow spectacles? Student: Yeah.... (pauses, thinking) Maybe that says something about the idea of watching and seeing.... It's not ordinary eyes, it's extraordinary eyes... like the eyes of God, he takes it all in. Teacher: Remember what you said about when he shows up? Student: When there's evil-like judgment. This arc of questioning allows information to accrue a kind of satisfying depth and complexity. Gradually, the student pieces together an idea of Eckleberg as a watching god- looking out, being raised above, apart, as if in heaven, seeing all. It is almost as if the questions posed form a kind of catwalk of realizable possibilities along which a student can move toward new insights (Luria 1976, Vygotsky 1978, Wertsch, 1978). The Authenticity of Questions Many of the questions that occur in classrooms aren't genuine. Some-such as, "Will you please put away your brushes and paints?"-are purely rhetorical. Others-in fact, the majority-are insincere in another way. They are not requests for information the speaker genuinely needs; rather, they are checks to see if a student has the information a teacher already knows (Cook-Gumperz 1982). These covert commands and information checks are not necessarily bad-unless, of course, they are the only questions students hear. In that case, students lose the opportunity to see their teachers engaged in serious inquiry, in which questions function as bona fide tools for thinking and understanding. One important occasion on which students see teachers ask genuine questions is when a teacher tries seriously and persistently to get to the bottom of what a student is after but cannot express or attain. Here is a student trying to write about why To Kill a Mockingbird is a good title for Harper Lee's novel. He has opened with Atticus's quote about not killing mockingbirds but cannot figure out how to get from the quote to the introductory paragraph of the essay. Teacher: You have a quote and then you need to get into the part about what happens in the book, right? Student: Yes (annoyed; he can smell that rewriting is coming). Teacher: I think you need a transition between the two. Student: I know, but I don't want to sound stupid by telling them (very slow and pedantic): This-is-my-bridge-between-these-two-thoughts. Teacher: Is it the idea that you don't like or that it sounds so obvious? Student: It sounds so dumb.... I don't want to be someone in the story. Teacher: (not sure what he means yet) Let's think about a comfortable way for you to make the connection. What about if you have something like, "In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, the central character, Atticus, says...." Then you will have started in your voice, and when you go back to explaining the quote, it won't be barging in? Student: I can't be in the story. Teacher: How's that you being in the story? Student: It's me explaining something. Teacher: But an essay is a place where you do explain. Student: I just want to go on with what happens in the story. They'll understand the connection. Teacher: Okay, how about saying something like, "In To Kill a Mockingbird two characters, Tom and Boo, are like the mockingbirds Atticus describes"? Student: Okay, let me see what I can do. (He goes back to his desk and writes his own version of this transition.) At the outset, the teacher is not sure what it means "to be in the story" or why that should be so troubling. But sticking with her instinct that it is troubling, she tries-through asking genuine questions-to pin down what is bothersome. Together she and the student struggle to explain what each values or wants for the opening of an essay. At one level their communication is not smooth or particularly effective, but at another the student hears his teacher asking questions to carve out mutual understanding. One-on-one exchanges are not the only occasions on which genuine questions arise. For instance, in arts classes -as well as in history and science classes-there are often chances to study the way a particular experience is interpreted by different individuals: a trip to see a surrealistic interpretation of Hamlet or a breakneck performance of a Brahms symphony. Alternatively, teachers have the option of showing students that deep into adulthood people run into serious questions that may consume or puzzle them, or may give them deep pleasure to solve, or both. A particular dance teacher comes to mind. In talking about her teaching she says: "My students know I choreograph and perform outside of class. Every so often I run up against a problem in my own work-the dance and the music start to rub each other the wrong way, a dancer has qualities that begin to transform the part, or I feel the dance grinding and creaking in the same old ways. So I show it to them. I say to them, "This is going wrong. Watch it and tell me what you think" Decent Questions The way in which teachers question provides a kind of barometer for the social values of classrooms-particularly questions of who can learn and who can teach. For instance, the way in which teachers question reveals whether they suspect learning flows only from a teacher or whether it can come from other students. In the following example (also found in Academic Preparation in the Arts) a teacher encourages students to exchange ideas about two shirts: one a polyester shirt printed with a sharp, yellow-and-black checkerboard pattern, the other an Apache overshirt of painted buckskin: Ms. V (the teacher): By looking just at the shirts, what can you tell me about these cultures? (Several students make contributions.) Peter: The buckskin shirt was made in a culture that loves nature, and the polyester shirt was made in a culture that doesn't care about nature. Ms. V: That's a big statement. What do you see in the shirt that lets you say that? Peter: The polyester shirt hasn't got anything natural in it. The buckskin shirt is all natural: skin, hand-painted, looks to me like vegetable dyes. Nava: Yes, but you could have a culture that loved nature but used plastics and chemicals to express it. Peter: NO, that's not what I mean. Ms. V: Look again at the shirts. What else do you see that's evidence for your idea? Nava: The images on the shirts. The modern one has got just black and yellow squares, nothing like plants or water. But the buckskin shirt has all those lines of raindrops and stars. (She points to strips of painted and drop-like shapes in the border.) Peter: But maybe those are just decorations. How do we know that those are raindrops? Maybe they are just patterns like the checkerboard in the other shirt. Through their questions teachers have the power to offer opportunities for dialogue to particular groups of students or to withhold opportunities from them. Along these lines, in a 1982 study, Hall and Sandler found that, when compared to their female peers, young males are much more likely to ask questions and to have them answered in a serious way. Minority students' participation in classroom discussion is similarly endangered. We know that sometimes there are culturally organized differences between classroom and home regarding the appropriateness of asking questions, the rules about who can be questioned, or what forms inquiries should take (Boggs 1972, Heath 1983). Yet, when minority students fail to join in classroom inquiry, teachers may interpret their hesitation, not as uncertainty about the rules of communication, but as lack of ability, and may cease to consider them valuable, contributing members of a class (Bremme and Erickson 1977, Erickson 1975, Erickson and Schultz 1981.) Clearly, teachers can use questions to embarrass or to empower. For instance, questions can be designed to smoke out guilty parties-students who didn't do their homework, who fail to answer quickly enough, or who can't think on their feet. But it is equally possible to use questions to promote students' sense of themselves as knowledgeable and skilled. Thus, even though the student in the following example does not yet know what she thinks, her teacher takes her search quite seriously. In back of his questions is the assumption that the student can come to know. (In a print-making class, a teacher leans over a large linoleum print with a student.) Teacher: What's bothering you about it? Student: I liked the idea, but I don't like the print. Teacher: Let's track down where you lost it. Get out your portfolio. (At this juncture they pull out the student's portfolio and turn to the sheaves of sketches and trial runs of the print. ) Teacher: Okay, page through these until you come to the one where things go wrong for the first time. (The student studies the portfolio, finding the moment when the original incised-line print is cut away drastically, leaving only the outlines of the face.) Student: That's where I don't like it. Teacher: Have a careful look and tell me what exactly changed. Student: I can't tell. Teacher: Okay, talk out loud about each part of it, the hair, the sun, the neck-why are they there, what's in them, what do you want them to do? Had there been a videotape of this exchange, it would have revealed still another level at which questions embarrass or empower: nonverbal performance. The teacher looks at the student when he poses questions; he studies the prints when she does; he respects, rather than cuts off, the student, even when she gropes for an answer; he waits for her to formulate a reply. Studies of just these kinds of subtle phenomena- such as, how long a teacher waits for a reply-indicate that small changes, even in the nonverbal integrity of questioning, can have measurable effects on the quality of classroom inquiry (Tobin 1986). Then Why So Few Questions? Teachers know questions to be one of their most familiar- maybe even one of their most powerful-tools. But if observations are accurate, much of classroom inquiry is low-level, short, even exclusive or harsh. Moreover, these qualities turn out to be remarkably resistant to change. Thus, an early study of questioning done in 1912 (Stevens 1912) found that two-thirds of classroom questions required nothing more than direct recitation of textbook information. Now, more than 70 years after the original study, research suggests that 60 percent of the questions students hear require factual answers, 20 percent concern procedures, and only 20 percent require inference, transfer, or reflection (Gall 1970). Why is this the case? Here, ironically, where the vital issue of what fuels or explains these persistent patterns of questioning emerges, there is little or no research. But each time that I have talked with teachers about questioning, they have had explanations. While teachers freely admit they have colleagues who are simply not interested in the work of questioning, they also point out that there are hurdles even for the committed. Here, in their own words, are some things they have pointed out to me. It takes skill and practice to build a climate of inquiry, and there are few forums in which teachers can be helped in -or rewarded for-this endeavor. "There are 34 students in the room. Some have read the story, others haven't; some understand, others are lost. It takes skill-lots of skill-to put together a discussion for those 34 people. Frankly, it is often easier for me to take charge." It is a formidable challenge to establish and maintain a climate of inquiry with students of widely varying backgrounds and skills. "Questions work fine when you have students who have a set of prior skills-I mean, who know about listening to what someone else says, who can follow up with a question of their own, who are used to digging for information. But what do you do when you don't find that? Do you stop to teach it? And how do you teach it, anyway?" "My classroom has everything in it: kids whose families have taught them the 'right' thing is to be quiet and respect the teacher, kids who argue for the sake of arguing, girls who take neatly indented notes and never say a word, boys who like hearing themselves talk. How do you make it work for all of them?" But even with such problems as class size and diversity, teachers rarely cite students as the major obstacle. Instead, they describe the culture of schools as one that dampens their own investment in inquiry. "Don't forget that teachers live day in and day out in a school culture. That culture teaches. In most places it teaches you to suspect that there is nothing to learn from students. It puts textbooks-not primary sources-in your hands. Textbooks make for the recitation of facts. It's a culture that puts coverage above all. You have to cover all of Macbeth in twelfth-grade English, never mind how your students read. You have to get through WWII. What textbooks start, tests often enforce. In that world, questions, especially big messy ones, are dangerous. You have to keep too many of them from happening." So what do these interested teachers want? Concretely, they ask for time and opportunity to think about their classes as moments of joint inquiry-time to observe skilled colleagues in action, time to see themselves on videotape, time to think through not just lesson plans, but process plans: when to ask, who to ask, and above all, how to ask and respond (Kasulis 1986). Teachers want not just to hear about how "prejudicial teacher questioning patterns" are, they want time to grapple with equity and excellence issues head-on, at the level of values and ethics. And, most profoundly, skilled teachers want to be engaged in inquiry themselves. Teachers want to join with scholars to think about curriculum, as occurs in the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute and in the university-school collaborations of the Los Angeles-based Humanitas Academy. They want to have their own skills probed and honed in the way that the Bay Area Writing Program and the Dialogue program in St. Paul do by offering them (not just their students) time to write. Simply put, many teachers want to learn about the skills demanded in questioning and other forms of inquiry-but they want to learn in ways that will sustain their own abilities to inquire and reflect about their own subjects of interest. Why Question? These examples suggest their own reasons for why we must bother about questions despite the obstacles. Let me further venture that there may be two additional outcomes of fine questioning that often escape the notice of traditional measures of classroom achievement. First, there is a social outcome-students need the face-to-face skill of raising questions with other people: clarity about what they don't understand and want to know; the willingness to ask; the bravery to ask again. It is as central in chasing down the meaning of a dance, the lessons of the Korean war, or the uses and abuses of nuclear reactors. One could rephrase the Chinese proverb: Ask a man a question and he inquires for a day; teach a man to question and he inquires for life. And, second, there is a creative or inventive outcome. Being asked and learning to pose strong questions might offer students a deeply held, internal blueprint for inquiry -apart from the prods and supports of questions from without. That blueprint would have many of the qualities that teachers' best questions do: range, arc, authenticity. But if the sum is greater than the parts, there might be an additional quality-call it a capacity for question finding (Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi 1976). Question finding is the ability to go to a poem, a painting, a piece of music-or a document, a mathematical description, a science experiment-and locate a novel direction for investigation. This ability is difficult to teach directly, yet it may be one of the most important byproducts of learning in an educational climate in which the questions asked are varied, worth pursuit, authentic, and humanely posed. Here Gertrude Stein comes to mind. As she lay ill, someone approached and asked, "What is the answer?" and she-so legend has it -had the energy to quip, "What is the question?" Bibliography Bloom, B. (ea. ) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay, 1956. Bly, C. "Using Social Work Techniques in Classroom Discussions." A talk given at the Second Annual Teachers and Writers Institute, sponsored by Dialogue Program of COMPAS, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 10-11, 1986. Boggs, S. "The Meaning of Questions and Narratives to Hawaiian Children." In C. Cazden, V. Johns, and D. Hymes (eds. ), Functions of Language in the Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press, 1972. Bremme, D.W., and E. Erickson. "Relationships among Verbal and Nonverbal Classroom Behaviors," Theory into Practice, 16 (3), 1977, 153-61. Bruner, J. "Going beyond the Information Given." In I Bruner et al. (eds. ), Contemporary Approaches to Cognition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1957. Campbell, D. "Developing Mathematical Literacy in a Bilingual Classroom." In J. Gumperz (ed.), The Social Construction of Literacy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. College Entrance Examination Board (Dennis and Thomas Wolf, principal consultants). Academic Preparation in the Arts: Teaching for Transition from High School to College. New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1985. Cook-Gumperz, I. "Communicative Competence in Educational Perspective." In L. Cherry-Wilkinson (ed.), Communicating in the Classroom. New York: Academic Press, 1982. Erickson, E;: "Gatekeeping and the Melting Pot," Harvard Educational Review, 45 (1), 1975, 40-77. Erickson, F., and I. Schultz. "When Is a Context? Some Issues and Methods in the Analysis of Social Competence." In I. Green and C. Wallat (eds. ), Ethnography and Language in Educational Settings. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex, 1981. Gall, M. "The Use of Questions in Teaching," Review of Educational Research, 40, 1970, 707-20. Getzels, I. and M. Csikszentmihalyi. The Creative Vision: A Longitudinal Study of Problem Find Finding in Art. New York: Wiley, 1976. Goodlad, I. A Place Called School. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. Hall, R., and B. Sandler. The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women? Association of American Colleges, 1982. Heath, S. B. Ways with Words. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Kasulis, T. "Questioning." In M.M. Gilette (ed.), The Art and Craft of Teaching. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986. Lazerson, M. "A Review of 'A Study of High Schools." Harvard Educational Review, 56 (1), 1986, 37-48. Luria, A. V. Cognitive Development: Its Social and Cultural Foundations. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976. Mehan, H. Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979. Mehan, H. "Structuring School Structure." Harvard Educational Review, 48 (1), 1978, 32-64. Mills, S.R., C.T. Rice, D.C. Berliner, and E.W. Rousseau. "The Correspondence between Teacher Questions and Student Answers in Classroom Discourse," Journal of Experimental Education, 48, 1980, 194-204. National Coalition of Advocates for Students. Barriers to Excellence: Our Children at Risk. Boston: National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1985. Reznick, L. "'Low' and 'High' Forms of Literacy." A report to the National Institutes of Education, 1985. Sadker, D., and M. Sadker. "Is the O.K. Classroom O.K.?" Phi Delta Kappan, January 1985. Stevens, R. "The Question as a Measure of Efficiency in Instruction: A Critical Study of Classroom Practice," Teachers College Contributions to Education, 48, 1912. Tobin, K. "Effects of Teacher Wait Time," American Educational Research Journal, 23(2), 1986, 191-200. Vygotsky, L. S. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychosocial Processes (trans. Michael Cole et al. ). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978. Wertsch, I. "Adult-Child Interaction and the Roots of Metacognition, "The Quarterly Newsletter of the Institute for Comparative Human Cognition," 1(1), 1978, 15-18. Wolf, D., et al. "Beyond A, B, C: Deeper and Broader Conceptions of Literacy." In A. Pellegrini (ed.), The Psychological Bases of Early Education. London: John Wiley Sons, in press. © College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. The "College Board" and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination Board. Institute for Inquiry Home

LEARNING STYLE ASSESSMENT

NC STATE UNIVERSITY   Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire Barbara A. Soloman First-Year College North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina 27695 Richard M. Felder Department of Chemical Engineering North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-7905 Directions Please provide us with your full name. Your name will be printed on the information that is returned to you. Full Name For each of the 44 questions below select either "a" or "b" to indicate your answer. Please choose only one answer for each question. If both "a" and "b" seem to apply to you, choose the one that applies more frequently. When you are finished selecting answers to each question please select the submit button at the end of the form. I understand something better after I   (a) try it out.   (b) think it through. I would rather be considered   (a) realistic.   (b) innovative. When I think about what I did yesterday, I am most likely to get   (a) a picture.   (b) words. I tend to   (a) understand details of a subject but may be fuzzy about its overall structure.   (b) understand the overall structure but may be fuzzy about details. When I am learning something new, it helps me to   (a) talk about it.   (b) think about it. If I were a teacher, I would rather teach a course   (a) that deals with facts and real life situations.   (b) that deals with ideas and theories. I prefer to get new information in   (a) pictures, diagrams, graphs, or maps.   (b) written directions or verbal information. Once I understand   (a) all the parts, I understand the whole thing.   (b) the whole thing, I see how the parts fit. In a study group working on difficult material, I am more likely to   (a) jump in and contribute ideas.   (b) sit back and listen. I find it easier   (a) to learn facts.   (b) to learn concepts. In a book with lots of pictures and charts, I am likely to   (a) look over the pictures and charts carefully.   (b) focus on the written text. When I solve math problems   (a) I usually work my way to the solutions one step at a time.   (b) I often just see the solutions but then have to struggle to figure out the steps to get to them. In classes I have taken   (a) I have usually gotten to know many of the students.   (b) I have rarely gotten to know many of the students. In reading nonfiction, I prefer   (a) something that teaches me new facts or tells me how to do something.   (b) something that gives me new ideas to think about. I like teachers   (a) who put a lot of diagrams on the board.   (b) who spend a lot of time explaining. When I'm analyzing a story or a novel   (a) I think of the incidents and try to put them together to figure out the themes.   (b) I just know what the themes are when I finish reading and then I have to go back and find the incidents that demonstrate them. When I start a homework problem, I am more likely to   (a) start working on the solution immediately.   (b) try to fully understand the problem first. I prefer the idea of   (a) certainty.   (b) theory. I remember best   (a) what I see.   (b) what I hear. It is more important to me that an instructor   (a) lay out the material in clear sequential steps.   (b) give me an overall picture and relate the material to other subjects. I prefer to study   (a) in a study group.   (b) alone. I am more likely to be considered   (a) careful about the details of my work.   (b) creative about how to do my work. When I get directions to a new place, I prefer   (a) a map.   (b) written instructions. I learn   (a) at a fairly regular pace. If I study hard, I'll "get it."   (b) in fits and starts. I'll be totally confused and then suddenly it all "clicks." I would rather first   (a) try things out.   (b) think about how I'm going to do it. When I am reading for enjoyment, I like writers to   (a) clearly say what they mean.   (b) say things in creative, interesting ways. When I see a diagram or sketch in class, I am most likely to remember   (a) the picture.   (b) what the instructor said about it. When considering a body of information, I am more likely to   (a) focus on details and miss the big picture.   (b) try to understand the big picture before getting into the details. I more easily remember   (a) something I have done.   (b) something I have thought a lot about. When I have to perform a task, I prefer to   (a) master one way of doing it.   (b) come up with new ways of doing it. When someone is showing me data, I prefer   (a) charts or graphs.   (b) text summarizing the results. When writing a paper, I am more likely to   (a) work on (think about or write) the beginning of the paper and progress forward.   (b) work on (think about or write) different parts of the paper and then order them. When I have to work on a group project, I first want to   (a) have "group brainstorming" where everyone contributes ideas.   (b) brainstorm individually and then come together as a group to compare ideas. I consider it higher praise to call someone   (a) sensible.   (b) imaginative. When I meet people at a party, I am more likely to remember   (a) what they looked like.   (b) what they said about themselves. When I am learning a new subject, I prefer to   (a) stay focused on that subject, learning as much about it as I can.   (b) try to make connections between that subject and related subjects. I am more likely to be considered   (a) outgoing.   (b) reserved. I prefer courses that emphasize   (a) concrete material (facts, data).   (b) abstract material (concepts, theories). For entertainment, I would rather   (a) watch television.   (b) read a book. Some teachers start their lectures with an outline of what they will cover. Such outlines are   (a) somewhat helpful to me.   (b) very helpful to me. The idea of doing homework in groups, with one grade for the entire group,   (a) appeals to me.   (b) does not appeal to me. When I am doing long calculations,   (a) I tend to repeat all my steps and check my work carefully.   (b) I find checking my work tiresome and have to force myself to do it. I tend to picture places I have been   (a) easily and fairly accurately.   (b) with difficulty and without much detail. When solving problems in a group, I would be more likely to   (a) think of the steps in the solution process.   (b) think of possible consequences or applications of the solution in a wide range of areas. When you have completed filling out the above form please click on the Submit button below. Your results will be returned to you. If you are not satisified with your answers above please click on Reset to clear the form. Dr. Richard Felder, felder@ncsu.edu

The Importance, Nature, and Impact of Teacher Questions

Introduction

Teacher questioning has been identified as a critical part of teachers’ work. The act of asking a good question is cognitively demanding, it requires considerable pedagogical content knowledge and it necessitates that teachers know their learners well. A number of research studies have shown that teachers rarely ask ‘higher order’ questions, even though these have been identified as important tools in developing student understanding (Hiebert & Wearne, 1993; Klinzing, Klinzing-Eurich, & Tisher, 1985). Research on the relationships between teacher questions and student learning has produced mixed results, both more generally (Klinzing et al., 1985) and in mathematics (Hiebert & Wearne, 1993). Hiebert and Wearne (1993) argue that questions need to be viewed from within the context of the kind of instruction that is taking place and in relation to the mathematical tasks. In a small comparative study of traditional and “alternative” elementary mathematics classrooms, they show that while teachers in “alternative” classrooms asked a high number of questions requiring recall, they also asked a larger range of questions, and asked more questions requiring explanation and analysis than did teachers in traditional classrooms.

The research that we report on in this paper focuses on teacher questioning in secondary mathematics classrooms. We draw from a larger, ongoing, longitudinal study that follows approximately 1000 students in three schools who experienced different teaching approaches. There are three different mathematics curricula across the three schools, two of which we might characterize as “reform” and one as “traditional”. In two of the schools, students choose between a reform and traditional curriculum. The reform curriculum takes an open-ended, applied mathematical approach in which students work predominantly on long projects that combine and integrate across areas of mathematics. The traditional approach comprises courses of algebra, then geometry, then advanced algebra - taught using traditional methods of demonstration and practice. In the third school, the teachers have created their own curriculum which fits into the traditional algebra-geometry-algebra divisions but which takes a more open, exploratory and conceptual approach to mathematics within these strands. We consider this to be a reform curriculum. In addition to monitoring the students over four years, we are studying one or more focus classes from each approach in each school. In these classes we observe and video lessons, and conduct in-depth interviews with the teacher and selected students. In our paper we will report on our analyses of classroom organization and teacher questions and how these relate to the different curricula, the mathematical tasks within the curricula, the mathematical direction that the lessons take and classroom environment. We will also discuss some methodological issues in analyzing questions.

Findings

One result of our study is the critical role played by the teacher in each approach. We found that crude labels such as ‘‘traditional’’ or ‘‘reform’’, while matching the curriculum approaches used, did little to distinguish effective and ineffective teaching. We thus undertook a closer analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, of the teaching environments. We began with a quantitative analysis of the main activities in each classroom. We classified all the time spent in each class as either being: Teacher Questioning; Teacher Talking; Groupwork; Individual Work; or Student Focus. The categories were mutually exclusive. We coded 6 lessons for each of 6 focus teachers in 30-second intervals and reached an inter-rater reliability of 85 percent. Our first finding that we will report in the paper is that classes taught by different teachers, using the same curriculum, generated very similar categorizations. The amount of teacher questioning and groupwork was higher among the reform curriculum teachers, and the amount of individual work and teacher talking was higher among the traditional teachers. But it was noticeable and significant that some teachers who used the same curriculum approach, but generated very different instructional environments, looked very similar on this broad categorization. Thus this broad categorization of time spent does not seem to capture teaching quality. In some ways this is unsurprising, most people know that teaching quality depends upon the detailed decisions teachers make, but many of the initiatives handed to schools by districts and governments stay at this broad level of detail, as teachers are told to lecture less, engage in group work or have student presentations. Our study reveals that teaching quality is enacted at a finer level of detail.

These results led us to undertake a second, more focused analysis – which involved looking explicitly at all the questions teachers asked, to the whole class and with individuals and groups. “Rich questions” (Wiliam, 1999) or questions that promote mathematical thinking (Watson & Mason, 1998) can come from existing curricula or resource materials for teachers. However the cognitive level of these questions/tasks is often lowered in subsequent interaction (Stein, Grover, & Henningsen, 1996; Stein, Smith, Henningsen, & Silver, 2000). On the other hand, standard mathematical tasks can be opened up for exploration with skilful teacher questioning (Lampert, 2001).
We developed nine categories of teacher questions, through a process of watching the teachers in our study and considering other analyses of questions, particularly those conducted by Hiebert and Wearne (199x) and Driscoll (1999),. Our first sets of videos were coded by different researchers and an inter-rater reliability exercise achieved 90 percent reliability. The remaining of lessons were then coded by Brodie. Table 1 shows the categories we used.

Table 1: Teacher Questions.
Question type Description Examples
1. Gathering information, checking for a method, leading students through a method Wants direct answer, usually wrong or right Rehearse known facts/procedures,Enable students to state facts/procedures[equivalent to closed, lower order questions] What is the value of x in this equation?How would you plot that point?
2. Inserting terminology Once ideas are under discussion, enables correct mathematical language to be used to talk about them What is this called in mathematics?How would we write this correctly mathematically?
3. Probing, getting students to explain their thinking Clarify student thinking Enable student to elaborate their thinking for their own benefit and for the class How did you get 10? Can you explain your idea?
4. Exploring mathematical meanings, relationships Point to underlying mathematical relationships and meanings. Make links between mathematical ideas Where is this x on the diagram? What does probability mean?
5. Linking & Applying Point to relationships among mathematical ideas and mathematics and other areas of study/life In what other situations could you apply this? Where else have we used this?
6. Extending thinking Extends the situation under discussion, where similar ideas may be used Would this work with other numbers?
7. Orienting / Focusing Helps students to focus on key elements or aspects of the situation in order to enable problem-solving What is the problem asking you? What is important about this?
8. Generating Discussion Enables other members of class to contribute, comment on ideas under discussion Is there another opinion about this?What did you say, Justin?
9. Establishing context Talks about issues outside of math in order to enable links to be made with mathematics at later point What is the lottery?How old do you have to be to play the lottery?


A second set of results that we will report are the patterns of questioning across the different approaches. We have found further clear distinctions between traditional and reform teachers. Our findings for the traditional teachers are stark – more than 95 percent of their questions are of type 1. In the case of the reform teachers, between 60 and 75 percent of their questions are of type 1. The teachers using reform approaches are more varied, with some of them asking mainly type 1) and 3) questions and others asking a significant number of type 4) questions, These differences are important in determining the direction and flow of lessons. In our paper we will provide a closer, qualitative analysis of these questions in action. This analysis will both show the importance of the particular questions teachers ask in establishing different instructional environments and the need for teacher learning opportunities that focus on teacher questioning.

We will conclude with some methodological reflections on the importance of capturing teacher differences, and the grain size of analysis that we have found helpful. We will also consider the implications of the questioning differences we recorded – for curriculum policy and for teacher learning.

References

Ainley, J. (1987). Telling questions. Mathematics Teaching(118), 24-26.
Driscoll, M. (1999). Fostering Algebraic Thinking. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Hiebert, J., & Wearne, D. (1993). Instructional tasks, classroom discourse, and students' learning in second-grade arithmetic. American Educational Research Journal, 30(2), 393-425.
Klinzing, G., Klinzing-Eurich, G., & Tisher, R. P. (1985). Higher cognitive behaviours in classroom discourse: Congruencies between teachers' questions and pupils' responses. The Australian Journal of Education, 29(1), 63-75.
Lampert, M. (2001). Teaching problems and the problems of teaching. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stein, M. K., Grover, B. W., & Henningsen, M. A. (1996). Building student capacity for mathematical thinking and reasoning: An analysis of mathematical tasks used in reform classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 33(2), 455-488.
Stein, M. K., Smith, M. S., Henningsen, M. A., & Silver, E. A. (2000). Implementing standards-based mathematics instruction: A casebook for professional development. New York: Teachers College Press.
Stubbs, M. (1976). 'Keeping in touch': Some functions of teacher talk. In M. Stubbs & S. Delamont (Eds.), Explorations in classroom observation. London: Wiley.
Watson, A., & Mason, J. (1998). Questions and prompts for mathematical thinking.
Wiliam, D. (1999). Formative assessment in mathematics, part 1: Rich questioning. Equals: Mathematics and special education needs, 5(2), 15-18.

Teacher

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

"Teachers" redirects here. For other uses, see Teachers (disambiguation).

For university teachers, see professor. For 'extra-help teachers', see tutor. For Parapros, see Paraprofessional educator.

Teacher

Classroom at a secondary school in Pendembu, Sierra Leone.
Occupation
Names	Teacher, Educator, Lecturer
Type	Profession
Activity sectors	Education
Description
Competencies	Teaching abilities, pleasant disposition, patience
Education required	Teaching certification
Fields of employment	Schools
Related jobs	Professor, academic, lecturer, tutor

Jewish children with their teacher in Samarkand, the beginning of the 20th century.

In education, a teacher (or, in the US, educator) is a person who provides schooling for pupils and students. A teacher who facilitates education for an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor. The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out by way of occupation or profession at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain professional qualifications or credentials from a university or college. These professional qualifications may include the study of pedagogy, the science of teaching. Teachers may have to continue their education after they qualify. Teachers may use a lesson plan to facilitate student learning, providing a course of study which is called the curriculum. A teacher's role may vary among cultures. Teachers may provide education instruction in literacy and numeracy, craftsmanship or vocational training, the Arts, religion or spirituality, civics, community roles, or life skills. In some countries, formal education can take place through home schooling.
Informal learning may be assisted by a teacher occupying a transient or ongoing role, such as a parent or sibling or within a family, or by anyone with knowledge or skills in the wider community setting.
Religious and spiritual teachers, such as gurus, mullahs, rabbis pastors/youth pastors and lamas may teach religious texts such as the Quran, Torah or Bible.

Teaching may be carried out informally, within the family which is called home schooling (see Homeschooling) or the wider community. Formal teaching may be carried out by paid professionals. Such professionals enjoy a status in some societies on a par with physicians, lawyers, engineers, and accountants (Chartered or CPA).
A teacher's professional duties may extend beyond formal teaching. Outside of the classroom teachers may accompany students on field trips, supervise study halls, help with the organization of school functions, and serve as supervisors for extracurricular activities. In some education systems, teachers may have responsibility for student discipline.
Around the world teachers are often required to obtain specialized education, knowledge, codes of ethics and internal monitoring.
There are a variety of bodies designed to instill, preserve and update the knowledge and professional standing of teachers. Around the world many governments operate teacher's colleges, which are generally established to serve and protect the public interest through certifying, governing and enforcing the standards of practice for the teaching profession.
The functions of the teacher's colleges may include setting out clear standards of practice, providing for the ongoing education of teachers, investigating complaints involving members, conducting hearings into allegations of professional misconduct and taking appropriate disciplinary action and accrediting teacher education programs. In many situations teachers in publicly funded schools must be members in good standing with the college, and private schools may also require their teachers to be college peoples. In other areas these roles may belong to the State Board of Education, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the State Education Agency or other governmental bodies. In still other areas Teaching Unions may be responsible for some or all of these duties.

Pedagogy and teaching

Dutch schoolmaster and children, 1662

A primary school teacher in northern Laos.

The teacher-student-monument in Rostock, Germany, honours teachers.

In education, teachers facilitate student learning, often in a school or academy or perhaps in another environment such as outdoors. A teacher who teaches on an individual basis may be described as a tutor.

GDR "village teacher" (a teacher teaching students of all age groups in one class) in 1951.

The objective is typically accomplished through either an informal or formal approach to learning, including a course of study and lesson plan that teaches skills, knowledge and/or thinking skills. Different ways to teach are often referred to as pedagogy. When deciding what teaching method to use teachers consider students' background knowledge, environment, and their learning goals as well as standardized curricula as determined by the relevant authority. Many times, teachers assist in learning outside of the classroom by accompanying students on field trips. The increasing use of technology, specifically the rise of the internet over the past decade, has begun to shape the way teachers approach their roles in the classroom.
The objective is typically a course of study, lesson plan, or a practical skill. A teacher may follow standardized curricula as determined by the relevant authority. The teacher may interact with students of different ages, from infants to adults, students with different abilities and students with learning disabilities.
Teaching using pedagogy also involve assessing the educational levels of the students on particular skills. Understanding the pedagogy of the students in a classroom involves using differentiated instruction as well as supervision to meet the needs of all students in the classroom. Pedagogy can be thought of in two manners. First, teaching itself can be taught in many different ways, hence, using a pedagogy of teaching styles. Second, the pedagogy of the learners comes into play when a teacher assesses the pedagogic diversity of his/her students and differentiates for the individual students accordingly.
Perhaps the most significant difference between primary school and secondary school teaching is the relationship between teachers and children. In primary schools each class has a teacher who stays with them for most of the week and will teach them the whole curriculum. In secondary schools they will be taught by different subject specialists each session during the week and may have 10 or more different teachers. The relationship between children and their teachers tends to be closer in the primary school where they act as form tutor, specialist teacher and surrogate parent during the course of the day.
This is true throughout most of the United States as well. However, alternative approaches for primary education do exist. One of these, sometimes referred to as a "platoon" system, involves placing a group of students together in one class that moves from one specialist to another for every subject. The advantage here is that students learn from teachers who specialize in one subject and who tend to be more knowledgeable in that one area than a teacher who teaches many subjects. Students still derive a strong sense of security by staying with the same group of peers for all classes.
Co-teaching has also become a new trend amongst educational institutions. Co-teaching is defined as two or more teachers working harmoniously to fulfill the needs of every student in the classroom. Co-teaching focuses the student on learning by providing a social networking support that allows them to reach their full cognitive potential. Co-teachers work in sync with one another to create a climate of learning.

Rights to enforce school discipline

Main articles: School discipline and School punishment

Throughout the history of education the most common form of school discipline was corporal punishment. While a child was in school, a teacher was expected to act as a substitute parent, with all the normal forms of parental discipline open to them.

Medieval schoolboy birched on the bare buttocks.

In past times, corporal punishment (spanking or paddling or caning or strapping or birching the student in order to cause physical pain) was one of the most common forms of school discipline throughout much of the world. Most Western countries, and some others, have now banned it, but it remains lawful in the United States following a US Supreme Court decision in 1977 which held that paddling did not violate the US Constitution.^[2]
30 US states have banned corporal punishment, the others (mostly in the South) have not. It is still used to a significant (though declining) degree in some public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Private schools in these and most other states may also use it. Corporal punishment in American schools is administered to the seat of the student's trousers or skirt with a specially made wooden paddle. This often used to take place in the classroom or hallway, but nowadays the punishment is usually given privately in the principal's office.
Official corporal punishment, often by caning, remains commonplace in schools in some Asian, African and Caribbean countries. For details of individual countries see School corporal punishment.
Currently detention is one of the most common punishments in schools in the United States, the UK, Ireland, Singapore and other countries. It requires the pupil to remain in school at a given time in the school day (such as lunch, recess or after school); or even to attend school on a non-school day, e.g. "Saturday detention" held at some US schools. During detention, students normally have to sit in a classroom and do work, write lines or a punishment essay, or sit quietly.
A modern example of school discipline in North America and Western Europe relies upon the idea of an assertive teacher who is prepared to impose their will upon a class. Positive reinforcement is balanced with immediate and fair punishment for misbehavior and firm, clear boundaries define what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Teachers are expected to respect their students, and sarcasm and attempts to humiliate pupils are seen as falling outside of what constitutes reasonable discipline.^{[verification needed]}
Whilst this is the consensus viewpoint amongst the majority of academics, some teachers and parents advocate a more assertive and confrontational style of discipline.^{[citation needed]} Such individuals claim that many problems with modern schooling stem from the weakness in school discipline and if teachers exercised firm control over the classroom they would be able to teach more efficiently. This viewpoint is supported by the educational attainment of countries—in East Asia for instance—that combine strict discipline with high standards of education.^{[citation needed]}
It's not clear, however that this stereotypical view reflects the reality of East Asian classrooms or that the educational goals in these countries are commensurable with those in Western countries. In Japan, for example, although average attainment on standardized tests may exceed those in Western countries, classroom discipline and behavior is highly problematic. Although, officially, schools have extremely rigid codes of behavior, in practice many teachers find the students unmanageable and do not enforce discipline at all.
Where school class sizes are typically 40 to 50 students, maintaining order in the classroom can divert the teacher from instruction, leaving little opportunity for concentration and focus on what is being taught. In response, teachers may concentrate their attention on motivated students, ignoring attention-seeking and disruptive students. The result of this is that motivated students, facing demanding university entrance examinations, receive disproportionate resources, while the rest of the students are allowed, perhaps expected to, fail.^{[unbalanced opinion]} Given the emphasis on attainment of university places, administrators and governors may regard this policy as appropriate.

Obligation to honor students rights

Main article: Discipline in Sudbury Model Democratic Schools

Sudbury model democratic schools claim that popularly based authority can maintain order more effectively than dictatorial authority for governments and schools alike. They also claim that in these schools the preservation of public order is easier and more efficient than anywhere else. Primarily because rules and regulations are made by the community as a whole, thence the school atmosphere is one of persuasion and negotiation, rather than confrontation since there is no one to confront. Sudbury model democratic schools' experience shows that a school that has good, clear laws, fairly and democratically passed by the entire school community, and a good judicial system for enforcing these laws, is a school in which community discipline prevails, and in which an increasingly sophisticated concept of law and order develops, against other schools today, where rules are arbitrary, authority is absolute, punishment is capricious, and due process of law is unknown.^[3][4]

Teacher Enthusiasm

Since teachers can affect how students perceive the course materials, it has been found that teachers who showed enthusiasm towards the course materials and students can affect a positive learning experience towards the course materials. On teacher/course evaluations, it was found that teachers who have a positive disposition towards the course content tend to transfer their passion to receptive students.^[5] Teachers cannot teach by rote but have to find new invigoration for the course materials on a daily basis. Teachers have to keep in mind that they are teaching new minds every term or semester.^[6] Otherwise, teachers will fall into the trap of having done this material again and start feeling bored with the subject which in turn bore the students as well. Students who had enthusiastic teachers tend to rate them higher than teachers who didn’t show much enthusiasm for the course materials.^{[citation needed]}
Teachers that exhibit enthusiasm can lead to students who are more likely to be engaged, interested, energetic, and curious about learning the subject matter. Recent research has found a correlation between teacher enthusiasm and students’ intrinsic motivation to learn and vitality in the classroom.^[7] Controlled, experimental studies exploring intrinsic motivation of college students has shown that nonverbal expressions of enthusiasm, such as demonstrative gesturing, dramatic movements which are varied, and emotional facial expressions, result in college students reporting higher levels of intrinsic motivation to learn.^{[citation needed]} Students who experienced a very enthusiastic teacher were more likely to read lecture material outside of the classroom.
There are various mechanisms by which teacher enthusiasm may facilitate higher levels of intrinsic motivation. Teacher enthusiasm may contribute to a classroom atmosphere full of energy and enthusiasm which feed student interest and excitement in learning the subject matter.^{[citation needed]} Enthusiastic teachers may also lead to students becoming more self-determined in their own learning process. The concept of mere exposure indicates that the teacher’s enthusiasm may contribute to the student’s expectations about intrinsic motivation in the context of learning. Also, enthusiasm may act as a “motivational embellishment”; increasing a student’s interest by the variety, novelty, and surprise of the enthusiastic teacher’s presentation of the material. Finally, the concept of emotional contagion, may also apply. Students may become more intrinsically motivated by catching onto the enthusiasm and energy of the teacher.^{[citation needed]}
Research shows that student motivation and attitudes towards school are closely linked to student-teacher relationships. Enthusiastic teachers are particularly good at creating beneficial relations with their students. Their ability to create effective learning environments that foster student achievement depends on the kind of relationship they build with their students.^{[8][9][10][11]} Useful teacher-to-student interactions are crucial in linking academic success with personal achievement.^[12] Here, personal success is a student's internal goal of improving himself, whereas academic success includes the goals he receives from his superior. A teacher must guide his student in aligning his personal goals with his academic goals. Students who receive this positive influence show stronger self-confidence and greater personal and academic success than those without these teacher interactions.^[11][13][14]
Students are likely to build stronger relations with teachers who are friendly and supportive and will show more interest in courses taught by these teachers.^[12][13] Teachers that spend more time interacting and working directly with students are perceived as supportive and effective teachers. Effective teachers have been shown to invite student participation and decision making, allow humor into their classroom, and demonstrate a willingness to play.^[9]
The way a teacher promotes the course they are teaching, the more the student will get out of the subject matter. The three most important aspects of teacher enthusiasm are enthusiam about teaching, enthusiasm about the students, and enthusiasm about the subject matter. A teacher must enjoy teaching. If they do not enjoy what they are doing, the students will be able to tell. They also must enjoy being around their students. A teacher who cares for their students is going to help that individual succeed in their life in the future. The teacher also needs to be enthusiatic about the subject matter they are teaching. For example, a teacher talking about chemsitry needs to enjoy the art of chemistry and show that to their students. A spark in the teacher may create a spark of excitement in the student as well. A enthusiatic teacher has the ability to be very influential in the young students life.

Misconduct

See also: Child abuse

Misconduct by teachers, especially sexual misconduct, has been getting increased scrutiny from the media and the courts.^[15] A study by the American Association of University Women reported that 0.6% of students in the United States claim to have received unwanted sexual attention from an adult associated with education; be they a volunteer, bus driver, teacher, administrator or other adult; sometime during their educational career.^[16]
A study in England showed a 0.3% prevalence of sexual abuse by any professional, a group that included priests, religious leaders, and case workers as well as teachers.^[17] It is important to note, however, that the British study referenced above is the only one of its kind and consisted of "a random ... probability sample of 2,869 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 in a computer-assisted study" and that the questions referred to "sexual abuse with a professional," not necessarily a teacher. It is therefore logical to conclude that information on the percentage of abuses by teachers in the United Kingdom is not explicitly available and therefore not necessarily reliable. The AAUW study, however, posed questions about fourteen types of sexual harassment and various degrees of frequency and included only abuses by teachers. "The sample was drawn from a list of 80,000 schools to create a stratified two-stage sample design of 2,065 8th to 11th grade students"Its reliability was gauged at 95% with a 4% margin of error.
In the United States especially, several high-profile cases such as Debra LaFave, Pamela Rogers, and Mary Kay Latourneau have caused increased scrutiny on teacher misconduct.
Chris Keates, the general secretary of National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said that teachers who have sex with pupils over the age of consent should not be placed on the sex offenders register and that prosecution for statutory rape "is a real anomaly in the law that we are concerned about." This has led to outrage from child protection and parental rights groups.^[18]

Teaching around the world

There are many similarities and differences among teachers around the world. In almost all countries teachers are educated in a university or college. Governments may require certification by a recognized body before they can teach in a school. In many countries, elementary school education certificate is earned after completion of high school. The high school student follows an education specialty track, obtain the prerequisite "student-teaching" time, and receive a special diploma to begin teaching after graduation.
International schools generally follow an English-speaking, Western curriculum and are aimed at expatriate communities.[