Sterling 1

The Way We Teach

James Sterling

ERWC / 4 / Frederick

10.14.16

I. Part One: Project Description Page 2-3

II. Part Two: Research Page 4-6

III. Part Three: Reflection Page 7-8

IV. Part Four: Works Cited Page 9

V. Part Five: Annotated Bibliography Page 10-12

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Project Description

For my senior project I will be teaching a history class on England during the Time of

Alfred the Great. For my research paper I will be studying different methods of teaching and

how they affect different students, and my ultimate goal for the research paper is to uncover what

teaching strategy works best for high school and college level students. The reason I have chosen

this topic and this area of research is due to the fact that I am enamored with medieval European

history, and I plan on being a teacher in that area.

My research paper will likely be the most difficult part of my senior project, as I will

have to read and break down numerous studies on how students do with different teachers, as

well as likely interview students at local schools to inquire what classes and teachers they learn

best from, which would allow me to find teachers with better teaching strategies to interview and

learn from. The end goal of this paper is to help me with both teaching my project class this year,

and to hopefully allow me to be a better teacher in the future, in order to imbue a better

understanding of my subject in future students.

My actual senior project will be quite a deal easier, but still complicated. First, I will need

to research Alfred the Great and the events that occurred during his lifetime. Then, I will need to

create a week long lesson plan including at least two quizzes, a test, and multiple in class and

homework assignments. The goal for this class is to have all students complete the course with a

B or better on all assignments. I also will want to have a chosen teaching strategy by this time,

and I will want to interview my students about how they felt and understood through my

strategy, which is more research that i can add to my project.

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I chose this area of study because it interests me, and is what i expect my future to

involve. I also happened to luck out on my mentor for this senior project. Mr. Davis is well

versed in both teaching and history, so the chance to learn from him and hopefully study how he

teaches is a wonderful opportunity. I am very interested in history, and could talk for literal hours

about it if i was given the opportunity, so I am hopeful and excited about a likely future as a

history professor.
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Most Effective Methods Of Teaching

Research Paper

When grow up I want to be a teacher. This is not the response one tends to get from a

child when they ask this question, and it was originally not my plan either. I wanted to be an

architect, and I could never figure out why. Im capable of math, but not good enough to design a

functional building, and it wasnt until I started my freshman year ethics class that i realised it

was architecture i was in love with, but rather the history behind ancient buildings, like

Colosseum and the pyramids. For this revelation there is one person I must truly thank, and

Imust also thank her for inspiring my future, teaching me how to do what I plan to do, and being

my muse, and unknowing mentor, as I wrote up my plans for how to teach a class.

For my Research Paper, I wanted to study the best methods of teaching for students of the

high school age, and use them in my project. As someone who plans on being a teacher, I know

the importance of books, and I read many of them. I studied at least a dozen books and articles,

on subjects from the teenage brain all the way to parenting and classroom management. Some of

these books made it into this essay, but what I realised when I really set my mind to the idea of

my senior project, and in fact my future, was that the best way for me personally to learn what I

needed to learn, and get the information first hand, would be to actually teach, and observe

someone who I believe to be the ideal teacher in action.

I spent my summer researching books on my topic, preparing for this paper, but I also did

something else. I signed up to be a teacher's assistant, and when school began, I set about being a
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TA for the wonderful Mrs. Bradley. It was here, I had decided, in a room full of rowdy freshmen,

that a teacher must truly show their skill, and the way they teach. Mrs. Bradley was the teacher

that showed my younger self what I wanted to be in my future, so I knew she was capable of

bringing that out in others. My plan was to observe, and hopefully find a chance to get hands on

experience with the students. What I learned really came in a few chunks, and is the foundation

for how I will probably teach for the rest of my life.

The first part of becoming a good teacher, is, in my opinion, people skills. Mrs Bradley is

exemplary at this type of thing, far better than I ever hope to be, but I am adapting what i have

seen into myself. She learns about her students, and helps them work around their flaws or

difficulties learning. She is accepting of all, and does an amazing job of maintaining control and

also maintaining a well paced, productive learning environment. She is capable of flawlessly

combining a joyous, friendly environment, while also ensuring her students know who is in

charge and what they need to be doing in order to succeed in her class. The book Effective

Teaching in Higher Education states Expressiveness, which includes enthusiasm, friendliness,

humour, dynamism, and even charisma, has long been regarded as an essential ingredient of

lecturing. Another important thing to note is how Mrs. Bradley lectures and actively avoids

making many of the common criticisms of lecturers listed in the book Effective Teaching in

Higher Education;

Students Views Lecturers Views

Inaudibility Saying too much too quickly

Incoherence Assuming too much knowledge

Failure to pitch at an appropriate level Forgetting to provide summaries

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Not emphasising key points Not indicating when making an aside

Poor blackboard work Difficulty in timing the length of a lecture

[Recreation of chart on page 13 of Effective Teaching in Higher Education]

I first got to try out these skills in a class of students my own age, my Government class

with Mr. Tauber. He would occasionally allow students to head up discussions, or lead pre test

studies, or even teach the class if they knew the subject material. I was chosen to head theses

days on more than one occasion, and I put what I learned to use, to see if it worked. While

heading a study day, I tried to engage my classmates by walking around, asking questions of

those who rarely talked, and encouraging people to work in groups. Surprisingly, the strategy

worked. Students who rarely talked were suddenly part of the discussion, most side

conversations were squashed, and people seemed engaged and like they were learning

something, which should be the true goal of any teacher.

Then, I got another chance to do this yet again, but this time I would be the leader by

rank as well as the teacher's request. Mrs. Bradley was absent, and Mr. Tauber was my Freshman

class substitute teacher, who asked me to teach the class, because I knew more about what we

were doing than they did. That day I lead a class that involved the taking of a quiz, as well as the

starting of an assignment and some in class work. I made sure to be engaging and confident

when I spoke, keep moving to maintain that attention level, and keep the students on task while

still not alienating them. To me, these two instances of using these skills, although there were

more instances, were two of the most important to this revelation, and proved to me that this was

definitely an important part of teaching a successful class.

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Then next part of teaching that both my research and my observation made blatantly

important was organization: both of lesson plans and the classroom itself. Mrs. Bradley had

multiple booklets of instructions and lesson plans and assignments, some from other teachers,

and each tackling the same overall english 9 lesson plan, but all from different angles. One of my

first jobs as her TA was to go through and organize these binders so that they would all be in

approximately the same order, followed by pulling out any duplicate assignments that the binders

shared. Mrs. Bradley then took information and chunks from each binder and combined them to

make the lesson plan that she is now using. To quote William Arthur Ward, The mediocre

teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher

inspires., and it is my understanding that it takes organization in great droves to reach any of

these heightened states of teaching. Most people will tell you, as will most books on operating a

business, being a leader, or being a teacher, that organization is key, and I tested this idea out

only a few times, but it was enough to prove to me that it is an absolute necessity

The first run I had at organization was running a mock coup of the mock presidency in

my Government class. I had to plan out the entire takeover, including how to make it almost

legal beforehand, which included the writing of multiple documents beforehand, enough to make

up for most of the outcomes that my fellow classmates could throw at me. This worked for a few

weeks, before someone noticed the loophole I had exploited wouldn't work due to a recent

addition to the legal code regarding the presidency. During that time however, my hands on

experience with preparation and having a set path led me to the belief that organization of lesson

plan is one of the most important parts of leading, or teaching.

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Organization of ones physical workspace, or classroom, also appears to be a major

importance. As a student, I know that there are layouts of classes that make it far too easy to

slack off and hide from the teacher, and I also know that some seating arrangements make it hard

to see the board, or follow a teachers movements. It is for this reason, that I have come to

believe that a two deep, staggered U formation is the best setup for a classroom of high school

size. It means that no student is too far back for the teacher to see, especially if they walk around,

and that all students can see the teacher either in front of them, or by the board at a degree no

greater than a 100 degrees to either direction.

The final of my three big realisations about teaching were about homework, and grading.

This year, as a student, I was introduced to a less assignment grade based system, where we are

graded based on how much we improve, rather than just what we do wrong or right. I also got to

see it from a teacher's perspective as a TA, and how it works to help students grow, rather than

get stuck or do the bare minimum. The example that was the most easily understood came from

Mrs. Bradley;

9x1=7
9x2=18
9x3=27
9x4=36
9x5=45
9x6=54
9x7=63
9x8=72
9x9=81
9x187=1683

When a grade based teacher looks at this, and the questions were answered over a period of time,

the student is marked down for what they did wrong. The problem with that old system is that

although there was a mistake at the beginning, the student grew in their learning, and became far
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more proficient. Why should they lose points in their grade over bad mistakes at the beginning

when they have shown growth and change. This philosophy encourages learning and growth in

both the students and in the class, rather than forcing them to meet minimum requirements.

My research has been unconventional in many ways, and rather than using a majority of

book information, I made the conscious decision to use my hands on experience, and my

viewpoint as a student, TA, and occasional fellow classmate teacher, to learn about the subject

that I chose. It is my belief after doing all of this research that this was the most effective way for

me to have gone about learning my chosen subject, and I hope that you have not let my

unconventionality undermine the evidence that i have provided as i have seen it.
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Reflection

So far, my senior project and research have gone about as well as I expected. The lesson plan

and other prep for teaching my class have been easier to do than the research paper, which was

unexpected, but otherwise my project has been going quite well. Time management has been a

bit difficult, but I assume an important part of this project is that it teaches us to manage our time

in such a way that allows for a massive project like this to be completed in the background.

My project is going to be fairly simple, but it is something within the field that I plan to

go into, and from what I can tell, I am one of very few people who are doing it here at santa

susana This project and my research paper will be useful for the rest of my career as a teacher, as

well as when in a learning environment such as a college classroom. The backbone of my entire

project is my lesson plan, which details what Im teaching on what days, and gives snippets of

information that I can use to stay on track while teaching. Another of my key aspects in my class

and project is that I am going to be assigning a homework assignment, and there will be a short

test on the last day, to help me understand how effective my teaching was, and whether or not I

was teaching in a way that helped my students learn about this subject.

I ran into a few problems between my research paper and my actual senior project. In

terms of my research paper, time restrains almost sent the whole paper spiraling into disrepair,

but I was able to rally, and write what I believe to be a successful paper that truly defines what I

learned throughout my year of research. Meanwhile, my project had a major issue, in that I never

ended up with an actual mentor, and so I was left unsure how to set my plan in place properly. I

ended up asking a group of friends to come over to my house every other day for a week, and
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giving them a study session like lecture about Alfred the Great and England in his time. I asked

them to fill out a packet that they were allowed to keep, as well as take a scantron test on the

friday that we ended. While it was not an in school activity, it is my hope that it is recognized for

the best that I could do, and that the teaching and aid of a teacher that I did throughout the year is

counted in some form. In the end, I personally think that my project and research paper went

well. Ive made decent time, and all of my plans came together nicely to form one project. With

the results from my class in, I know that it went well, and i now have a few tips on how I could

have done better. As it stands, I am happy with how my project went, and presented with the

same scenario again, the only change, I would make to my method would be to try to alot more

time to working on my paper, to ask more questions of the teachers who assigned the senior

projects and research papers, and to lock in a mentor I could meet with for assistance with certain

aspects of the project.

Works Cited
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Brown, George, and Madeleine Atkins. Effective Teaching in Higher Education.

London: Methuen. 1998.

Pamela Bradley, Teacher, Santa Susana High School

Bransford, John, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking. H ow People Learn: Brain, Mind,
Experience, and School. Washington, D.C.: National Academy, 2000. Print.

Annotated Bibliography
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Kameenui, Edward J.; Carnine, Douglas W. Effective Teaching Strategies That Accommodate

Diverse Learners. Des Moines. Prentice Hall Inc. 1998

A book written by these two authors, offering methods of teaching, instruction, and curriculum

that allow diverse students a chance to learn at the same pace as their classmates. The book

implies that teaching using these strategies helps students both in, and outside of the classroom.

The students that these strategies are primarily geared towards are those who have difficulty in

standard teaching environments, and may be behind their peers. The goal of this book is to

help teachers who read it to better teach their students, and has a series of studies to provide

information.

Bransford, John, Ann Brown, and Rodney Cocking. How People Learn: Brain, Mind,

Experience, and School. Washington, D.C.: National Academy, 2000. Print.

This book is an evaluation for teachers and teachers to be on current scientific data of teaching

environments and the US educational system and its flaws. The objective of the book is to allow

readers to achieve a deep understanding of what leads to or is an effective teaching environment

and method, and it achieves this end quite well. The book also offers research in five other
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relevant areas. The goal of this extra research is to deepen the reader's understanding of how

people learn in general, in order to teach them.

Brown, George, and Madeleine Atkins. Effective Teaching in Higher Education. London:

Methuen. 1998.

A book written for teachers to develop their effectiveness in teaching and the learning

environment, and improve their students learning by providing practical guidelines and

suggestions for teaching strategies. This short book is key on teaching large numbers of students

at once, while still ensuring that all students receive the learning and attention they need. This

book offers no special features save an assortment of studies on college level classes.

Graham, Charles. Cagiltay, Kursat. Lim, Byung-Ro. Craner, Joni. Duffy, Thomas M. Seven

Principles of Effective Teaching: A Practical Lens for Evaluating Online Courses. The

Technology Source, March/April 2001 Online

An article geared towards students who are looking into taking classes on the web, as an

informative piece on what to look for in an online course that will cater to individual student

needs and allow the students to excel in said courses. The book is written by numerous college

professors, who share their inside knowledge on what courses are best to take online, and each is

semi biased towards their own area of expertise.

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Kyriacou, Chris. Effective Teaching in Schools. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997. Print.

This book is for teachers and the avid reader, and goes into not so much, how to be an

effective teacher, but rather, what it is to be an effective teacher and what effective

teaching is. This book, unlike the others in my research, is less of a how to, and more of a

what is. This is the second edition of this book, updated some ten years after the initial

release to account for the changes in the educational systems and curriculum. The book is

designed to deduce what the job of a teacher/ teaching environment is.