Post 483: The Courage To Teach Chapter 4

 Post 483:The Courage To Teach Chapter 4

In Chapter 4, Palmer focuses on the importance of forming communities in class for successful online teaching.  He gives us two different ways to teach class, The Objectivist Model where the classroom is teacher-centered, and the students act as passive vessels of information for the teacher to pour information into the students' empty brains.  The focus of the Objectivist model is on the pure objective facts of the expert. The teacher is a figure of authority giving the facts, separate from the students, even feared by the students who give the students the facts and the students memorize these facts for their tests that the teacher gives from time to time. Little interaction occurs in this teacher centered classroom.  The teacher acts as the Sage on the Stage. This is the model that Palmer discourages teachers from using to teach a successful online class.

The model that Palmer advocates is the Community of Truth model where there is interaction between the teacher and the students as learning occurs. The teacher acts as the Guide on the Side who guides the students through the material as students master the material through interaction and community. The Community of Truth is where the teacher creates a space for learning the subject in a subject-centered classroom, where the students are so captivated by the subject that they want to learn more about it. The teacher with his passion for the topic ignites the spark of curiosity in his students to make students want to learn the subject.  In the Community of Truth, this is not a teacher-centered classroom, and also this is not a student-centered classroom, but instead, the center or object of learning is the 'great thing' or the passion for the subject.

How do I teach my Online class? With the Objectivist Model (graph on the left) or the Community of Truth (Graph on the right)?

I prefer teaching the subject centered classroom using the Community of Truth advocated by Palmer. When I taught in Koreatown, I was forced to teach the Objectivist Model and hated it.The most interesting part of Chapter 4 was the presentation of the Objectivist Model of teaching which reminds me of my Koreatown teaching where teachers were forced to do all the talking, and students were forced to just be passive receivers or empty vessels to receive the information the teacher gives vs the Community of Truth teaching which I normally teach in my online teaching.  I remember how much I hated the Koreatown teacher centered model of teaching, and after a few hours, my voice would get so hoarse from so much talking that I was constantly getting a sore throat. The director of the school would prowl the halls to make sure we were teaching the teacher centered model since that corresponded with the Korean model of teaching the Korean parents wanted for their kids.  I think this extreme teacher centered approach is very ineffective in teaching content and I disliked teaching in this manner. It just was not me. (Teaching who you are--Chapter 1).  Reinforcing fear by having a tight teaching centered classroom is not my style. (Chapter 2). I prefer a more community student centered approach to teaching where students build a community of learners and truth and develop the material together. (Chapter 3)

Instead, I prefer teaching the Community of Truth as much as possible where I get to interact with the students. I try to instill in my students a love of writing. My ultimate purpose in teaching English Composition is to make students life long lovers of writing.  However, when I give my Zoom Lectures, Zoom is a video platform software that unfortunately promotes the Objectivist Model of Teaching, so when I do my Zoom Lectures, I try to make my Zoom Lectures as interactive as possible.

I think one of the weaknesses of Zoom share screen is that it advances a more teacher (Objectivist) model of teaching because of the large share screen and the small screen of the students and teacher. With Zoom when we share screen the focus is on the teacher's voice as she goes over the material on the share screen.  Also, one of the weaknesses of a powerpoint presentation is also that the focus is on the teacher's voice as she presents the material to the class. As a teacher, you see very little of the student faces, and more importantly students see very little of each other thus further advancing the teacher centered experience for the students.  In my view when Zoom is in shared screen mode, this hinders a more community based experience or interactive experience (The Community of Truth) model for the students. Believe me on my Facebook group, Teachers teaching Zoom, and Teachers Teaching with Tech, this is a common complaint.

Of course to be fair, Zoom was not created for teaching. Zoom, Webex and other video conferencing platforms were all created for business meetings where a presenter makes a presentation while everyone listens. But when we teach on Zoom to create community, we have to make an extra effort to make Zoom more communicative and more student-centered.  In my Facebook group, teachers use two screens for Zoom teaching--one to see all the student faces, and one for share screen so then the teacher can keep track of student attention and create more of a community. As for me, I create community by stopping my lecture every 5 minutes or so with comprehension questions, or questions like , 'How can you apply topic/concept x to your life?' Have you done topicx also? Or simply ask, "Am I going too fast?'. I design my lesson to give space for students to speak and express their opinions. (Chapter 3--space for student voice paradox and space for discipline). I also give students quiz prep questions to quiz them orally on what was just said too.  I also found a book which listed hundreds of communicative activities you can do in Zoom such as Zoom break rooms and breaking students into group activities in Zoom break rooms.

I also stop screen share from time to time to see my student faces, and I would conduct an actual conversation with students away from the material to check on how the students are doing, to check to see if students have any questions, and simply to build community and trust between student and teacher. Students appreciate my efforts to include them in the live Zoom lectures.  Therefore, building community takes effort on the part of the student and the teacher. 

Palmer says that the subject should be the center of the class, and that the teacher and students find the subject so interesting, so captivating, that we all gravitate around the subject. We enter as a community of learners into learning more about the subject.  For writing, Palmer says, it is about teaching the music of the words.   I am currently going to find a way to make students understand how Peer Review can be a fun group activity where students learn to depend on each other to improve their writing.  I also build community as I mentioned in Week 1 with my Bitmoji graphics in my Announcements.  These are some of the ways I help build community of trust in my class.