Exploratory task 1.3
Think of possible conflicts that can arise in the teacher’s job as a result of exploratory teaching. Rank the given reasons for conflict in order of their probability, give your real world illustrations of these conflicts and suggest the ways to resolve them.
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The idea that research in teaching makes it more effective is becoming commonplace. Yet, turning a teacher into a researcher of one’s own work or that of one’s colleagues still has to win its status. A productive way of integrating research and pedagogy (teaching and learning) is exploratory teaching (Allwright, D. 1993. Integrating “research” and “pedagogy”: appropriate criteria and practical possibilities. In Teachers Develop Teachers Research. Heinemann. P. 125-127). Exploratory teaching means exploring the developments in the classroom that puzzle teachers and learners because they create problems for the participants in the process. Exploratory teaching is more appropriate and effective in some models for teacher development than in others. Let’s consider first those models where exploratory teaching appears to be in many instances an alien element. The first model is the craft model. Here all the wisdom of the profession and all the resources necessary for success reside in an experienced teaching practitioner, a “guru” in teaching. Less experienced teachers learn from the “sages” by imitating their techniques and following their advice. A conflict between the expert and the teachers is simply unforeseen in this model nor is the learners’ reaction taken into consideration. This model is largely the result of the behaviorist views on teacher training when the input from a “guru” is considered to be the “stimulus”, which in its turn produces a predictable output from the teacher. The “craft model” is shown graphically:
Study from the master’s demonstration and instruction
Practice
Professional competence
The applied science model means that the findings of scientific knowledge and experiments are passed down to the teachers by experts in the relevant areas. The trainees are expected to put the recommended knowledge into their practice. All failures are explained either by the fact that the trainees have not understood the findings properly or have not properly applied the recommendations. There is an almost complete separation of research on the one hand and the teaching practice on the other. This model provides for the teacher autonomy in finding the ways to introduce theory into practice. The “applied science model” is shown by the graph: