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Learning & Classroom Discourse

Teaching is a demanding profession in which no two students are alike and no two days are alike. Teachers are responsible for motivating, liberating, educating, and inspiring their students. Ira Shor in Empowering Education suggests that good teachers do not talk at their students - they talk with them. Similarly, a good teacher will not impart information unilaterally to students, but will dialogue with students and encourage students to share their opinions. Ideally, such discussions will be simultaneously spontaneous and structured (Shor 85). David Reynolds in Educational Review disagrees with Shor. Reynolds suggests that the one factor which distinguishes effective teachers from less effective teachers is their academic orientation. Reynolds explains that effective teachers will emphasize academic instruction and see learning as the main classroom goal. This means that they spend most of their time on curriculum-based learning activities and work hard to create a task-oriented but supportive classroom environment for their students. He adds that research has proven that children learn more in classes where they spend time being taught or supervised by their teacher rather than working on their own. In such classes teachers spend most of their time presenting information through lecture and demonstration. Teacher-led discussion as opposed to individual work dominates (Reynolds 147).

Good teachers are charismatic and enthusiastic about their chosen vocation. School should be about students learning, not about teachers teaching. Michael Medland in Self-Management Strategies suggests that the goal of teaching is to give students the skills necessary to cope with problems the will encounter once they leave school (Medland 1). Teaching is a combination of science and art. Over time, it has been demonstrated through experimentation including trial and error that certain forms of discourse, in addition to certain processes, techni...

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Learning & Classroom Discourse. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 13:41, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1696106.html