Learning to Be Uncomfortable

My friend, the amazing Alice Keeler, dropped this great quote in an online conversation today.

Alice was talking about the way things sometimes change in a software update; the developers move buttons or menu items to new places, and it causes us to have to rethink, to relearn. But I love the twist here: those small moments of a little discomfort might be avenues to new learning.

I turned it into a graphic, because we should take this to heart, teachers. We should keep learning new things. We should keep striving to get better.

But we also need to recognize that learning new things can be a challenge. Learning new things can be hard.

There is always a learning curve; and a little discomfort in the process of learning should be expected.

The Importance of Modeling

Some days, I know that teaching is for me. And I had one of those days recently.

In a recent post, I was wondering about the nature of teaching, and whether teachers are actually "teaching" if their students aren't learning. I sometimes doubt my own efficacy as a professor--am I really cut out for this work? What really qualifies me to teach someone else how to teach? Am I really that effective at this business?

And then I have a moment where I see things coming together...

I have been visiting student teachers throughout this semester, and I have been so proud of my students--seeing them putting into practice the things they have learned throughout their work in our teacher preparation program is gratifying to say the least!

But recently I had an almost surreal experience on a visit one of my student teachers. She was particularly eager to have me visit for this lesson--it was a science lesson. I teach the science methods course for elementary and middle school majors, so she was right: I am always excited to see student teachers leading a science learning opportunity.

The lesson? Part of a unit she was teaching about states of matter. The third graders had already learned about solids, liquids, and gases, and how it's possible to change from one state of matter to another, and what makes these different states function as they do. And today's lesson was a chance for them to check and extend their understanding.

My student teacher began by asking questions of the students, helping them review the characteristics of the different states of matter. I was so proud already at this introduction; in science methods I had emphasized the importance of asking a variety of different kinds of questions--some basic, recall questions, but also higher-order thinking questions--and here she was, using all sorts of questions to engage her students and help conduct them in to the lesson of the day.

And then: a Magic Question...

"This is hard!"

"This is hard!" one of my students exclaimed in class this afternoon.

It is my middle school curriculum and instruction course; in the catalog, we call it Planning, Instruction, and Assessment in Middle Schools. Basically, it's a general methods course for thinking about what teachers do (plan, instruct, and assess) and it's tailored to folks who are hoping and planning to teach in grades 5-8.

It's a new course for me. I have a strong background in curriculum and instruction (my masters degree was in this field) and I taught middle school for 14 years before beginning this adventure of teaching future teachers. But it's a new course for me. And, the first time you teach anything, you can't be quite sure how it's going to go.

I'm thankful that I have some fantastic colleagues who are teaching the elementary and high school versions of this course. (Ed and Mary Beth, you are gems!) The three of us are able to share ideas and resources and try to keep things more or less similar in structure between these three courses, while also recognizing that there are some differences in the way elementary, middle school, and high school teachers conduct their work.

However...all teachers, regardless of the age of their students, have to plan, instruct, and assess.

Image by David Muir [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

We have done some reading about these three elements, and I've lectured a bit, and we have discussed these topics a bit. We have looked at some curriculum materials and textbooks. We've done some initial examination of standards documents, such as the Common Core State Standards. I have shared with them Wiggins & McTighe's Understanding by Design framework for thinking about planning, assessment, and instruction. We have examined a few different lesson planning templates.

But we've really only had a taste of each of these so far. And, at the encouragement of my colleagues, I figured it's time to start pulling things together, and putting it into practice.

So, in class today, I sort of tossed my students into the deep end of the pool.

Dissenting Opinions

This tweet showed up in my Twitterfeed today, retweeted by a friend:

Without dissenting voices & diversity of thought, the storyline never changes (& it has to change) @HealthUKTD pic.twitter.com/AVhkLQu8iK

— Helen Bevan (@helenbevan) May 31, 2015

I laughed. So truthy. (Like something @BluntEducator might have tweeted.)

A similar idea actually came up in a pedagogy workshop I was part of yesterday. A group of colleagues from across disciplines get together regularly throughout the summer to talk about our teaching practices--it's a great way to get to know faculty from other departments and to reflect together on how we are teaching.