of corporal of teacher behaviour of which they person- to disapprove. It is perhaps easier when seeking a definition of teaching skill to describe some of the characteristics of skilful

how to live harmoniously with one's fellows, attitudes or some other outcome thought to be desirable. A second quality could be that it is and this might include teachers, teacher trainers, inspectors, advisers and learners themselves. shall see in Chapter 4 that pupils can be shrewd in their

study by itself did not necessarily make students operational in the classroom, and secondly that when students analyse classroom proces- and work at their teaching skills, they become much more highly motivated to learn the kind of educational theory that informs practice. inductive approach based on students' own professional experiences

expertise and educational jargon. After some courses have been notorious for this, and one of the obligatory paper hoops through which BEd students in particular have traditionally had to jump, required an instant definition of such trigger terms as nomothetic, idiographic, norm-referenced, ethnographic, positivist or teleological.

of student

of study, however, to what degree teachers of investigators, some through scrutiny of several teach-

The apportioning and management of time may be seen as a set of concentric circles (Figure 2.2 not to scale), the largest, circle A, would be 168 hours per week, that the total time available during seven days and nights. Inscribed within it, the next circle, B, would be quite small by comparison, only some 24 hours, being roughly the amount of

of the boys

and 17 non-science students, and 20 of the sample were male and 14 female. The schools were commonly used teaching practice schools in city and county, and were regarded 'typical' of the spread of schools the area, in the judgement of tutors. first, second or third-year classes were watched.

of a front at the beginning' (French teacher, male). of the student teachers on mood and change in first

for home- work after the first lesson I tell them to cover books and look after them. I reinforce that the books are in their care (science teacher, male) This greater moral certainty which distinguished so clearly between experienced and beginning teachers came out very clearly when inter- "the rules say you shouldn't this" , (science teacher, male). 'Shout at them, particularly if I'm talking. It would be something short and sweet like, "shut up!" You need a mental sledgehammer' (science teacher, male). Student teachers on the other hand usually spoke of treating the

1 put myself in a learning situation, and they can see that 1 also make silly errors. (English teacher , male). 'I try to go on school hikes and camps. 1 get the kids away from the classroom. 1 always take my own kids along so that they [the pupils] see me in a different context' (science teacher, male).

of 313 lessons. of First Encounters of 313 lessons given by 41 of the

of lessons, and 'Is everyone here?' which of occasions. About 7 per cent of lessons of criticism like, 'You don't call this lined up, do

A hurt note sometimes crept into his voice. He mostly remained standing, and walked up and down behind the desk at the front of the room. When he walked round the room he did not appear to convey any impres- sion that his walking was to much purpose. He made few gestures and could almost be described as overlookable.

of what teachers did and why. Occasionally a rule was justifIed rather of safety in the laboratory and asked to write under of help and then working alongside the pupil. This was of PGCE students and experienced teachers.

of about

of soap powder do not hesitate to solicit the of the users of their product, relatively little educational research of teaching. The reasons are quite clear: of quality or even utility; others are

teacher intended someone else to answer the question and no one did, the question a question? A way out of this impasse might appear to be to consider the answers

of classroom life. (pp. 102-3)

advice. The advice offered tended to reflect the kinds of error which these teachers described, although several teachers (10) did give advice of a more general nature such as, 'talk to them and try to get them to realise for themselves their mistakes' and 'Discuss better techniques and ideas. Watch as wide a range of teachers as possible'.

interesting to know what types of sequences of questions are in general used in classrooms in different subjects, how useful such sequences to be, and the implicit models of learning on which they are based. Finally, we should like to draw the attention of the reader to some of the complexities of studying questions. Classifying questions entails

of the process of explanatory of explaining of explainees. of the problem and of the existing of the explainees. The goal of explaining is to

of a phenomenon. (Why is of explaining given

of all I wonder if you could teIl me

of material was yet again a crucial factor. The teacher in the of keys in the high-scoring lesson was the one which

of individual of several pupils with similar needs. Indeed, in practice, to be a

of leadership and res- of ideas and discussion between its members, of Galton, Simon and Croll (1980) give perhaps a useful pointer

this latter subject that we now turn. During the case-study interviews, the nominated effective teachers were asked to describe the problems which they had with bright pupils and slow learners in their classes. The results, along with some reported solutions to these articulated problems, can be seen Figures 7.1

perspective: that of cognitive or developmental psychology. The most frequently cited work in stage theory of cognitive development is that of Piaget (1972). Piaget's work has been shown to have relevance to an understanding of children's learning in a variety of curriculum areas by a variety of subject specialists -in RE by Goldman (1964, 1966), in

of the new it helps complete the experience span, since it is possible to inter- of the pro-

should reflect as much as possible of the actual teaching demands then these two areas would be candidates for further development of the students' experience. area that could arouse some speculation is syllabus construc- tion (activity 9). One viewpoint might be that probationers record

Teacher Education Project, of students working with fellow students, teachers and tutors to analyse and modify what they do, comes into its own. students do more than one teaching practice they need to reflect back on, perhaps having documented them at the time, their

pupils are as knowledgeable and insightful about classroom processes as we suggest in Chapter 4, perhaps there should be much more discussion with them about teaching and learning. Although many schools now include 'study skills' as part of their curriculum, few raise with pupils the matters discussed when teachers themselves meet to talk about teaching. interviewed during the project about group

of the teachers who most

of the substantial difference in learning between of apparently comparable ability who have, in theory, been of whole- of teachers to the

of school to it takes time to acquire, and both teachers and teacher trainers, however experienced,