Jenise Noble

TE 807
What is Good Teaching:
The Ideals and Experiences That Shape It
Teaching is a profession that is constantly changing. Teachers are
constantly evolving with every new generation of students, and they are always
trying to improve upon their practice. Even though there are millions of teachers
worldwide, good teachers are not as easily found. When I first completed my
undergraduate career, I thought that I was aware of what good teachers did.
At that point, I believed that all good teachers were always available to their
students and would always offer extra help if necessary. I thought that all good
teachers behaved the same way and did extra things for their students like
providing after-school tutoring. This idea of good teaching changed quickly as I
progressed through my student-teaching experience. Good teachers not only
made themselves available for their students and offered extra help, but they
form relationships with their students that encourage students to ask for help
both academic and otherwise. Good teachers do everything in their power to
help students understand content, but most of all they work to make their
students realize their own potential and become better people in general.
Researchers have defined the idea of good teaching and the way it looks is
different in different contexts. My experience in the Detroit Public School system
has shaped this perspective as well as what I have come to believe good
teaching is in general. Through this experience, I have grown immensely as an
educator and am excited to further shape myself as a good teacher and
resources for my students to become the best that they can be.
What The Research Says
Garrett, Barr, and Rothman (2009) quote Woolfolk-Hoy and Weinstein saying
that good teachers possess the ability to exercise authority without being
overly rigid; the ability to make learning fun; and most importantly, the ability to
establish positive, caring interpersonal relationships (p. 506). In examining
these characteristics that good teachers possess, I began to reflect upon the
more seasoned teachers that I had come in contact over my career. All of the
teachers were considered good by students worked to not only build
relationships with students, but the students respected them without them
having to yell or loose their composure. While I was a student teacher, I very
often took note of the relationship that my mentor teacher had with his students.
He showed interest in who they were and because of that, they respected him in
the classroom. He was always very intentional about the assignments that he
gave students. These assignments pushed their thinking and made learning fun,
which were other characteristics of good teaching that was mentioned by
Garrett, Barr, and Rothman.
I always knew that making learning fun was important, but during my
student teaching I realized how critical it was, especially when it came to
teaching mathematics. Students enter their math classes at the beginning of the
school year with preconceived notions and apprehensions toward the content.
They think that it will be difficult and boring, and that since they may have
struggled with it in the past that they will always struggle with it. As I began to
build a relationship with my students and they came to trust me, they were more
open to my style of teaching. When teachers are intentional about building
relationships with their students they are able to see things they hinder their
progress.
Good teachers are not only aware of what is going on with their students, but
are able to do things to support their learning when their home environments
may not otherwise. In The Quiet Troubles of Low-Income Children,
Weissbourd talks about how teachers take note of students who have struggles
that often go unnoticed and do what they can to help them. Teachers must work
to make their students classroom experience as enriching as possible because
children are far better able to manage these quiet problems when theyre in
classrooms where teaching is rich and engaging (Weissbourd, 2009). As I
worked as long-term substitute in a performing arts high school I experienced
this firsthand. Many of my students struggled with quiet issues like depression
and physical ailments that took their focus away from the classroom. When I first
came into that setting, I automatically assumed that students were struggling
because they were not putting in the effort to understand. After being there for a
few days it became clear that the struggle of my students was more than just a
lack of motivation. Many of them had other issues impacting them, which caused
me to alter my teaching style. I began offering even more extra resources than I
was already, and I was extra conscious about making my classroom a safe space
because for many of my students, school is the safest place they know. Good
teachers take note of students with quiet problems and make them feel safe, a
tactic that is absolutely necessary when working in a district with many children
with quiet needs, as in Detroit, MI.
Good Teaching In My Community
The Detroit Public School system (DPS) has been through many changes
over the past ten years, just as the city of Detroit has in general. Both entities
have withstood financial hardship and corrupt leadership and have had to serve
the citizens of the city under the most adverse conditions. My entire grade school
career took place in the public school system, and through I had some great
teachers, I know that that many of them felt restricted by the hardships of the
district. Along with the structural issues that the district had, the students that it
served and still serve have very specific needs. Many students have quiet
troubles (such as poverty) as previously mentioned, but some students have very
obvious troubles that disrupt their education. Schools have to worry about
violence in their buildings and students who are in gangs, and in the midst of all
of this, teachers are still expected to offer students the best education possible.
The issues that DPS is facing have caused me to really examine what it means to
be a good teacher. I think that being a good teacher looks different in different
contexts; a teacher in DPS may have to use different tactics to gain the respect
and trust of their students than a teacher would teaching in another district.
Teachers in DPS, as in any other urban school district, pick up many other
roles besides teaching. They often act as teachers, social workers, psychologists,
and anything else that they need to be in order to help foster the success of their
students. The teachers who take on these various roles should be considered
great because they are working above and beyond to meet the needs of
students in the community. Many of the students who attend DPS live in poverty,
and good teachers come to understand how their students are affected by
poverty and the ways around it. Bennett (2008) mentions that rather than
avoiding a major social issue confronting teachers in public schools today,
studying poverty and its implications for the school and community can change
thinking and prompt teachers to action (p. 254). Understanding what our
students are going through at home comes through sometimes wearing the
counselor hat or the social worker hat, but good teaching calls for this from
time to time. I am not saying that teachers should try to do the jobs of those
who are paid to be school psychologists or social workers, but a good teacher
who has a relationship with his or her students will often get approached with
these issues before anyone else knows what is going on.
As a student teacher, I had many students whose home situations were
affecting their performance in school. One student in particular, had an unstable
living situation because of a relationship that her mother was in. Because of this,
she often had trouble finding a ride to school. She constantly missed school, and
when she did come she was tardy. She was trying her hardest to keep up with
what was going on in class, but her attendance caused her to fall behind. When I
first noticed that she was missing so much school I pulled her aside and asked
what was going on. She told me about her living situation, and I knew right then
that I had to find a way to keep her current with what was going on in class. I
constantly encouraged her to ask questions, and often sought her out to make
sure she understood what was going on. She was later pulled out of my class
and placed in a regular Algebra II class (she was originally in the honors section
of Algebra II, my second hour class) because her grades not improved. Her
counselor also informed me that she was being placed in a shelter for teen girls
because of the instability of her home situation. While this situation unfolded, I
could not help but feel as though there was more that I could do. I knew though
that students like her were all over the district and that I needed to be that type
of multi-faceted teacher, one wearing many hats, as previously mentioned. My
local community has shaped my view of what a good teacher is, one who is
aware of the lives of their students and works to make their school experience
fulfilling despite their lives outside of school. Even though the Detroit Public
School system has influenced my opinion of a good teacher, the educational
community nationally as well as globally has expanded my idea of a good
teacher to something that can be applied to students worldwide.
The dire situation of the education system in Detroit has been largely affected
by the national education system. Initiatives like No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
have forced local school districts to reconstruct their curriculum to meet national
standards. NCLB was also set in place to make American students more
competitive among their peers globally. Schools have scrambled to include
enrichments and other resources to make their students competitive, but
teachers have a limited perspective of what school systems around the globe are
doing which can also affect how they teach students in American schools from
other places. Last summer I had to opportunity to both observe teachers and
teach at a high school in Cape Town, South Africa. Being immersed in the
education system of another culture opened my mind to what teaching should
look like from a global standpoint. I became more aware of culturally relevant
pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and used the cultural differences of my
students to my advantage when I came back to the States, a skill that good
teachers must possess. Incorporating the cultural differences of students into
ones teaching practices can create reflective practitioners who can translate
curriculum into effective lesson plans, who possess communication and
collaboration skills, who can manage their classrooms for optimal student
learning, and who appreciate the power of technology to enhance learning
(Spalding et al, 2009). As I have progressed to this point in my career and have
built relationships with other instructors both locally and in other parts of the
world, I have come to understand that good teaching includes all of these facets
along with being able to both educate students from other cultures and be able
to broaden the perspective of ALL students to include a globalized view of their
lives. Culturally relevant pedagogy is not just a way of teaching; it is THE way of
teaching for good teachers. Through teaching in Detroit and in South Africa, I
have realized how important all of these perspectives are to shaping my
perception of what a good teacher is. It has caused much self-reflection through
which I have grown tremendously as a good educator.
How I Have Grown
As previously stated, the experiences that I have had thus far in my
teaching career have shaped my opinions about what it means to be a good
teacher. Being a good teacher is about so much more than just teaching content
in the classroom, it is about being involved in the lives of students in such a way
that they become better people when they leave the class at the end of the year.
I have come to realize that though teachers can make students better by just
building a relationship with them. A good teacher can do these things while also
successfully teaching the content in a way that students understand. During my
internship, I met teachers who had great relationships with their students but
their students spoke more about how the teacher helped them with issues
outside of the classroom. On the other hand, I have had conversations with
students who have had this kind of relationship with their teacher and because
of this understood so much more of the content. From this, I know that building
a solid relationship with students helps open them up to the content that I am
teaching, as previously mentioned. It institutes a level of trust that may not be
there initially. My mentor teacher always stressed that it was important for me to
know my population, meaning that I should always know the needs and
personalities of the students in my classroom in order to offer them the best
learning experience possible. A decent teacher is aware of the possible issues
that may arise in his or her classroom, but from what I have experienced a good
teacher KNOWS these issues firsthand and has crafted lessons in such a way to
address and surpass these issues.
Along with knowing and addressing the needs of students, good teaching
develops skills that students will need in their lives. As a mathematics teacher, I
have come to understand that teaching and learning math is about more than
just numbers and formulas. Good mathematics teaching produces students who
are able to think critically. These critical thinking skills are developed through the
use of real-world applications. From these applications, students are forced to
see and understand how mathematics works in their lives outside of school. I
believe that good mathematics teaching cannot exist without these factors and
that math teachers must to do more to ensure that students are getting these
things in their classrooms. Once I realized that these skills were absolutely
necessary, I began creating more tasks that would help my students foster their
critical thinking skills. My students were so use to having information spoon-fed
to them, so at first doing tasks where all the information that they needed was
not given up front was difficult for them. As we continued to work with these
types of activities though, I noticed a shift in their work ethic and they began to
think deeper and more critically about what was required to complete their tasks.
Mathematics equips students with skills that will benefit them in other areas of
their lives, and through giving them tasks through which they could hone these
skills, I believe that they have grown as students and members of society, and
that I have grown and changed as an educator as well. As I continue to teach, I
will work to push my students to think deeply about mathematics and to stray
away from the easy route of memorization as I did as a high school student. This
will be accomplished by showing students that the math that they are learning is
relevant to their lives and if used the right way, it can be used to change the
society around them.
Good teaching is an idea that looks different in different contexts. As I
have moved throughout my career, I have realized that good teacher possess a
certain set of skills such as those mentioned by Spalding (2009), and is able to
make these skills work no matter the type of environment that he or she may
work in. The school that I student taught at was drastically different from the
school where I held a long-term substitution position, and I had to take my love
for the students and for mathematics and relay it in different ways. For example,
teaching a lesson on the greatest common factors of algebraic expressions to
students at Cass Tech (where I did my student teaching) would involve more
straightforward instruction with homework and classwork activities to
supplement the content. However, at Arts Academy (long-term substitution
position), teaching this same lesson required more examples, more one-on-one
time with students, and more ways to creatively supplement their learning. For
this lesson, I created a bingo game that helped students find the greatest
common factor of algebraic expressions. It was a fun way to convey the same
material to a population of students with a different set of needs. Because I took
the time to KNOW my population and get to know each of my students, I was
able to take the skills that constitute good teaching and use them across
different groups of students. The foundational skills do not change as one moves
from one group of students to the next, but good teaching allows him or her to
take the skills and format them to directly address the needs of his or her
students.
As I entered my career, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what good
teaching looked like. I knew it encompassed care, passion, and perseverance,
but as I have gotten into the field I have realized that it is so much more.
Studies have shown that caring for students is so important in that it opens the
door to foster solid relationships. These solid relationships encourage trust
among students and teachers, which causes them to be more open to what is
being taught. Making learning fun keeps students receptive to the material even
after the relationship has been formed. As I teach in an urban area, knowing and
addressing students with both the loud and outspoken needs and quiet needs
are essential to good teaching because without this I will not be able to truly
offer students what they need in order to be successful. Teaching in Detroit has
allowed me to assess what good teaching looks like in my community, and
determine how good teaching can take students in an urban context and
introduce them to global perspectives as well as prepare both domestic and
international students to complete globally. Through this I have learned so much
about myself as a teacher as well as what it takes to be a good teacher. As I
progress through my career both in the classroom and in other realms of
education, I know that good teaching requires the right balance between care
and concern for students and making the content fun and challenging the them.
I am excited about the fact that as I grow as an instructor and continue to
sharpen the tools that make me a good teacher. Being around other instructors
that show good teaching characteristics has encouraged me to always be in a
place of self reflection in order to provide my students with the best teaching
and resources that I can offer them in order to be successful.








Works Cited:

1. Bennett, M. (2008). Understanding The Students We Teach: Poverty In
The Classroom. The Clearing House, July/August 2008. Vol. 81, No. 6. P.
251-256
2. Garrett, T, Barr, J, Rothman, T. (2009). Perspectives on Caring in the
Classroom: Do They Vary According to Ethnicity or Grade Level?
Adolescence; Fall 2009; 44, 175; ProQuest pg. 505
3. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995) Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant
Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 3.
(Autumn, 1995), pp. 465-491.
4. Spalding, E. Wang, J. Lin, E. Butler, J. (2009) A Frog in a Well Shaft:
Lessons from China on Learning to Teach. The New Educator, 5:113134,
Copyright The City College of New York ISSN: 1549-9243 online. P.
113-134
5. Weissbourd, R. (2008). The Quiet Troubles of Low-Income Children.
Harvard Education Letter, 24 (March/April 2008), 9, 6-7.