John Walkup

I recently participated in The Renaissance Group’s annual conference in Washington DC. The Renaissance Group is a collection of colleges and universities that feature high-quality teacher preparation programs. The goal of The Renaissance Group is to elevate public awareness of the need for good K-12 teacher training and to instill the idea that teacher preparation is a campus-wide effort involving every campus discipline.

The Renaissance Group’s conferences are always a joy to attend because they are so well organized and the participants are fully committed to the Group’s mission.  The list of speakers at this year’s event was impressive, with  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter leading the way.

The Problem

One of the problems discussed during Dr. Kanter’s presentation is the dearth of math and science teachers, a problem that threatens to grow and leave the U.S. behind in global competition.  The problem is most severe in the physical sciences—physics and chemistry. As a K-12 professional developer with a physics background, I would like to propose a solution to this problem.

For the most part, the educational community has looked at the inadequate number of science teachers as largely a recruitment problem.  And it is, but only in the most general sense.

So what is a typical recruitment process? How does the Army recruit soldiers?  How does IBM rake in talent? How does the education field recruit teachers? Like the Army and IBM, we first try to convince recruits that joining our enterprise will reap them personal rewards—which can involve everything from money to self-fulfillment. We then try to explain away the drawbacks, either by explaining that the drawbacks do not apply to them or that they are relatively minor in comparison to the rewards.

This approach faces limitations when applied to potential physical science teachers for a number of reasons. To illustrate these reasons, let me put myself in the shoes of a hypothetical physics student contemplating a career in teaching. (I suspect chemistry students resemble physics in their attitudes toward teaching careers.) Please keep in mind that I don’t necessarily agree with the sentiments expressed below.

1. “For me, the money simply isn’t there. My physics classes are hard and I think I spend far more time and effort than most others completing my coursework. To accept a job where I receive the same low pay as those who studied ‘easier’ subjects is a slap in the face.”

2. “I consider myself a good person but I am not enticed by the self-fulfillment argument. I work hard and I would love to see my work eventually find practical applications that the public can appreciate. But I’m not out to save the world.”

3. “I have little patience for those who fail to appreciate scholarship, so teaching unmotivated students does not appeal to me one iota. I see the movies where the inspirational teacher drives students achievement to success based on his or her commanding personality and leadership. But I don’t have the personal skills to do that.”

4. “I taught a lab and hated it. I explained the science and lab procedures as clearly as I could, but students would never listen to me. After screwing up the experiment, they would then turn in garbage for their reports.  My teaching evaluations were unpleasant to say the least.  Do I want to inflict this torture on myself for the rest of my career?”

5. “I want an outlet for intellectual pursuits and I just don’t consider teaching an intellectual exercise. What is there to it? You lecture on the content, then you hand out some workbook exercises and walk around helping students that raise their hand. My off hours will be spent grading papers, a brainless activity I loathe. Simply put, teaching doesn’t require the thinking skills and decision-making I like to perform.”

6. “I want respect. With advanced knowledge of mathematics and physics, I don’t want to be known simply as a `teacher.’ People at parties will probably tell me that they really respect my profession, but I don’t buy it. They’re just being polite.”

The Sheldon Cooper model of physical science student is largely a caricature, so are these characterizations fair? Perhaps not.  However, I think many of the characterizations mentioned above will resonate with many physical science students, even though they are founded on misconceptions.

Central to any reform effort is the focus on issues that form realistic chances for change within the scope of the reformers’ jurisdiction.  Yes, the educational community can implement new salary scales that will make science teaching more lucrative, but that decision is largely out of our hands as education reformers.  Also, little can be done on a practical level to instill a heightened sense of fulfillment in potential recruits.

However, we can offer a holistic solution to the sentiment expressed in the final four statements above.

When performed well, teaching is a satisfying intellectual exercise.  The educational community, in my opinion, has not gone far enough to link the intellectual aspect of higher-order decision-making to effective teaching practice. Let me give you an example:

Student questioning is an art and science founded on common sense, adherence to well-reasoned principles, a body of research knowledge, and most importantly for this discussion a continual reliance on decision-making. The proper method to employ at any given time relies on numerous classroom conditions. Unfortunately, I rarely see effective student questioning when observing classrooms, but rather traditional habits. Teachers call on raised hands (volunteers) for no apparent reason, provide inadequate wait time, and group students according to no discernible strategy. Worse yet, when asked to explain their questioning methods, teachers often fail to conjure any image of metacognition—the ability to know why they are doing something when they are doing it. When asked to explain their decision-making in terms of Bloom’s Taxonomy or depth of knowledge, I often get blank stares.

Why is this example illustrative? With inadequate formal training and no corrective feedback on their teaching effectiveness, teaching assistants employ substandard instructional strategies that feed many of their misconceptions about the teaching profession. They end the year with negative teaching experiences and never garner respect for education as a discipline.

In short, the education community relies too much on trying to talk budding scientists into becoming teachers. Although these efforts should not subside, we need a fresh approach.

Holistic Solution Focusing on Input Processes

Teaching assistants (both undergraduate and graduate) form a sizable pool of potential teaching candidates. Unfortunately, they traditionally receive at best only a modicum of training comprising reviews of (1) grading policies, (2) lesson content, (3) safety policies, and (4) lab equipment operation. All four are important, but missing is the most crucial component of being an effective teaching assistant: How to teach.

Rather than rely solely on traditional teaching assistant preparation, I advocate a substantive preparation program that will focus on raw, bare-knuckled teaching skills. Such a program, to be effective, must implement a full professional development cycle that sets reasonable targets, trains potential teaching assistants in research-based strategies, and monitors implementation on a continual basis.

Based on the above familiar Deming cycle used in business, the professional development cycle frames our approach to solving the science teacher recruitment dilemma. The program begins with the act stage, in which teaching assistant candidates receive formal training in tangible research-based instructional strategies. The plan stage involves target setting based on feedback garnered during the training session, followed by the implementation of the learned skills in the do stage. The check stage follows, in which we (a) measure the instructional processes precisely to determine strengths and deficiencies and (b) measure teacher behaviors solely with respect to the targets established during the plan stage. The cycle repeats perpetually for as long as the teaching assistant serves in his or her role.

Failure to implement a full professional development cycle spells death for any education initiative, and the proposed model here poses no exception.  Without targets, there is no means for measuring the effectiveness of the program. Without implementation monitoring, teaching assistants will gradually fall back on natural habits over the course of the semester. And without training, teaching assistants never learn the new skills in the first place. The message is clear: Implement a complete professional development cycle or watch the reform fade.

In case the plan remains unclear, here is one step-by-step procedure for implementing the model:

Step 1. During the summer semester, a professional consultant (either a third-party or faculty member) trains teaching assistant candidates in instructional strategy. (I will post the scope of the training in another blog. For now, let me just say that the skills taught during the training must be fundamental, effective, and easy to implement.)

Step 2. Approximately one week before the semester begins, teacher candidates and the professional consultant convene to set targets for implementation.

Step 3. Once lab instruction begins, academic coaches (usually fellow teaching assistants or graduate education students who completed the training sessions) observe teaching assistants deliver instruction and provide post-instruction feedback to the teaching assistants.

Naturally, we will need to develop supporting materials such as training manuals and video vignettes of effective teaching.

Long-term Success Defined According to Output Processes

At the risk of establishing a straw man argument, we should now revisit the barriers to student recruitment we expressed earlier.

1.  As scientists and educators, there is little we can do about the salary structure of teachers, largely a community/district issue. Therefore the proposed project does not address the issue of teacher pay.

2. The proposed project does not address the issue of self-fulfillment, a personality trait that requires a long time to adjust.

3. Student misbehavior, motivation, and engagement are largely matters of teaching skill.  By training teaching assistants skills in student questioning and active participation, we provide them the means of instilling effective classroom management and boosting student motivation.

4. The perceptions we hold about our own careers are heavily influenced by the skill we apply when performing related activities. Teachers are no exception. When teachers do their job well, student appreciation for their efforts rises, inducing a concomitant rise in self-confidence and attitude toward the profession.

5. Done well, teaching is an intellectual pursuit, replete with higher-order thinking and decision-making. One primary goal of this program is to draw out this scholarship and place it squarely in the center of all training. The result is new-found satisfaction with the practice of teaching among teaching assistants.

6. Attitudinal changes toward education will form as undergraduate students become exposed in their laboratory classes to proven teaching methods. Admittedly, these attitudes would only evolve over time scales on the order of many years.

Throughout the professional development cycle, goals remain fixed on input processes—the teacher behaviors exhibited by the teaching assistants when teaching.  All observations and targets center on these learned behaviors.

Note that the goal of the professional development cycle is not to increase student learning, a notion that is unfortunately heresy in education. Sure, the students in the laboratories will likely learn more when taught using properly trained teaching assistants, but we should avoid making the classic mistake we see in education of measuring success through quiz and test scores (which are not within the direct control of the teaching assistants).

Once a teaching assistant finishes their teaching requirements for the year, we measure the output processes—the changes in attitudes toward the teaching profession expressed by the teaching assistants involved in the program. However, we must be careful in jumping to conclusions based on the results of a pilot year project. Change takes time and we may not realize the success of the program until it has been in place for at least two years.

In a nutshell, we are proposing to recruit physical science students into the teaching field by turning them into good teachers. And as for those that decide to stay in the physical sciences and become college professors? Well, they will become good teachers too.