Teaching styles – Celebrating difference in the classroom
When assessing teacher performance, are we better off evaluating the practice that suits them, rather than comparing them to a prescribed standard that could be holding them back?
- by Aaron Swan
- English teacher since 2007 and writer
We all have to be observed. It’s part of the quality assurance process that helps us evolve new and ever-improving practice. Observation roots out weak or substandard performance, but it should also identify and celebrate best practice.
Observation is a quality assurance tool. This is whether applied directly through observation of lessons, or indirectly, via the assigning of grades, marking or student voice.
Most teachers aren’t against observation in principle. However, most teachers will also know of cases where observation has been used in ways that could be classed as unprofessional.
This is partly because observation often comes accompanied by a prescribed set of ‘standards’ that define what ‘best practice’ looks like.
But what if observation was the reverse? What if it was purely descriptive?
Meeting the standard
Expectations placed upon teaching and learning can be as benign as directing the colour of pen we mark in.
Some directives – like three-part lessons, the expectation of whole-class feedback methods, incorporation of standardised lesson resources, etc. – can end up distancing teachers from the planning stage, replacing planning with doctrine.
In highly controlled environments, teachers can have very little to do with the actual planning of lessons.
Observations in these kinds of environments come down to checking that prescribed standards are being met in lessons. Some standards will always be mandated, of course. Are teachers undertaking the right module for the discipline? Do they follow safeguarding procedures? Are we teaching as per the specifications, or in accordance with the National Curriculum?
Yet the experience that teachers give to students is something that many teachers will want to own, as it’s closely aligned with our autonomy.
We’re not merely here to enact the practice designed by someone else. Instead, we want to be an individual in a classroom, possibly with our own idiosyncratic style.
Different teaching styles
Individual teachers tend to deploy a few specific teaching styles that can be described through existing pedagogical language:
THE BEHAVIOURIST
Creates learning environments focused on routine and giving students a high number of rewards, thus conditioning them to focus on behaviours that produce immediate benefits. Their activities will be more drill-based, repeated over multiple lessons and likely to be driven by direct instruction.
THE COGNITIVIST
Operates in a teaching and learning environment that’s designed around how the brain moves cognition from working memory into long-term memory. The core principles at play in their practice will include recall strategies, cycles of learning and testing, and mnemonics.
THE CONSTRUCTIVIST
Fosters environments driven by the development of knowledge acquired first-hand via practical experience and problem-solving.
What these environments might lack in direct instruction will be made up for by the abstract problems students are presented with, and then tasked with overcoming in ways unique to them. Success will often depend on students demonstrating self-motivation and soft skills, such as teamwork.
THE FACILITATOR
Focuses on not becoming the font of all knowledge. A facilitator works to provide an independent learning experience by gathering all the learning materials the students will be accessing, and then assisting them in overcoming their barriers to learning.
A facilitator gives all of the learning to students and then helps them to navigate the material.
THE HUMANIST
Prioritises students’ emotional states, allowing them to direct or lead the conversations they have with their teachers.
Humanists work on the assumption that life experiences can create emotional hang-ups that will inhibit learning, until the student has worked through the issue(s) in question. In these environments, teachers behave like counsellors before the learning occurs.
Description, not prescription
What’s needed are some variables, or language through which to describe a teacher’s practice. Under this model, an outside observer would come to the lesson with an agreed map detailing the main teaching styles exhibited by teachers.
They’d then attempt to describe the practitioner. This is rather than mark whether the teacher is satisfactorily performing in a particular directed style.
A (self-assessed) radar for my own practice might reveal that I’m highly facilitative and humanist-orientated as a teacher. I frequently create resources students can navigate at their own pace in my absence, whilst talking to students about wellbeing.
My lessons don’t seem compatible with Behaviourism, as success in my lessons isn’t about immediate reward. Rather, it’s about the satisfaction to be had from exercising autonomy in pursuit of a singular purpose.
My resources are less project-based (thus scoring low on Constructivism). And since I’m arguably not supplying mnemonics or short cycles of ‘learn > test’, neither would I perform well as a Cognitivist.
What I am doing, however, seems to be working well for me and my students – for the most part.
With a system such as this, we might use descriptivism to pair complementary teaching styles, so that one can support the other.
We could pair one teacher struggling to manage a class with another described as having a different pedagogical profile.
Mix and match
Matching two teachers with distinctly different styles may provide solutions for some teachers experiencing issues with behaviour and progress. Someone very strong on Behaviourism and Cognitivism might greatly benefit from meeting with a Humanist-Facilitator.
This would be a comparative system, in which teachers are encouraged to think about the kind of practice they can utilise successfully.
A system such as this would certainly have helped me during the early years of my career. Back then I was modelling my teaching on the highly authoritarian styles of much more experienced staff. One could describe this as being strongly Behaviourist and Cognitivist.
It would have been hugely beneficial for my development if my radar were plotted by someone able to advocate for my strengths, and help me recognise how my moments of Facilitation or Humanism were those moments with the most promise – what I know now to be my teaching character – after many struggling years as a new teacher.
An observation framed in such a way may have subsequently led to me being paired with superior professional role models than those I had access to.
Doing this, however, would require that schools both acknowledge and value difference in their staff’s professionalism.
Celebrating difference
The aim of a descriptive system like the one I’m setting out here wouldn’t be to actually fill the radar. This is because diametrically opposing styles will always be difficult to reconcile, whereas shouldered styles will have some elements in common.
The Facilitator granting autonomy of workload to their students would pair well with the Humanist providing their students with the autonomy to decide what’s most emotionally critical to them.
Conversely, a Behaviourist could pair well with the Constructivist or the Cognitivist. This is because both seek to create environments where success can be more easily measured and rewarded.
That said, the Constructivist would be placed opposite the Cognitivist. The former provides independence through project work, whilst the latter’s students will be highly teacher-directed.
What we need to ask ourselves is why one combination of practice should be preferable to another.
I’ve known teachers who are strongly Behaviourist and have secured a great deal of success, where I’ve failed. A prescriptive style runs the risk of pressurising teachers into being something they’re not.
Is it possible to even have no style? I believe so, but teachers scoring low across all styles will likely be struggling a great deal. They’ll be utilising practice that doesn’t fit into styles known to work.
These will be teachers who need to see others that are strongly aligned one way or another so that best practice can be shared around, encouraging us to find our own character.
A descriptive and comparative environment would be one that celebrates difference, while nurturing others to be comfortable with a teaching style they can sustain.
And I suspect that such an environment may well have a part to play in addressing the teacher retention issue, too.
Aaron Swan is an English teacher and has been a head of department.
