By: Sushila & Dr. Yogendra Nath Chaubey
- Need of the Innovative and Effective Pedagogical practices:
Many research scholars have desired to move into a pedagogical approach that is more active, cooperative and learner-centered. However, the importance of explicative studies is undeniable; they clarify theoretical constructs or assist in the understanding how particular population samples differ. Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001), for example, sought to investigate the life satisfaction and subjective well-being of individuals living in poverty based within Calcutta. While the findings reported a negative perception of life satisfaction, it was found that each of the three groups differed, as did the level in which income impacted on satisfaction and levels of subjective well-being. Although it was found that, on average, participants in this sample maintained an overall negative life satisfaction score, they were ‘fairly satisfied’ with aspects of the ‘self’ and ‘social relationships’. Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001) additionally make a cultural observation of because;
“Indian respondents do not rate global areas higher than specific, it appears they do not exhibit a ‘positivity bias’ … [and that] it may be the Indians evaluate areas in a more even-handed way without focusing primarily on their best areas as Americans seem to do”.
There is an evident importance towards the student having a positive relationship with a teacher. The student-teacher relationship is mentioned in various whole school evaluation management, leadership and learning (WSE-MLL) as being “dynamic … [which] has resulted in caring, confident learners”. It is clear how the key strength in the provision of the curriculum is how teachers deliver the curriculum. There are recommendations of how teachers should consider using the local community and landmarks into their lessons by “researching and collating local history as part of the Local Studies strand of the history curriculum”, which speak more towards enhancing the curriculum rather than its delivery.
Several WSEs report how there should be “greater use of collaborative, activity-based methods together with further Information and Communication Technology (ICT) initiatives”. Opportunities provided by extracurricular activities are said to cater for the “holistic education of pupils” and that by providing opportunities “to participate in a broad range of community-related events and extra-curricular activities” allow students to “benefit” in various ways. Teachers were also praised for their collaboration with members of staff in order to “provide a broad and balanced curriculum” and for their dedication in voluntarily leading “curriculum initiatives and pupil-support measures”.
It is difficult to apply the findings from both the Department of Education and Skill (DES) and Growing Up in India (GUI) data for the purpose of supporting this research; what can be applied, however, are possibilities. It is mentioned in the GUI that 27% of students like school, 66% like school sometimes, and that 7% never like school; it is also reported that 53% of students like their teacher, 41% like their teacher sometimes, and that 6% never like their school teacher.
The problem with using a Likert scale of three is that it can be difficult to determine whether the middle value is either positive or negative. For example, it is reported on the second page of this report that “a large majority of 9-year olds (93%) said they liked school at least ‘sometimes’. The remainder said they ‘never’ liked it”; this finding could also be written as ‘a large majority of 9-year olds (73%) said they never liked school at least sometimes’. The same is true for a student liking a teacher, 53% like their teacher ‘Always’ in comparison to ‘Never’ (6%). With regards to the 2012 dataset, 64.8% of students reported liking school more than ‘quite a bit’; while 7.1% reported not liking school very much and 2.4% reporting hating school. The specific percentages will need to be interpreted with some caution, however, but it can be argued that the general experience of students liking school within the GUI sample is positive. It can also be argued that the only certain finding in these statistics is that a student likes the teacher more than they like school (in the primary cohort only).
- Theme of the Research:
When observing each of the themes, from both primary and secondary school, it is apparent that a teacher is somewhat of a gatekeeper, being responsible for the planning, organisation, and assessment (all of which must be in line with the curriculum) of the students in their classroom.
In addition, the role of the management is to support the students by assisting the teacher, inside and outside of the classroom, by giving direct support to students that may need additional help. There is a slight difference in this WSE sample with secondary schools employing academic and personal guidance support, receiving special educational needs resource hours, support from the School Completion Programme, and having designated times for classes in ‘Social, Personal, and Health Education’. Primary schools appear to focus more on in-class support and whole class initiatives that support individual targeted students; taking the form of sports activities or after school groups. In both WSE samples, however, there is a need for additional student and teacher support in the form of organisation at a management level; by designating the available resources more appropriately, timetabling initiatives to support student wellbeing, revising and updating policies, and following the departmental guidelines for particular curriculum balances. However, while the qualitative WSE findings above indicate the importance of the development and delivery of a lesson, highlighting how teachers must prepare and organise the content of the lesson whilst taking into account the various other factors such as school policies and the availability of resources, there is no mention of teacher supports.
There are advantages of having a management with a clear structure that allows its members to communicate and be communicated to, be active and support the school as a whole. In supporting the school as a whole also includes the staff. The theme of ‘Ownership and Management’ and ‘In-School Management’ talks mainly about the abilities of the board of management to adhere to the needs of the students and the requirement of the teachers in facilitating this need, to a certain extent. By taking this information and applying it to the articles that had been shared throughout social media creates an additional context outside of the WSE findings. For example, several articles draw attention to teacher strikes as a result of issues such as Junior Cycle reform. These issues would naturally cause some form of influence within the school environment, and therefore, the classroom. Although more research has been conducted on this topic outside of the context, Baker (2013) and Wills (2014) both highlight the negative effects that industrial action has at a classroom level. For example, when factoring for individual school and cohort characteristics, Baker (2013) found that teacher strikes can have a significant negative affect on a students’ test scores. Similarly, Wills (2014) claims that the “magnitude of the effect is roughly equivalent to a quarter of a years’ lost learning despite the average strike duration in these schools representing only seven per cent of official school days that year”.
Wills (2014) found that in particular types of schools the performance of a student where a subject taught by a striking teacher was 10% of a standard deviation lower when compared against a subject being taught by a non-striking teacher and that there may be “lingering disruptive effects on student learning” as a result of strikes. These studies provide a particular perspective to this research project that had previously gone unnoticed. They raise the question of how effective a school community is at being able to communicate issues and support the staff that may be undergoing various levels of anxiety and stress. What this means is that, if the board of management was successful at communicating and supporting the teaching staff, the atmosphere would most likely be positive and reassuring but, if not, one could argue that this may cause an atmosphere of confusion, isolation, and increased levels of stress throughout the school. From the data gathered above, it is clear that there are multiple factors that influence the atmosphere and culture of a school, and by extension, educational research.
- Brief Literature Review
- Importance of Interaction
Wubbels and Brekelmans (2005) adopt the systems approach, proposed by Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson (1967), arguing that every behaviour displayed by an individual while in the presence of another is a form of communication. Falling under this category, education is considered a continuous cycle of interaction where “one cannot not communicate when in the presence of someone else” which also infers that “whatever a person’s intentions are, others will infer meaning from this behaviour” (Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005, pg. 7).
- Dynamics of Pedagogy
As mentioned earlier that, because the learning environment and classroom dynamics are in a constant state of change, teachers are often placed into a position where they need to adapt (Edwards & Edick, 2013). The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) (Pratt & Collins, 2000) was initially considered, but it was felt that using a scale that focused on the implementation of pedagogical skill rather that the identification of a particular type of pedagogical skill would be more practical in this research. For this reason, a scale was needed that could measure the way in which a teacher integrated a number of elements to their everyday classroom practice. The Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) was designed to observe the relationships between a teachers’ ability to integrate technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge into their teaching practice (Koehler & Mishra, 2008).
- Need of Psychological Support
Moving forward with the topic of relationships, interaction, and environment, Maslach (1976) was curious about how individuals working within the human services (dentistry, nursing, teaching, etc.) felt throughout times high emotional arousal and the various coping strategies the individuals employed. Through this research, among others, Maslach (1976) labelled a concept known as ‘burnout’ that caused individuals to feel emotionally exhausted to the point where negative perceptions towards clients, patients, or students, were formed. Later research by Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter (1996) explain burnout further as being a “syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity”.
- Conclusion
In some ways, the importance of the teacher in the classroom is made evident through statements such as “pupils’ positivity towards school is reflective of teachers’ efforts to deliver a broad, balanced and interesting curriculum”. As mentioned earlier in this paper, Pratt (2000) argues that each individual teacher will naturally hold a unique “set of beliefs and intentions that give direction and justification to our actions”, meaning that each individual classroom is a completely unique environment; further developing this ecosystemic perspective and that each school is made up of a series of ecosystems.
In moving forward with this research, what is now currently known about the educational environment is that nothing is completely certain; the collected data above reveals possible indications of what may be happening on a classroom level. While students have identified liking their teacher more than they like school, possibly indicating that the student places greater emphasis on the student-teacher relationship, it is unclear whether this dynamic extends into secondary school.
The lack of information and data surrounding the interactions between the students and teachers is interesting from a context, considering the length of time one spends with the other. There is a reported gender imbalance throughout each level of education, with the number of male primary school teachers reducing as seen in the DES statistics and, as suggested by the GUI, a possible difference in teaching strategies and styles in both male and female teachers. It is known that both teachers and principals experience high levels of stress, but also experience high levels of satisfaction. This dynamic of the student-teacher relationship is not made explicitly clear.
Despite the importance of a teacher preparing lessons that are ‘engaging’, as identified in the WSE, the delivery of this class is dependent on numerous factors. For example, a lesson plan is developed for a class based on what the teacher feels the class is capable of; it states the learning outcomes, how these are measured, what materials are used, or whether the teacher needs to cater for any special educational needs. Because every class is different, if a teacher intends on giving the same lesson to another group, the plan itself will need to be adapted to suit the needs and requirements of the next class. In other words, the teacher needs to understand the students and who they are in order to effectively deliver the content of a lesson; this implies numerous factors that were not addressed in the above datasets.
Digital pedagogy in various forms is the future of education, requiring adjustments in teaching and learning methodologies. Keeping aligned with the methodological framework of this research, the purpose of this research was to critically review and evaluate pre-existing data, concerning the education environment, with the intention of giving a direction to this research. What the findings of this current study are initially showing is that there is need to explore the dynamics of the relationship between students and their teachers. This desk research has provided three specific research directions which have, to this point, led to more questions than it has answered.
Later, Biswas-Diener and Diener (2006), using a larger sample group of both Indian and American participants (N=183), reported almost identical findings to the previous 2001 study. Similarly, all three groups in this study reported high levels of satisfaction with the ‘self’, which was considered a cultural difference in the previous study. However, while the American samples reported negative levels of subjective well-being and social relationships, the Indian sample reported positive levels of subjective well-being social relationships. Biswas-Diener and Diener (2006) propose that macroeconomic factors, such as the communistic government or high poverty rate, as being a significant contributor to the differences between the samples. If they are the same, as was the case with Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001; 2006) great; if not, an analysis of population differences will most likely uncover a new way to view the phenomena under study.
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