“What is important is the teacher’s ability to integrate feedback information and be ready to make decisions, modify the teaching plan, and be sensitive to the individual student’s interests, preferred way of learning, level of development, and personal feelings” (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 79).
Clinical teaching is about effective bridging assessment and instruction in a continuous and purposeful manner. (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 77). To structure clinical teaching, there are five stages within this cycle designed for the teacher to continually make decisions, differentiate instruction, apply specific, preferred strategies based on integrated feedback information, personal emotions and feelings, level of development, and interests. The five stages of the clinical teaching cycle are: (1.) assessment, (2.) planning of the teaching task, (3.) implementation of the teaching plan, (4.) evaluation of student performance, and (5.) modification of the assessment (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 78). It is important for teachers to have many strategies at their disposal to ultimately meet the needs of individual students with unique needs (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 83).
Clinical teaching uses a variety of teaching methods to effectively teach the unique child within each class. Some key methods include differentiated instruction, multiple intelligences, cognitive processing, direct instruction and mastery learning, and psychotherapeutic teaching. Psychotherapeutic teaching, for example, centers on the students feelings and building a relationship with the teacher. Building a relationship with each student has been difficult this year because many students view consequences within the classroom as the teacher being mean. The correlation of words or actions that make a student unhappy leads to them responding back rather than implementing the conflict resolution tools we role play, model, use, and practice on a daily basis. As the goal of psychotherapeutic teaching is to “let the student know that the teacher understands the problem and has confidence in the student’s ability to learn and succeed,” my students continue to view consequences for their actions as my fault (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 87). This example of many students’ viewpoints reflects the many controlling instructional variables that must be implemented as a clinical teacher.
Teachers must use careful considerations on the controlling instructional variables because they are the key factors that help lessen elements contributing to the learning problem. The controlling instructional variables are the difficulty level, space, time and language. The difficulty level of material this year has been modified for several students in my class, meeting their present performance and tolerance levels. Within the difficulty level, the concept of readiness, in particular, focuses on the maturational development being imminent for certain skills to be learned. There is a boy who turns seven-years-old next August and is maturing at much slower rate than his peers. He struggles remaining seated, listening, remaining in his body space, and talking at appropriate times. I have taught him how to use a hand-held timer, which he receives a smiley face every ten minutes that he remains seated and talks at appropriate times. Ten minutes is at his own maturational level of development being his zone of proximal development (ZPD) according to Vygotsky’s theory of development (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 87). In doing so, I am not “[e]xpecting a student to perform a task far beyond their present level,” which “can result in a complete breakdown in learning” (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 87). Thus, by controlling the task difficulty for the student, the intervention shifts the internal consciousness from cognitive to habitual (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 88).
Fostering motivation for several students in my first grade class has been very difficult. Lavoie’s basic tenets of motivation pinpoints the forces of motivation these students have, such as needing friends, independence, control, recognized, have affiliations and/or belong to a group, and to know what is going on. “A healthy relationship implies compassion without over-involvement, understanding without indulgence, and a genuine concern for the student’s development.” (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 90) This quote emphasizes the good rapport teachers must have with their students. I admit to the over-involvement I have with the several students with behavioral issues, and the need to be more aware of this. I plan to develop visual records of progress through charts/graphs, which makes the students conscious of their success and progress (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 92). Another strategy I plan to implement is bibliotherapy because students identify themselves with characters in books, and learn how to find resolution to the character who suffers similar problems.
“There is no magic formula for teaching a child” (Lerner & Johns, 2012, p. 83). That quote emphasizes the need for educators to better understand the world of their children with learning disabilities. “The Social and Emotional World of Children with Learning Disabilities” podcast discusses some effective strategies and organizations to better help children with LD. Some key strategies include the following: practice the struggling material more with lots of encouragement; use role play at home to practice social interactions with family members; attend group therapy meetings with other peers with LD to instill good feelings and positive social skills, and; contact private schools and www.ld.org for more information and organizations nearby. In the end, there are no magic formulas for teaching; however, there are effective strategies, organizations, instructional methods and factors teachers must implement and use to better tailor the learning experiences for each individual’s unique needs.
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Good teaching is good hypothesis making. . . I really believe that. .. we come up with what we think might work. .. we try it out. . . we take data as we try our intervention to verify its efficacy (or lack thereof), we evaluate our data and make decisions based on the data, the child's progress, the child's affect, the child's self perception, our time, the curriculum demands, the demands of the other children, etc. etc. . . These variables all have to be considered as we consider the appropriateness of our interventions. Remember that we are obligated to provide an APPROPRIATE education not an OPTIMAL education. There is a fundamental difference. Sometimes we are able to do both. .. and when those two intersect, we are elated as teachers since that is what I feel we were born to do. . . but we have to also be realists. .. not all children are going to get an optimal education from us. .. the best we can strive to give them is an appropriate one. Sometimes even that is a stretch. I know I shouldn't say that in my out loud voice, but we who have been in the class room for a long time know it is the truth. We can work 20 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year and still there will be some children who will not be given enough from one teacher. .. their needs are so great. I think of that time in the play "Jesus Christ Superstar" when Jesus was being overwhelmed by a crowd of folks with leprosy and he said " There are too many of you and too little of me" . . That image sticks in my head sometimes when I am in my own school or my own college. .. I feel too small or too little to do all that needs to be done. . . too many angry teachers, too many hurt children, too many frustrated parents, too many burned out faculty, too many boring lecturers, too many students who don't want to think, too many. . . however, if Christ's model was not giving up, then we must not. He continued to go forward and heal, one person at a time. . . or as many as he could. And I think that is what you are saying here. . There is no magic formula. . . there is no panacea. . .there is individual needs that need to be discerned, addressed, and nurtured. . . one person at a time, thoughtfully and to the best of our ability so that we are providing an appropriate education. . . thoughts?
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