How do you see yourself as a teacher? Apps (1991, 23-24) talks about different teaching approaches through metaphor which should help you to start thinking about you as a teacher:
I'm no longer a teacher in the sense that I work in a university and teach students on courses. But I am involved in teaching, in the sense of developing, sharing and discussing ideas about learning. I started my career as a geology teacher and taught as I had been taught encouraging my students to think and behave like a geologist in the classroom and the field. There was nothing very different about my approach to the ways in which I had been taught although I put much effort into creating resources to support my teaching and students' learning. Looking back I think I was a geologist who taught rather than a teacher who taught geology.
I left geology teaching twenty five years ago and the next part of my career took me into higher education. In my role as HMI I was privileged to witness many teachers teaching and became more familiar with a range of pedagogic practices. I began to study learning and in various roles contributed to many staff development events. At one point I trained as a facilitator and began to experiment with more active forms of professional development and then working back in a university I used these techniques with students. I became more of a 'meddler in the middle' than a sage on the stage.
Gradually I came to see learning as a process (being a geologist I could relate to this very well) and saw myself as a creator of processes within which participants, including myself, are able to learn. In the last few years I have come to view adult learning as a lifewide enterprise and my teaching has taken on a more ecological perspective. I now see teaching as a process of creating ecologies to facilitate learning, development and achievement and different approaches will lead to different ecologies that either encourage or discourage learners from creating their own ecologies for learning.
I'm no longer a teacher in the sense that I work in a university and teach students on courses. But I am involved in teaching, in the sense of developing, sharing and discussing ideas about learning. I started my career as a geology teacher and taught as I had been taught encouraging my students to think and behave like a geologist in the classroom and the field. There was nothing very different about my approach to the ways in which I had been taught although I put much effort into creating resources to support my teaching and students' learning. Looking back I think I was a geologist who taught rather than a teacher who taught geology.
I left geology teaching twenty five years ago and the next part of my career took me into higher education. In my role as HMI I was privileged to witness many teachers teaching and became more familiar with a range of pedagogic practices. I began to study learning and in various roles contributed to many staff development events. At one point I trained as a facilitator and began to experiment with more active forms of professional development and then working back in a university I used these techniques with students. I became more of a 'meddler in the middle' than a sage on the stage.
Gradually I came to see learning as a process (being a geologist I could relate to this very well) and saw myself as a creator of processes within which participants, including myself, are able to learn. In the last few years I have come to view adult learning as a lifewide enterprise and my teaching has taken on a more ecological perspective. I now see teaching as a process of creating ecologies to facilitate learning, development and achievement and different approaches will lead to different ecologies that either encourage or discourage learners from creating their own ecologies for learning.
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