In What Type of Classroom do you Feel More Comfortable During Your Professional Practice?

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.