Reference no: EM133262051

Case: Teacher A is a twenty-two-year-old white male who began student teaching during the last spring semester and was the top student in his methodology class the previous semester. The school administration asked him to volunteer for this study because they saw him in the classroom during the previous semester and their opinions were confirmed by two weeks of observations made at the start of his student teaching semester.

Teacher B is a sixty-year-old African American teacher and coach. He has been teaching and coaching for twenty-four years. Administrators and faculty report that he is respected and well-liked by students and parents.

Classroom atmosphere.

Both observations and student data revealed that Teacher A placed emphasis on creating a non-threatening, nurturing classroom atmosphere. After selection for this study, he taught the class the entire time (with his mentor teacher in the classroom but not interacting with the class). He did appear to have more active classes than Teacher B, but at no time did the researchers or any of the school's faculty or administration observe classes out of control. His mentor teacher said that he was very good, as a first-time student teacher at classroom management.

Teacher A was friendly toward his students and took it as his first goal in the semester to get to know them and their learning styles. He often joked and didn't seem to mind when students would interrupt his admittedly short lectures. In fact, all of the observers thought that Teacher A encouraged spontaneous discussion and debates. Much of his classroom's dynamic might be attributed to Teacher A's overall demeanour. He is enthusiastic about the subject, non-threatening, and has a good sense of humor. He demonstrated by words and actions in the classroom that he had respect for his students.

Although Teacher A did not demonstrate as much mastery of the subject and was found to convey less confidence in teaching the subject than Teacher B, he still admitted when he made a mistake. The students' ratings reflected that they respected him for this. I observed that, when he did not know the answer to a student's question, he said that he would look it up and have the answer the next class, which he always did. He said that everyone can learn, especially from mistakes, and every student in his classes has the right to learn. More than one student wrote that they liked him and wanted him to remain at the school, so that they could take another course from him. When asked, he said that he is continually rethinking his lessons and how to improve them-trying to learn more about the subject and his students to better address their individual learning styles. Lesson goals and objectives were always written on the chalkboard and referred to by Teacher A as he started his lessons.

Question 1: What do you think are the differences between Teacher A and Teacher B in terms of teaching styles?

Question 2: What do you think are the reasons why Teacher A is performing better than Teacher B? Mention three reasons.

Question 3: What is it that teacher B can do to improve his teaching styles?

Question 4: What are the issues that teacher A is doing right which you can implement in your future lessons?

Question 5: What kind of advice would you offer to both Teacher A and Teacher B?

Question 6: Evaluate the importance of observation from an African and Ubuntu perspective

Question 7: How would you deal with learners with barriers to learning in your class? Mention four mechanisms.

Question 8: As a beginning teacher, how would you deal with learners from different socio- economic, cultural, language backgrounds in your class.