Laura Proven

TE 807

Keeping Up with the Times: Shifting Understandings of

Good Teaching
Teaching is a profession that is constantly under review. The
aspects that constitute good teaching are regularly changing, and
the expectations of good teachers often cycle. One hypothetical
example of this cycle is if best practice showed teachers should teach
literacy through phonics. After a few years, once teachers became
accustomed to this method, new research showed that students do not
learn best through phonics strategies, and a different method was
encouraged. After more time passed, teachers were told that there is
some merit to learning phonics after all, and they were encouraged to
teach phonics once again. This continuous change is just a part of the
profession: teachers are lifelong learners, and the things we learn
affect how we teach.
Although I am a new teacher and I am only twenty-three years
old, the roles and expectations of teachers have changed significantly
from the time in which I was a student, and as a result, my
expectations of good teachers have changed as well. I grew up in a
time when reading lessons were comprised of the entire class reading
from basal readers (I still remember Frog and Toad), and as an
advanced reader, I was rarely challenged and usually bored unless I
had the time to read a library book of my choosing. Now, good
teaching encourages students to read Just Right Books, that not

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only appeal to each students instructional reading level, but also to

his/her interests. This method allows for advanced readers to
challenge themselves, struggling readers to feel comfortable and not
slip through the cracks of the rest of the group, and disengaged
readers to find books that truly interest them.
Another aspect of teaching that has changed since I was a
student is the teacher-centered classroom. When I was a student, the
role of my teacher was to stand or sit at the front of the classroom and
be an expert on all subjects and topics. My role as a student was to be
able to accurately regurgitate the information my teacher gave me. I
was given tests in all subjects, completed worksheets and packets
regularly, and wrote stories about essentially any topic I wanted. I was
never once met with for a reading or writing conference, and I never
completed surveys or exit slips about my knowledge or understanding
of a concept. I never was met with in a strategy group when I needed
help in mathematics. Instead, I took the math book home each night
and asked my dad to help me. As long as I could understand the
material well enough for the next test or quiz, I would obtain high
grades, and I did, thanks to the valuable methods of memorization and
other test-taking skills I acquired. Now, good teachers hold their
students more highly accountable; a student cannot get an A in
reading simply because he/she appears to have read a lot of books
throughout the year. Being a student now is much more challenging

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than it was when I was a student because good teachers are constantly
assessing, both formally and informally, to monitor students progress.
Ultimately, I share these examples because I want to
demonstrate that good teaching is always being reconsidered and
revised. In the 1990s, the methods I described above were considered
good teaching. They were widely accepted and essentially the norm.
In another twenty years, I am certain that educators will look back at
some of the strategies I currently use in my classroom and feel they
are not the most suitable ways for children to learn. In this moment, I
feel there are many qualities in good teaching, but I can speak to three
that I feel are the most important underlying aspects: building
relationships and differentiation, accountability, and a willingness to
take risks.
The first, and possibly most important, part of good teaching is
the aspect of building relationships. This is not limited to simply
knowing the names of our students, but having an understanding of
our students needs, interests, community, and families, as well as
building relationships with other teachers and colleagues. Garrett,
Barr, and Rothman conducted a study in which student perceptions of
caring were examined (2009). While the study found that the
definition of caring is debatable, and varied among different age and
ethnicity groups, the underlying fact remains that according to
students, one of the most important aspects of being a good teacher

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is the ability to develop caring relationships (Garrett, Barr, &

Rothman, 2009, p. 520). Each student may consider a teacher to be
caring for a variety of reasons: offering to help a student in his/her
hardest subject, taking the time to ask the student about his/her
personal interests, or just treating everyone equally (2009, p. 509).
However, a teacher who takes an interest in the students, whether it is
academically, emotionally, or socially, is one who is viewed as a good
teacher.
Good teachers cannot truly understand and care about their
students unless they build a personal relationship with them.
According to Robin Haskell McBee, To care deeply and demonstrate
that care, teachers must know their students needs and interests
(McBee, 2007, p. 34). Since many students considered offering
support to be demonstrative of caring (Garrett, Barr, & Rothman,
2009, p. 509), teachers need to understand each students strengths
and weaknesses in academic content, so they can better extend
themselves to offer both support and enrichment. If a student is above
grade-level in reading, a good teacher thinks of ways to challenge that
student rather than considering him/her one less child to worry about.
So often, we get caught up in the demands of testing and meeting
grade level expectations that it can be easy to forget the students who
we do not need to worry about. Taking students interests into
account is also beneficial, as this provides the teacher with information

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on how to make learning meaningful to them. If a teacher listens to

students and become aware of their funds of knowledge, she may be
able to relate a math problem to SpongeBob or a grammar lesson to
common online abbreviations (as seen in texting). When teachers
consider the interests of their students when teaching curriculum, the
students are more engaged, resulting in more meaningful learning.
Another way to enhance learning for students is by taking an
interest in their families. Many students love to talk about their
families, and allowing them time to share stories can be extremely
beneficial in building a relationship (McBee, 2007 p. 40). A good
teacher remembers when a student is extra excited for his moms
birthday this year, and asks that student the next day how his/her
mom liked her present. Great teachers collaborate with families to
establish goals and set high expectations for the students, while
keeping an open door policy and encouraging regular communication
both positive and negative. A phone call highlighting a small
celebration (participating in class, defending someone from a bully)
goes a long way in building relationships with parents and promoting
self-esteem in children. They see that the little things do not go
unnoticed in a good teachers classroom.
Yet another way in which a teacher can create a caring
relationship with her students is by learning about the community.
First of all, a teacher can incorporate some of the students favorite

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local places into the material and make it more meaningful. In a larger
picture, though, a teacher can obtain a basic understanding of the
students needs just by investigating the community. If nothing else, a
teacher can learn about the demographics of the area, whether or not
there might be a large population of students living in poverty. For
these students, school may become a safe haven; a place in which
they do not have to worry about when their next meal will be, or if their
parents will find a job soon. They can just focus on school (Bennett,
2008 p. 254). Moreover, different communities have students with
different needs. In Erin Youngs What Makes Great Teachers? she
says that what is considered best practice in rural areas might not be
considered best practice for students in urban areas (Young, 2009, p.
439). There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching.
This one-size-fits-all concept is where differentiation ties all of
these ways of building relationships together. A good teacher
differentiates for her students in countless ways. Differentiation goes
beyond adapting curriculum based on ability level. Good teaching also
involves the consideration of student needs in terms of what interests
them, which ways they learn best, their family life, and the conditions
they may be living in within the community. All of these factors can
be understood and cared for if a teacher takes the time to build a
relationship with the student. Every single student has special needs,
not just those who have been identified or diagnosed with a type of

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disability. When students feel their needs are being met, and they feel
they are part of a democratic community, behavior management and
instruction often become easier for a teacher (Fry, 2009, p. 99). When
a classroom is well managed, it can more efficiently become studentcentered and the needs of students can be met more easily, so
maintaining these relationships work as a cohesive cycle.
A final way in which good teachers build relationships is through
collaboration with one another. Teachers can learn a lot from each
other, and working in a team can reduce likelihood that teachers feel
isolated within their own classroom. Frances Miller writes, When a
schools staff experiences cohesionstudent achievement is affected
in a positive manner (Miller, 2009, p. 12). Collaboration encourages
teachers to consider methods and strategies that are beneficial to all
students, and the combination of new energy and veteran experience
among colleagues may provide a successful blend of the knowledge of
new progressive methods and reliable tricks of the trade. In any case,
building relationships with colleagues and setting common goals as a
team produces positive outcomes for student learning.
A second aspect of good teaching is accountability. Good
teachers should be held accountable just as much as students are. A
teacher should hold students accountable through regular assessment.
Assessment goes beyond being strictly summative, such as a final
exam or a cumulative paper. It should be formative and on going,

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using both formal and informal means. An example of a formal

formative assessment would be the Developmental Reading
Assessment (DRA). This is a formal test, but it is given regularly and as
often as needed to determine reading growth in students. It monitors
the progress students make in reading, rather than being a
measurement of how much students remember. An example of an
informal formative assessment would be an exit slip following a minilesson. The exit slip might ask one or two questions about the
information students just learned, which provides the teacher with a
quick understanding of how well the students grasped the concept
being taught. Summative assessments are important as well, but good
teachers do not rely on them alone.
Accountability for students promotes high expectations and
caring on the part of the teacher. When a teacher has evidence of
student performance, she can more adequately meet the needs of that
student academically, through one-on-one conferencing or strategy
groups in any subject. This is unlike my experience in school, where I
was considered a good reader because my fluency rate was fast. If I
had been regularly assessed in different ways, my teachers might have
noticed that my comprehension skills were not as perfect as they
anticipated, and I would have been able to set a goal for myself as a
reader instead of just assuming everything I was doing was correct.
Researchers such as Richard Allington have determined that the

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instruction of good teachers should be data driven, that is, based on

evidence, rather than simply loose observations or assumptions.
Regular assessment helps establish the data on which good teachers
base their instruction.
Like students, teachers should also be held accountable. Helen
Hazi and Daisy Rucinski found that many states do not have strict
guidelines for teacher evaluation, and many relinquish full control to
the local level in this regard (2009, p. 6). Although it seems most
places have guidelines for new teachers, very few had any systems in
place for evaluating veteran or tenured teachers (2009). There is
limited accountability for new teachers, providing a snapshot of their
classroom to their principal during the sporadic observations, but there
is almost no accountability for teachers who are already tenured.
Goldstein and Noguera describe a progressive solution to this problem
by describing Peer Assistance and Review in A Thoughtful Approach to
Teacher Evaluation (2009). This method is a way to hold both new
teachers as well as struggling veteran teachers accountable, which
helps identify good teachers from those who need support. This
program promotes a healthy and more holistic approach to evaluation
rather than the quick and infrequent observations by principals who
are already extremely busy. This way, schools can ensure they have
teachers who embody what it means to teach well.

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The final aspect of what I consider to be good teaching is the

ability to push limits, think outside the box, and take risks. Frances
Miller refers to these types of teachers as positive deviants in the
article Empower Teachers who Break the Mold (2009). These are
people who deviate from the norm; who are not afraid to be different
from the rest of their colleagues (Miller, 2009, p. 11). Positive deviants
consider the needs of their students before anything else, and they
adapt the traditional methods of teaching to suit the learning styles of
their students. An example of a positive deviant might be a teacher
who learns that an abundance of her students have a love for music.
Rather than stand at the front of the classroom and lecture students in
academic content, this teacher might decide to let the students
explore ways to learn the material through the formation of songs or
raps. While other teachers may look at this positive deviant as a type
of threat because it strays from the normal way of doing business,
(Miller, 2009, p. 13), the administrators in the building can help ease
the tension by encouraging collaboration with one another.
Good teaching, as I mentioned above, is always changing.
Therefore, good teachers should always be changing, too. Many
teachers find their niche in the methods and strategies they use to
teach students, and they learn to stick with what works best and feels
most comfortable to them. However, shouldnt these teachers be
considering the methods that work best for their students instead of

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themselves? Good teachers should not fall into a rut of implementing

the same lessons in the same ways, but rather should consider the
needs and interests of their students to continually adapt the ways in
which they think about and teach the material. If a teacher hears year
after year that her students like writing the least of all the subjects,
that teacher should consider ways to make writing more engaging and
meaningful to her students. This can be achieved by taking personal
risks and may be enhanced by collaboration with other colleagues.
Good teachers are aware that methods for best practice often change
and cycle, as I mentioned previously. However, the best teachers are
those who do not wait to hear what the latest research shows before
reluctantly changing their ways, but rather are the ones who are
progressive enough to push for the change.
While I believe there are many important factors in good
teaching, I do feel that building relationships, accountability, and
taking risks are the most significant because so many of the other
aspects can be summed up into one of these three categories. In fact,
one might argue that accountability and taking risks could even be
considered a part of building relationships. A teacher cannot
accurately assess a student if she does not know the strengths and
weaknesses of that student in all curricular areas, and knowing our
students as learners is part of building a relationship with them.
Thinking outside the box and considering ways to meet the needs of

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our students requires that we take the time to learn the preferences
and interests of our students as well as collaboration with our peers,
which of course, are both part of building relationships. I believe all
three of these aspects are important on their own accord, which is why
I discussed each of them separately, but if it were requested of me to
state the single most important aspect of good teaching, I feel it could
safely be identified as building relationships.
There are several issues that impact my understanding of what
good teaching will look like in my career. I just received news that I
have my very first teaching job, in a small rural district in Wisconsin. I
am thrilled to have the opportunity and I have heard great reviews of
the district. However, at the local level, I need to learn about a
community that is very different from the one I student-taught in. I
need to learn their curriculum and what they consider to be good
teaching. I completed my internship in a district that was very
progressive, and I may find that what my new school considers good
teaching is in fact slightly outdated. This may push me to be the
positive deviant in my building, pushing against what is considered
normal teaching at my school.
At both the state and national level, all teachers are facing the
issue of budget cuts. Class sizes are increasing greatly, which can
impact the ability a teacher has to build close relationships with her
students. A teacher with a large class can still effectively build strong

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relationships with all of her students, but a teacher who has fifteen
students will likely know more about each of them than a teacher with
thirty-five students. At the very least, it will take the teacher with the
larger class a longer time to know her students in all aspects
(academic and emotional needs, family life, interests, and community)
than the teacher with the smaller class.
Along with budget cuts comes a decrease in spending. Teachers
in the future might have limited access to materials such as textbooks
and technology. While there is currently a big push for technology
grants, school districts may find that installing SMART Boards in every
classroom and maintaining them is quite costly, and they may abandon
the program. Many schools have limited supplies, such as tape, paper,
printer ink, and pencils for teacher and student use. In these schools,
the teacher often has to purchase these items out of her own pocket,
or ask for donations from families, many of whom are struggling
financially in the economic recession. All of these cuts affect a
teachers morale as well as ability to teach using ordinary resources for
curriculum. If a teacher does not have access to a classroom set of
textbooks or a computer lab, she might have to be creative in thinking
of ways to convey academic content in a meaningful way.
At a global level, an issue that may affect what good teaching
looks like is the shrinking gaps in the world we live in. The prevalence
of technology plays a huge role in this, as students can call, text,

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Skype, or chat with anyone in the world in a matter of seconds. They

can read world news updates nearly the moment they happen, thanks
to television, the Internet, smart phones, and video websites such as
YouTube. Students are exposed to so much through the media that it is
nearly impossible to keep them sheltered from unpleasant issues such
as poverty, violence, and inequality. Because of this, I believe that
good teaching will also involve an awareness of what it means to live in
an internationalized society, which is in agreement with the views of
Spalding, Wang, Lin, and Butcher in their article A Frog in a Well Shaft:
Lessons from China on Learning to Teach (2009). This means taking
the time to discuss tragedies like the Tsunami in Japan that occurred
this yearjust because it happened on the other side of the world does
not mean it did not affect every one of us. Good teaching involves
discussions with students about the things they see on the news,
conversations about prejudice, and encouraging an appreciation for
different cultures.
It is nearly impossible to identify good teaching as one
particular quality. In order to be a good teacher, a person must hold
herself as well as her students accountable, and she must not be afraid
to push the limits and try new, unconventional methods for teaching.
A good teacher has a strong passion for teaching, and works hard to
know her students on multiple levels. These levels are not strictly
limited to academic strengths and weaknesses, but also to the

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interests of students, their learning style preferences, an

understanding of his/her community, and a relationship with his/her
family. If a teacher can build a strong relationship with all her students
and create a warm, caring classroom community, behavior
management will become significantly easier, allowing more time for
instruction each day.
Ultimately, good teaching is student-centered. A good teacher
learns about her students through her relationships with them, and
then uses strategies through which her students learn best. Each year,
a teacher like myself might have to change what she considered to be
good teaching from the year before because she will have new
students to learn about and consider. Due to a combination of
differences among students, local level factors, and larger, global
issues, my opinion of good teaching will continue to change in the
future, just as they have changed from the past.

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References:
Bennett, M. M. (2008). Understanding the Students We Teach: Poverty
in the
Classroom. The Clearing House, Vol. 81 (6), p. 251-256.
Fry, S. W. (2009). Characteristics and Experiences that Contribute to
Novice
Elementary Teachers' Success and Efficacy. Teacher Education
Quarterly, Vol. 36 (2), p. 95-110.
Garrett, T., Barr, J., & Rothman, T. (2009). Perspectives on Caring in
the Classroom:
Do They Vary According to Ethnicity or Grade Level?
Adolescence, Vol. 44, p. 505-521.
Goldstein, J. & Noguera, P. A. (2006). A Thoughtful Approach to Teacher
Evaluation.
Educational Leadership, Vol. 63 (6), p. 31-7.
Hazi, H. M. & Rucinski, D. A. (2009). Teacher Evaluation as a Policy
Target for
Improved Student Learning: A Fifty-State Review of Statute and
Regulatory Action since NCLB. Education Policy Analysis
Archives, Vol. 17 (5), p. 1-22.
McBee, R. H. (2007). What it Means to Care: How Educators
Conceptualize and
Actualize Caring. Action in Teacher Education, Vol. 29 (3), p. 3342.
Miller, F. A. (2009). Empower Teachers Who Break the Mold. Principal,
Vol. 89 (1), p.
10-14.
Spalding, E., Wang, J., Lin, E., & Butcher, J. (2009). A Frog in a Well
Shaft: Lessons
from China on Learning to Teach. The New Educator, Vol. 5 (2), p.

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113-34.
Young, E. (2009). What Makes a Great Teacher? PDK Summit Offers
Many Ideas. Phi
Delta Kappa, Vol. 90 (6), p. 438-439.