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    Becoming a STEM Teacher: a Crash Course for People Entering the Profession
    Becoming a STEM Teacher: a Crash Course for People Entering the Profession
    Becoming a STEM Teacher: a Crash Course for People Entering the Profession
    Ebook199 pages3 hours

    Becoming a STEM Teacher: a Crash Course for People Entering the Profession

    By Valentin Voroshilov

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    About this ebook

    This book is NOT a textbook on teaching strategies, it does not offer instructions on how to develop a lesson plan, or how to compose a test, or how to talk to students or their parents -there are plenty of books like that.
    The mission of this book is to help young or prospective STEM teachers to get in the right state of mind, which would:
    (a) help them to get a better understanding of the complicated and constantly changing world of education;
    (b) let them see clearly all important processes happening in that world and the reasons for those processes to be happening, and
    (c) help them to make the right decision (a.k.a. choice) when something unpredictable happens and a regular textbook has no answer to a question: “What do I do now?”.
    Some people call this state of mind “a teaching philosophy”.
    I do not disagree with that, but I would like to note that an individual teaching philosophy does not ever come from reading a book, it develops over years of teaching practice and regular and deep reflection on that practice.
    But a good book can help to jump start the process of the development such teaching philosophy, and I assure you – this is a good book!
    The first goal of this book is to present a coherent description of a personal teaching philosophy, which is based on an extensive and successful teaching, research, and consulting practices.
    In every profession there is a symbiotic relationship between the professional growth of an individual and the development of his or her individual professional philosophy. High professional achievements are always a result and a source of a developed professional philosophy. However, philosophy cannot be borrowed, or transmitted, it only can be self-grown.
    The personal experience of the author shows that the best instrument for self-facilitating and self-developing the own professional philosophy is an open, critical but constructive discussion with peers, who are also self-facilitating and self-developing their own professional philosophy.
    Everyone who wants to “polish” his or her teaching philosophy can use this book as a “punch bag”.
    The secondary purpose of this book is to present an unorthodox opinion on what is happening in the field of education and to offer several specific but outside-of-the-mainstream-view “recipes” for reforming the way education is currently being reformed (for example, redirecting all government subsidized funds designated to teacher professional development, making them available mainly through teacher professional organizations). That is why, while reading this book, sometimes the reader might feel like reading a political pamphlet, or a science paper, or listening to a person thinking out loud, or being involved into a heated discussion.
    Every STEM teacher might develop his or her own teacher philosophy, but all those philosophies must have clear answer to the same questions:
    1. What is teaching?
    2. What is learning?
    3. What is a science, and what is a scientific way of thinking about things?
    4. What should a science of education tell teachers about teaching and learning?
    5. What is the role of education in a society and what the society should give to education and should ask from it?
    6. What are the most efficient ways to manage education?
    I hope that this book will be useful for everyone searching for the answers to the questions above.
    The first twelve chapters are based on the set of the author’s essays also available online at www.TeachOlogy.xyz.
    An Appendix composed by the last five chapters is addressed mostly to science teachers, but have a content that does not require any specialized knowledge, and provides ideas and specific teaching instruments which are useful for every teacher.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherValentin Voroshilov
    Release dateSep 12, 2016
    ISBN9781370402144
    Becoming a STEM Teacher: a Crash Course for People Entering the Profession
    Author

    Valentin Voroshilov

    I have been teaching for many years. Please, visit GoMars.xyz for all information about me. Thank you Valentin Voroshilov

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      Book preview

      Becoming a STEM Teacher - Valentin Voroshilov

      Valentin Voroshilov

      Becoming a STEM teacher:

      a crash course for people entering the profession.

      Boston, MA, USA, 2016

      This book has been inspired by and dedicated to all my teachers and mentors to whom I am in invaluable debt; that, or course, includes my beloved mom and dad.

      Copyright 2016 © by Valentin Voroshilov

      ISBN: 9781370402144

      Table of content

      Preface

      Chapter 1: Questions that no one asks

      Chapter 2: What is teaching?

      Chapter 3: What is learning?

      Chapter 4: What do we need and what don’t we need to research? What is the difference between a science and a religion?

      Chapter 5: What do we have to do to fix the issues reported in every report of the last decades?

      Chapter 6: To test or not to test? This is NOT the right question!

      Chapter 7: Why have hundreds of millions of dollars been spent on developing the common core math standards if content-wise they are not much different from the ones they replace?

      Chapter 8: Critical reading of Making sense of confusion by Jason E. Dowd, Ives Araujo, and Eric Mazur

      Chapter 9: Thinking about becoming a STEM teacher? Think again! What does an educator need to know about a brain?

      Chapter 10: Education reform needs a new paradigm!

      Chapter 11: How I flipped my class without even knowing it. Why do students drop a class and what to do to prevent it from happening? Why do people praising the Socratic method often distaste when it is applied to them?

      Chapter 12: How is The Third Program of the USSR Communist Party related to education reform in the USA?

      Appendix: some extra materials for Physics teachers and everyone who is interested in scientific thinking.

      Chapter 13: What does thinking as a physicist mean?

      Chapter 14: A General Algorithm for Creating a Solution to a Physics Problem.

      Chapter 15: A Map of Operationally Connected Categories as an instrument for classifying physics problems and a basis for developing a novel tool for measuring learning outcomes in physics (and other STEM subjects).

      Chapter 16: Learning aides for students taking physics.

      Chapter 17: Math self-test for students planning on taking physics course.

      Preface

      I want to inform upfront all prospective readers that this book is NOT a textbook on teaching strategies, it does not offer instructions on how to develop a lesson plan, or how to compose a test, or how to talk to students or their parents.

      Dear prospective reader, if you are looking for a textbook with a set of formal rules on how to become a professional teacher, this book is not for you (sorry about that); but (a) no one can become a professional teacher after reading just one book (or even a dozen books), and (b) you can easily find on the market a good standard textbook for prospective teachers – there are plenty of them.

      The mission of this book is to help young or prospective STEM teachers to get in the right state of mind, which would:

      (a) help them to get a better understanding of the complicated and constantly changing world of education;

      (b) let them see clearly all important processes happening in that world and the reasons for those processes to be happening, and

      (c) help them to make the right decision (a.k.a. choice) when something unpredictable happens and a regular textbook has no answer to a question: What do I do now?.

      Some people call this state of mind a teaching philosophy.

      I do not disagree with that, but I would like to note that an individual teaching philosophy does not ever come from reading a book, it develops over years of teaching practice and regular and deep reflection on that practice.

      But a good book can help to jump start the process of the development such teaching philosophy, and I assure you – this is a good book!

      Imagine that you want to become a carpenter. You need some tools. You could have tried to invent all the tools from scratch, but that could have taken several hundred years, so – not a practical approach. Of course, you go shopping. But there are so many different models, even for a simple hammer. And what tools do you need for sure, but what tools you may just borrow in the future for a specific project? To save yourself time and money you go to an experienced professional who helps you to start your tool collection. Eventually you will replace some of the tools with the different ones you will like more, and even make your own improvements or even inventions, and beginners would be coming to you to get an advice about their tools. But the initial help usually comes from an expert in the field.

      The exactly same approach works for developing an individual teaching philosophy. At first you borrow it from an expert in teaching in your field. Over time you modify or replace some of the elements with the ones which fit the best your own teaching experience. If you keep teaching and thinking about your teaching, eventually you become an expert in the field who offers a new teaching philosophy to new young and prospective teachers.

      This book comes from a long term science teacher/adviser/administrator/consultant. The target audience of this book is people who are thinking about becoming a STEM teacher, or who recently started working as a STEM teacher and still trying to make sense of the new (or upcoming) reality of their life.

      However, a large part of the book will attract an interest of anyone who wants to participate in a current heated discussion of what is wrong with the current education (if anything), and how to fix it (if needed).

      A teacher or a student, a school or a district official, a parent, a politician, or a philanthropist, anyone involved in education will find in this book many helpful advices, as well as unorthodox and even controversial statements, which would help readers to formulate their own personal vision.

      The first goal of this book is to present a coherent description of a personal teaching philosophy, which is based on an extensive and successful teaching, research, and consulting practices.

      In every profession there is a symbiotic relationship between the professional growth of an individual and the development of his or her individual professional philosophy. High professional achievements are always a result and a source of a developed professional philosophy. However, philosophy cannot be borrowed, or transmitted, it only can be self-grown.

      The personal experience of the author shows that the best instrument for self-facilitating and self-developing the own professional philosophy is an open, critical but constructive discussion with peers, who are also self-facilitating and self-developing their own professional philosophy.

      Everyone who wants to polish his or her teaching philosophy can use this book as a punch bag.

      The secondary purpose of this book is to present an unorthodox opinion on what is happening in the field of education and to offer several specific but outside-of-the-mainstream-view recipes for reforming the way education is currently being reformed (for example, redirecting all government subsidized funds designated to teacher professional development, making them available mainly through teacher professional organizations). That is why, while reading this book, sometimes the reader might feel like reading a political pamphlet, or a science paper, or listening to a person thinking out loud, or being involved into a heated discussion.

      Every STEM teacher might develop his or her own teacher philosophy, but all those philosophies must have clear answer to the same questions:

      * What is teaching?

      * What is learning?

      * What is a science, and what is a scientific way of thinking about things?

      * What should a science of education tell teachers about teaching and learning? Why should a science of education be conducted and managed?

      * What is the role of education in a society and what the society should give to education and should ask from it?

      * What are the most efficient ways to manage education?

      I hope that this book will be useful for everyone searching for the answers to the questions above.

      The first twelve chapters are based on the set of the author’s essays (also available online at www.TeachOlogy.xyz) and will be useful for any STEM teacher.

      An Appendix composed by the last five chapters is addressed mostly to science teachers, but have a content that does not require any specialized knowledge, and provides ideas and specific teaching instruments which are useful for every teacher.

      BTW: When reading the book sometimes you may feel in my language the influence I had experienced from two of the smartest people in the world - Mr. Jon Stewart and Mr. Stephen Colbert.

      Chapter 1: Questions which no one asks.

      My friends know that sometimes I exaggerate things.

      For example, if I said that this book has everything what anyone who cares about education needs to know about teaching and learning, my friends would know that I was making an overstatement. No single book can ever provide complete knowledge about teaching, or learning (or anything else, for that matter). However, I would strongly recommend reading this book to everyone who cares about education, however not just for looking for answers, but also to make his or her mind about the issues discussed in it.

      Can a dumb person be a teacher? Should an idiot know that he or she is an idiot?

      Ask anyone – parents, officials, politicians, educators - and everyone will tell you what makes a teacher to be a good teacher.

      If everyone knows how to teach, why do we constantly hear about so many bad teachers in schools?

      Why a decade after a decade the NSF and private foundations spend hundreds of millions of dollars on improving the US education and yet every new report cries about a low level of education in the U.S.?

      These and many other questions have been brewing in my mind for quite some time and I am absolutely convinced should be brewing in anyone's mind, as long as one cares about teaching. We may have different answers to those questions, but we have to at least compare them hoping to find a common ground.

      You might ask yourself: Who is this guy, and why should I listen to what he says?

      To begin with, I am a teacher - like you. I am just thinking out loud; you don’t have to agree with me, in fact I’d rather prefer if you wouldn’t, and instead you would criticize me (isn’t questioning and offering a critique is the core of the highly praised Socratic method of thinking?)

      Let me tell you a little bit about myself.

      I’ve got about 20 years of teaching experience. I’ve taught in two different countries, on two different continents. I’ve taught physics and mathematics, logic and problem solving. I taught courses to middle school students and high school students, to college students and university students, to students with learning disabilities, to middle school teachers and high school teachers (very often on the same day). And yet, can you imagine that right after graduating from a university, I didn’t even want to become a teacher? For me and my classmates becoming a teacher was the worst-case scenario (profession-wise).

      When the Russian economy collapsed the assistant professor salary was not nearly enough to support my young family. So I began tutoring and also picking up around the city any classes available for teaching. One thing led to another and about 10 years later I got my PhD in education (with the concentration in teacher professional development, you can find more info at http://teachology.xyz/mathhealth/rezume.htm). I went into teaching for money, but I stayed in it because I found there something more than just a way to financial stability. I found the path to self-realization.

      FYI: I do not teach below the college level any more, but that is not my fault. When I came to the U.S. I really wanted to work in a middle or a high school, I sent my resume to almost every US school district. Turned out it was easier to get into a college than into a school.

      I am a good teacher. It took a while to realize that. I remember the first time when I noticed that I was actually not bad at teaching. A college student handed me a problem to grade (trembling hands, scared look). It was correct, and I said so. And she said, that was the first physics problem in her life she solved completely on her own.

      Was I born a good teacher? Of course not! When growing up I liked reading a lot, I liked solving chess puzzles, and I played in a band. Today I realize that my childhood experiences helped me learn how to talk to people, how to reason, and how to be confident in front of a crowd. But the main reason that I’ve become a good teacher is that I had good teachers around me for the most part my life.

      First I want to thank my parents; they were very patient with me. Only when I became a parent I understood how difficult it might be at times. Plus, my parents always had subscriptions to popular magazines about science and technologies. Reading those magazines as

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