William Lindau

Teacher-Student Partnership

To me, the relationship between a teacher and a student is an active, dynamic partnership.

The role of a teacher is present the student with knowledge, or means of obtaining knowledge

through experiences, failures, past knowledge and applications. As a teacher, I am a facilitator,

not a distributor, of knowledge who helps students push their zone of proximal development

beyond what they thought was possible. I take after Vygotsky, and strive to act as a “more

knowledgeable other” to my students. I have more experience and learning time in the subject

and therefore, I am a guide for students to use as we find ways to further their zones of proximal

development together (Lloyd & Fernyhough, 1999).

The purpose of learning for a student is to make them a well-rounded scholar who is

equipped with the proficiency to achieve their goals in life, help them become a productive

member of society, and help them become a high-level thinker with a set of personal morals

(Esquith, 2007). My sole reason for wanting to be an educator is for the students; for their needs

and ambitions, thus it is my responsibility to provide the most efficient and effective ways of

learning for their students. This means including kinesthetic, visual and auditory learning

activities as well as various differentiated formative assessments. Furthermore, in my student-

centered method of teaching, I am sure to make each lesson flexible in terms of time,

presentation of content, degree of technology use and accommodations for students with

exceptionalities. All of this is to ensure that my teaching can be useful to every unique student of

any class, race, gender, age, exceptionality, family background, religion, and ethnicity. The

student’s role is to be unsatisfied with their current knowledge, and have a desire to expand what

they know and how they think. This is why I think of the teacher-student relationship as a

partnership. The teacher needs to have the ability to educate and the student needs to be willing
to learn. If this is the case, then they are ready for conceptual changes in their knowledge. I

utilize conceptual change because it allows students to use their past knowledge to learn new, or

more advanced, material.

In order to achieve conceptual change, I fully endorse the use of inquiry-based learning

and the teaching of the nature of science. The use of inquiry builds problem-solving skills, social

skills, argumentation skills, and critical thinking skills. As a facilitating guide, I will be a

provider of problems in which students have to use inquiry to solve. The process includes

argumentation and trial and error. My use of inquiry gives the students the opportunity to learn

from hands-on experience and form their own definitions of concepts in science, with me as a

guide. In turn, this is a great reinforcement of the nature of science. It is critical for the nature of

science to be taught to adolescents because the nature of science appeals to students of all

interests. Math-minded, technology-minded, history-minded, and English-minded students can

apply their interests into the subjective field of study that science is. By use of inquiry and the

nature of science, students can build off of their existing knowledge or replace it entirely with

new ideas that are intelligible, consistent, plausible and satisfactory. I use these teaching methods

to ensure that students are not just memorizing material, but truly understanding concepts. At the

same time, they learn how to formulate original and creative thoughts, accelerating their growth

as individuals and progressing their thought processes on Bloom’s taxonomy scale (Esquith

2007). This is very necessary in our science-centered American society. Science has an impact

on politics, the economy and everyday life. By teaching students using inquiry and the nature of

science, I will help them to understand what is happening in the world around them and form

their own unique opinion. I strive to help them see that science should play a role in developing
their opinion on anything from judging a research article, to deciding who to vote for in an

election. This is high level thinking on Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Often, in my experience, teaching and learning can happen unintentionally. In fact, I have

learned many valuable lessons from everyday situations. Language and social queues are two

fields that are learned by anyone growing up in the social society we live in. What kind of

language and social queues we learn all depend on the culture we grew up in (Lave, 1991). The

wide variety of backgrounds that students come from have exponential impact on how they

learn. This is something I take into account in my methods of teaching and interacting with my

students. I do this by utilizing differentiated learning activities. To teach one concept, it is

important that I have ample different methods that tailor to every kind of student. This means

that I teach in a way that tailors to accelerated learners, slower learners, visual, auditory and

hands-on learners, as well as those with disabilities. This is critical in our education system

because it ensures every student is treated equally and given the same opportunities.

Teaching is an active, dynamic partnership between a “more knowledgeable other” and a

learner (Lloyd & Fernyhough, 1999). Through this partnership, I strive to teach science in a

manner that students will be able to find useful in their lives. By doing this, I believe science will

become much more engaging to every kind of student. As a teacher, it is not my goal to create

researchers, or biologists. It is my goal to create well-rounded, high level thinkers who have

learned to apply the process of science to their lives.

 Works Cited

Esquith, Rafe. (2007). Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire. New York, New York: the Penguin

Group.

Lave, Jean. (1991). Chapter 4: Situated Learning in Communities of Practice.

Lloyd, P., & Fernyhough, C. (1999). Lev Vygotsky: Critical Assessments. Taylor & Francis.