There are lots of synonyms for teacher: instructor, guide, facilitator, guru, tutor, trainer, professor, lecturer, educationalist, pedagogue … I could go on! There are shades of meaning that differentiate these titles. As a secondary school teacher, I would hate for my students to think of me as their lecturer, while I would be delighted to be their tutor or guide. Each word suggests a slightly different level of input from the teacher.
This post explores one of the many ways to improve teaching and learning experiences in your classroom (I know the advice out there is overwhelming, but do read on); analysing your teaching to determine to what extent you use teacher-led methods vs pupil-led, and how to strike a balance.
What is your role as teacher?
Here is a big question: what is the role of the teacher within the classroom? In the continuum of heavily instruction based/teacher-led learning, through to heavily investigative/pupil-led learning, it is important to step back and evaluate your practice to see where the majority of your teaching lies. The tweaks and changes you can make through a reflective process can transform the learning experience for your students.
How can you reflect on your current practice?
1. Ask your students
Why not use a Google Form, a survey, a feedback box or similar style of method to collect the experiences of your students. Kids can be brutal, so be prepared to receive their feedback! They can also be vague, so be prepared for some very generic statements. And lastly, they can struggle to reflect for themselves, meaning their feedback can be limited to their own like or dislike for the subject. But in the middle of the dross, there can be some gems, some great ideas and some easy-to-implement strategies.
2. Ask a colleague to observe you
Re-live your PGCE days and have a colleague sit in the back of your classroom. This is a brave step in the context of teaching in the UK today. Unions have fought to limit observations and with Covid reducing or removing the requirement for PRSD, a lot of us have fallen out of the habit of observing and being observed. But I honestly believe observations and an ‘open-door’ policy, both within your own department and across the school, can be the catalyst we need to improve our practice.
3. Record yourself teaching a lesson and watch it back to evaluate it
Again, this is a brave step – I am not reconciled to this step yet! Watching and listening to yourself can be a humbling experience, but what better way to review the pupil experience than seeing the lesson from the other side of the camera. Note: there are of course parameters to consider. You should seek approval from your SLT/Headteacher, ensure pupils are not being recorded, ensure the recording is taken on a school device and not shared, etc, etc. But with all this said, you can evaluate yourself without relying on the feedback of others. Think about how often we ask our students to self-assess or peer-assess, and how we tell them how important it is. This is surely a worthwhile, if difficult, pill to swallow.
After gathering your data, try to evaluate what have you found?
Ask yourself a few key questions to assess whether your lessons are mainly teacher-led, mainly pupil-led, or a mix of both. Watch out for red-herrings: just because the tables are arranged into groups and the teacher is circulating around the room, doesn’t mean the task is pupil-led. And vice-versa, just because there is a worksheet with questions and the teacher is at the front of the classroom, doesn’t mean it is teacher led. Rather, investigate the type of task and the direction of the flow of information: if it comes from teacher to pupil, it is teacher-led, and if from pupil to other pupils or to the teacher, it is pupil-led. The two lists below will hopefully give you some guidance.
Lessons that are mainly pupil-led might show some, or all, of the following features:
- The learning objective is negotiated with students.
- Students ask questions, particularly open-ended questions such as ‘why’ or ‘how’.
- Students answer questions posed by themselves, others and the teacher.
- Questions asked by the teacher are open-ended, making use of higher-order thinking skills.
- Lessons are structured around tasks that are investigation based where pupils locate and make use of information that they find for themselves.
- Students are involved in explaining, modelling and demonstrating to the class.
- Lesson ideas and activities vary from year to year: same topic with a new class, but a different way of teaching it, or a similar way but with adaptations due to needs of the learners and input from the learners.
- Recall of information is used to draw conclusions and challenge assumptions.
Is a pupil-led lesson a ‘good’ lesson?
The list above seems very positive and designed to inspire students to take the lead and be independent learners. These markers are signs that you are a very innovative teacher with your eye on pushing higher-order thinking and that you trust your students. There is a danger though, that in giving all of the power to the learner, that you are missing out on an important fact: you are the teacher; your students are not the teacher. You have a degree, a depth of knowledge and understanding, and insight into the specification and direction you want to take your learners. You also run the risk of leaving your learners frustrated that they are simply teaching themselves, not accessing the information and skills required for their course, and lacking support. If they ask a question and aren’t given an answer except one that is always bounced on to another student, it can cause students to lose trust in their teacher. You also run the risk of lessons feeling unstructured and notes being vague or off track. Remember that learners eventually have examinations to sit, and tangible revision material is important.
Lessons that are mainly teacher-led might show some, or all, of the following features:
- The lesson is structured around a pre-determined objective and a pre-determined series of activities.
- The questions you ask in the lesson are closed questions with one correct, fact-based answer, often recall based and use lower-order thinking skills.
- The information given to pupils is pre-determined and comes from the teacher, either from the teacher’s own knowledge base, or from a textbook or information source that is fixed.
- The teacher leads the learning through modelling, guiding and demonstrating.
- A range of tasks are used with correct or fixed answers, sometimes pre-provided for example matching the correct answers, sorting ideas into a sequence.
- One particular lesson may follow an exact formula, content and structure year after year, with no noticeable adaptation.
- Recall of information is fact based.
Is a teacher-led lesson a ‘bad’ lesson?
This list of teacher-led activities is absolutely not designed to be read as a negative list! Teacher-led activities are essential in guiding learners, structuring their learning experiences, ensuring they are moving in the right direction towards quality information and understanding. These teacher-led markers are present in most, if not all of our lessons, and are essential; it is our job to lead, guide, inform, direct, etc. However … an issue arises when every lesson is exclusively teacher-led. Students can feel claustrophobic and frustrated, perhaps bored. They may be being overly spoon-fed and can become dependent learners.
So what is the best kind of teacher?
The best kind of teacher is one who, first of all, understands what kind of teacher they are. Knowing your teaching style, your strengths and your weaknesses leads to better outcomes in your classroom. It means you can spend more time on the things you find hard, and take a more informed approach to your planning.
Secondly, the best kind of teacher plans a mix of pupil-led and teacher-led activities within one lesson and across a series of lessons (I know this conclusion isn’t a big surprise given the information above! But it’s important to clarify nonetheless). Moving between instruction based learning and facilitation, teacher-led activities and pupil-led, between pre-determined boundaries but with the freedom to adapt is what makes for the best lessons.
How can you put this combination of pupil-led and teacher-led learning into practice in your lessons?
Consider some of the following ideas:
- Start with a low order question – right or wrong. This establishes prior knowledge and is great retrieval practice. Then move on to ask a higher order question to push the student on.
- Encourage students to take their learning on to the next stage for example providing a starting point for research by using pre-determined information and then leaving some open-ended research questions to encourage students to explore further.
- Facilitate open-ended tasks but provide plenty of guidance to support students of all abilities. (I know as I type this that this is what we all do already, but be intentional with your support and know what and why you are doing in your task design. This meta-cognition for you as a teacher leads to better reflection and planning for next time.
- Make use of thinking-based tasks which provide students with information but ask them to do something with it, for example prioritising it, summarising it or adding to it.
- For more ideas on pupil-led learning, read this blog post: 8 Ways to Get Students to Think.
Just for fun, see what kind of teacher you are with this Beano quiz! Disclaimer: this is absolutely not a reliable measure of your teaching!
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and learn more about your practice, the environment in your school with regard to observations and of pupil vs teacher led learning, and any other snippets of wisdom. Please comment below or send me an email via the contact form.
