Reflections on The Core Assumptions of Skillful Teaching

In this post, I'll focus on two of Brookfield (2015)'s Core Assumptions of Skillful Teaching which I found most resonant.

Assumption #1: Skillful Teaching is Whatever Helps Students Learn

When I first started teaching, I taught following the methodology of my undergraduate instructors , emphasizing lectures and assignments that were done entirely solo. This teaching approach was what had worked for me and it was what I understood. It was also reinforced by departmental policies at the time which emphasized test-heavy grading schemes. For years, I'd adhered to those styles and could easily identify with Brookfield (2015)'s statement that "we sometimes feel we ought to follow what the professional ethos in our discipline prescribes, whether or not it fits the situation we face." Increasingly though, I started to see the flaws in the rigidity of my teaching and I cringe as I reflect on some hardworking students who seemed to really struggle with my class. The need to have a more diverse quiver of arrows in my teaching bag has become increasingly apparent as the diversity of students in my classroom continues to increase and it's ultimately what led me to the PIDP program. 

This is only my second PIDP course; I'm concurrently taking PIDP 3250: Student Engagement Techniques and I've been enjoying exploring different models and strategies to engage and motivate learners. But at times it feels overwhelming: there's so many sometimes conflicting approaches to consider and I began to wonder how I'd ever even keep track of which engagement boxes my teaching was ticking or even how to choose the best technique for the class. I began to feel that I was starting to lose sight of the forest for the trees. 

I found Brookfield's very conversational discussion immensely refreshing and pragmatic. His first assumption offers a very straightforward litmus test: is the student learning? If not, try something else. Rather than spending countless hours reflecting on the merits of a particular teaching strategy, I can simply try it and see if it works, moving on to the next teaching arrow if it doesn't. But I've also realized that to be able to try out these diverse strategies, I'll need considerably more flexibility in my classroom. This Fall, having built lecture videos for online teaching, I'll be trying a flipped or blended classroom and I'm hoping that this will allow me to be more adaptable and better able to pivot on the fly as opposed to my older teaching style where the structure of the course and of my teaching was essentially locked on day one. 

Assumption #4: College Students Should be Treated as Adults

One of the most interesting career developments I've had in recent years is the opportunity to participate in a partnership program to deliver first-year college classes in local High Schools to students in their Grade 12 year. I often see students right out of High School and so it was somewhat startling to see essentially the same students a year earlier in their academic career, surrounded by their familiar peer group and in a very different environment. The students that take my classes are often substantially more competent that the average student I teach at the college, but paradoxically also seem less confident and needier. 

Upon reflection, I'm realizing that one of the major sources of friction in teaching these students is the nature of the school environment. In the High School environment, students are often allowed to redo tests, and to adjust due dates based on life circumstances and workload, so as to achieve near-perfect results. But I think a side effect of this is that students can sometimes avoid personal accountability or having to confront the fact that in the adult world, there isn't enough time to do things perfectly or repeat things.

I often find myself fighting with my own people-pleasing tendencies to hand-hold these students. Brookfield's (2015) assumption has helped remind me that one of the core things that I can do to give students that taste of college is to NOT shy away from that source of friction and to try allow these students to experience frustration and "micro-failures" where things are less than perfect. The autonomy that these young people crave in being treated as adults also comes with responsibility. As hard as it is for both myself and my students to experience a somewhat "harsher" teaching environment than they're used to, I'd do them a disservice by shying away from it and in helping to better prepare them for the realities of college and the real world. 

Brookfield, S. (2015). The skillful teacher: on technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.