Assignment 4

Sumary 1

The Teaching Profession: Knowledge of subject matter, teaching skill and personality.

The Main purpose of this article is looking at the importance and comparing the differences of teaching skills. It looks into the personality and body language of the teachers. ‘Profession of teaching is based upon a specialization on a certain field, teaching skills, didactics and some certain personal characteristics that the profession requires.’

The key question that the author is addressing in this article ‘looking into the close relation between the fact that individuals who select teaching profession possess the knowledge of subject matter, teaching skills and suitable personality traits and whether the mission which is attributed to this profession is successfully fulfilled?’

In this article I found most of it important. The article itself didn’t tend to lead off into topics that weren’t really relevant. The article has used a lot of references itself and talks about teacher’s knowledge of the subject matter, stating ‘Teachers who have comprehensive knowledge of their subject matters let their students actively participate in the lessons. These teachers are aware of the problems the students encounter while learning and are ready for any questions put by the students and the answers these teachers provide are not evasive or ambiguous.’ Also the author has talked about teaching skills of the teacher and personality traits of the teacher, and within these areas, it has been broken down into numbered paragraphs going step by step through all the processes.

The author only uses secondary sources to support the argument. The key secondary sources used are mixed between books and journals. The author did use a lot of sources as I found out when I went to read the bibliography. There were no primary sources used in this article to support the argument.

The main conclusion in the article is emphasising that teachers must almost be multi-talented, they must be able to focus and think of different styles and techniques of learning. There is a lot to take in and think about when teaching. ‘A teacher should take up the role of a scientist while acting like an artist while designing the learning environment with the characteristics of a scientist he should add beauty, elegancy, understanding, tolerance and affection to this environment with the features of an artist.’

The key concepts we need to understand in this article are, for effective teaching, a teacher should posses basic quality’s such as ‘expertise on the subject matter, motivating for learning, awareness of student differences, planning the teaching process, knowing and using teaching learning strategies, designing learning environment, effective communication and objective evaluation.’ The author has talked about different qualities throughout the article. It is really interesting to read as some of the qualities that teachers have to take into consideration, I never or have never thought about.

The main point of view presented in this article is the author has clearly showed that to successfully become a teacher you need to have knowledge of subject matter, teaching skills and personality trait. The author has supported this view by using quotes and facts from other authors. For example when talking about planning the teachers process, the author supported the information that he/she wrote by using quotes and references such as ‘ it is within the teachers responsibility to design and prepare learning activities considering the fact that each and every student has a unique way of thinking.’ This technique was carried out throughout the whole article.


Summary 2

Making formative assessment work

The main purpose of this book is explaining formative assessment by attending to the reality and complexity of classroom life. The book, Making formative assessment work, written by Kathy Hall and Winifred M. Burke, explains and exemplifies formative assessment in practise. Drawing on incidents and case studies from primary classrooms, it describes and analyses how teachers can use formative assessment to promote learning.

The key questions that the authors are addressing are ‘What does formative assessment look like in practise?’ ‘How are formative assessment and learning connected?’ and ‘What are the issues involved in implementing formative assessment?’

The most important information in this book is the author has identified three characteristics of learning. These were well explained by Von Glasefeld (1989) in an essay entitled ‘Learning as a constructive activity.’ The three characteristics are ‘learning occurs through active intellectual engagement on the part of the learner.’ ‘It is always in a context and involves constructing meaning.’ And ‘ It involves linking new knowledge with previous understanding.’ The author then goes into more detail and continues to talk about these statements and states ‘As learners, we make our own sense and build on our own connections no matter how brilliant the teacher.’ I think that this statement was very useful as it sums up the three characteristics and its important to take in, think about and remember whilst reading this book.

Throughout this book the author has used a large amount of secondary sources to support the topic. They have used different books, journals and also Internet resources. The author has also used some primary sources such as case studies. ‘Drawing on incidents and case studies from primary settings, it describes and analyses how teachers in regular classrooms use formative assessment to promote their pupils learning.’ This was quite interesting to read as it explains the case for formative assessment with reference to what we know about the way learning occurs as well as with reference to the kind of learning that matters increasingly in schools. Also the authors themselves take it into their own hands and attend to the reality of classroom life. This way they were able to explore formative assessment being used.

The main conclusion in this book is research has shown that the kind of assessment that really matters for raising standards is assessment that yields information that learners can use to progress their own learning. The authors of this book have supported this process by exploring issues that are central to the complex task of assessing learning in away that directly informs and supports learning.

The main points of view presented in this book are, looking at the power and roles of learners and teachers in formative assessment, self and peer assessment and sharing success criteria with learners. Within this book there are individual chapters that explore formative assessment across the curriculum.

Overall I think that the author was looking at providing teachers, student teachers and researchers with a sophisticated gasp of issues in formative assessment, and how they relate to the improvement of pupil learning.