Teaching Through Research Workshop – Day 8

The day started off with some interesting talks on “glocal” (think global, act local), critically understanding materials, that the unexpected in teaching is okay, and the importance in empathy in teaching.

At lunch time, we were given time to work on the final presentations for our projects we’ve been working on at the workshop; however, before cracking into that, I took a bit of time to find out about Repgrid, as one of the workshop participants was familiar with the associated techniques. Not having any familiarity with this, from what I was able to understand, this technique requires selecting at least 12 elements associated with a question, finding the similarity/differences between specific elements to create 4 context dimensions, and then rating each element from 1 to 5 based on the negative/positive aspect of the context dimension. For this exercise, we were told to think of 12 elements that make a good teacher. Afterwards, we were asked to look at 3 specific elements, 10 times, to find which of the 3 was different and why (e.g. look at elements 7, 9 and 12, and pick which one’s different from the other two and why, then repeat for the next 3 specified elements given to us). My elements were as follows: Expertise in the Discipline, Impress Relevance, Foster Critical Thinking, Continued Professional Development, Knowledge of (Teaching) Tools, Expertise in Teaching Theory, Ability to Adapt, Engage Students, Performance, Patience, Create Safe Environment, Humour. The contexts we identified from those elements were Teaching Strategy, Student Needs, Personality, and Content. After then rating each of those elements from 1 to 5 and pressing the button, the image at the top of the post was the output.

Interestingly, what we found, not only through mine, was that Expertise in the Discipline, though thought to be important, was quite low in priority than elements associated with the teacher’s personal traits (Humour, Patience, etc.). What this said for me, at least, was that I liked a teacher with personality who was able to engage with me personally, rather than an “expert”.

It was a brilliant exercise, but I did have to get on with my work, so I left for the apartment I was renting, relocated with the laptop to the balcony, and wine in hand finished off the presentation.

Santé