In What Type
of Classroom do you Feel More Comfortable During Your Professional Practice?
What
my feline eye is telling me about my teaching
By Prof. Jonathan
Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty
of Social Sciences
Universidad
Latina de Costa Rica
Thursday, November 10,
2016
Post 306
When
I was asked this question regarding my preference for a type of classroom where
I feel more comfortable and do my teaching, I immediately tried to detach myself
from the regular, common sense of evaluation that we get trapped in. As once
stated by Dr. Rosenberg (2005), “when we combine observation with evaluation,
others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying;” being
misunderstood while expressing an opinion is not my idea to tell my readers what
my preference in teaching is. For this reason, and following Rosenberg’s (2005)
recommendation, “observations are to be made specific to time and context,”
instead of simply using adjectives to describe current experiences that merely
represent forms of evaluation.
In
regards to the type of classroom I feel more comfortable during my current
professional practice, I must say that it all depends on what I have to teach.
As a faculty member at Universidad Latina in Costa Rica, I feel quite
comfortable with my F2F courses, the ones I have successfully modified to
follow a hybrid learning orientation due to its Web-enhanced content and
learning activities. From an instructional design point of view, and with my
curriculum design training, teaching this F2F courses has helped me to
incorporate technology use in the courses I teach and has helped learners
transition to a more blended learning orientation in their higher education.
And my adaptations have benefited a very important population that is sitting
in my classrooms, the WASs, people who have found my course structure suitable
for their needs and “lack” of time to study and develop their learning tasks.
And in dealing with working adult students (WASs), I feel quite comfortable in
seeing them gaining confidence and mastering new content and concepts. And as a leader for my learners in F2F settings, I try to increase “the likelihood that
[students] will hear [my] intended message” (Rosenberg, 2005) rather than
criticism and will not resist my teaching.
Though
I feel comfortable teaching in a physical classroom, I have developed –in the
last two years- a fascination for VLEs (virtual learning environments). As an
online instructor for Laureate Faculty Development, I have been online with
them to quench my curiosity and desire to teach in this other learning context.
Dealing with faculty members of all possible Laureate Universities, which means
that I have only WASs or WFASs (Working Faculty Adult Students), one gets to
witness the importance of understanding the working learners’ behavior, needs,
and the like beyond the state of evaluation. As our students in a F2F classroom
need our social, teaching, and cognitive presence to feel they are part of a
learning community, the same applies to a VLE. And working adult learners are
not the exception to this rule either; they also need another approach to their
learning that includes our social, teaching, and cognitive presence without
moralistic evaluations.
As
a college professor and as an online instructor, I base myself on observations
and analysis of data rather than jumping into a direct evaluation of my students.
By working on any of the two contexts, I feel quite comfortable and ready to
help my learners develop new skills for their jobs. As pointed out by Dr.
Rosenberg (2005) while explaining observations in Nonviolent Communication
(NVC), “observations are an important element in NVC, where we wish to clearly
and honestly express how we are” to our students (WASs or traditional
learners). And though “NVC does not mandate that we remain completely objective
and refrain from evaluating” (Rosenberg, 2005) , it helps us focus
on assisting learners to work on their construction of knowledge; judging
learners because they are away from a virtual classroom or the LMS or because
they are not complying with coursework without inquiring on what situation they
are undergoing or what is preventing them from participating actively is
irresponsible. The fun of teaching is to see students becoming independent and
ready to learn on their own.
Based
on these two trends in my teaching nowadays, leadership in a VLE or in a F2F
classroom is essential for learning and student motivation. As a F2F or VLE
instructor, I can say that my leadership style is combination of feature,
contingent, and transformational with lots of NVC (Nonviolent
Communication). I do not think a leader teacher or Andragogical educator can
solely follow a single leadership style, but s/he is a combination of them.
Additionally, an instructor cannot exercise his/her leadership if s/he depends
solely on evaluations and not on observations. As a feature leader I intend to
instill high energy levels in my university learners. Moreover, I feel I can
help my students cope with stress, make use of their maturity levels,
self-confidence, and integrity. However, I
have to improve my feature leadership to fully incorporate traditional learners
who have no work experience.
As
an Andragogical contingent and transformational leader teacher, WASs and
traditional learners need to be aided to achieve success by seasoning with lots
of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). As a contingent leader, my teaching
orientation is needed to get better results from my learners by observing their
behavior and provide them with criticism that is specific to time and context. My teacher/student relationship can
yield positive results with a tinge of encouragement where all of us work on
moving away from evaluations because as “the Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti
once remarked,” “observing without evaluating is the highest form of human
intelligence” (Rosenberg, 2005) . For this reason, I must make sure that learning tasks and
explanation account for various learning styles to benefit both types of
learner in my classrooms with lots of NVC. As a transformational leadership
instructor, I must prepare learners to adapt themselves to the new learning
circumstances, especially when coming back to college after several years
(WASs) or when they are facing college life for the first time in life. Through
this I -the instructor- can provide my learners self-assurance and tolerance
when facing uncertainty with lots of respect. But I must learn how to discern from uncertainty when it comes to
compare both types of learners in a classroom: traditional vs. WASs. Do both of
them need the same kind of transformational leadership? No doubt, education
is a complex and fascinating science that helps us see how the human being
learns when being part of a community of learning.
No
matter what kind of teaching context I feel more comfortable in, it is imperative
that teaching is focused on the learner not on what it is convenient for me.
Teaching needs to be addressed with a combination of leadership styles to cater
for all differences in the classroom in terms of the ways students learn. And
it is way too important to avoid any kind of moralistic judgment or evaluation
unless one is prepared to do so with the correct context, circumstances, and
time frame.
Reference
Rosenberg,
M. (2005). Nonviolent Communication A Language of Life. Encinitas, CA:
PuddleDancer Press.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
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