Stability and Flexibility in Teaching.

Abstract The dominant image of the effective teacher is the flexible teacher who conceives of ways of teaching as neutral techniques to be used to meet exigencies of the classroom. This study sought to determine the extent to which teachers have stable or flexible styles of teaching and the relationship of teaching style to teacher ideology. Case studies of four elementary teachers based on interviews and observations were completed. It was found that teach teacher had a stable, dominant style of teaching yet was flexible within the style. The styles revealed were text-coverage, text-extension, and text-thinking. It was further found that each teacher had a coherent teaching ideology and that it was consistent with the teacher's teaching style. Discussion centers on the meaning of the results for improving teaching.

[1]  S. Stodolsky.  Teacher Evaluation: The Limits of Looking , 1984 .

[2]  Joan L. Fogarty.  A Descriptive Study of Experienced and Novice Teachers' Interactive Instructional Decision Processes. , 1982 .

[3]  P. Jackson.  Life in Classrooms , 1968 .

[4]  John I. Goodlad,et al.  The Schools We Deserve@@@A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future , 1987 .

[5]  Different by Design: The Context and Character of Three Magnet Schools , 1986 .

[6]  Leslie J. Briggs,et al.  Principles of Instructional Design , 1974 .

[7]  Larry Cuban.  How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890-1990 , 1984 .

[8]  Ronald W. Marx,et al.  Teacher Planning, Teacher Behavior, and Student Achievement , 1978 .

[9]  Benjamin S. Bloom,et al.  Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. , 1957 .

[10]  Kenneth A. Sirotnik,et al.  What You See Is What You Get--Consistency, Persistency, and Mediocrity in Classrooms. , 1983 .

[11]  K. Dunn,et al.  Teaching Students Through Their Individual Learning Styles: A Practical Approach , 1978 .

[12]  P. Peterson.  Direct Instruction: Effective for What and for Whom?. , 1979 .

[13]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .

[14]  B. Brown.  The experimental mind in education , 1968 .

[15]  S. Lightfoot.  The Good High School: Portraits Of Character And Culture , 1983 .

[16]  Penelope L. Peterson,et al.  Teachers’ Reports of Their Cognitive Processes During Teaching , 1978 .

[17]  S. Bossert,et al.  Tasks, Group Management, and Teacher Control Behavior: A Study of Classroom Organization and Teacher Style , 1977, The School Review.

[18]  R. W. Strong.  New Strategies, New Visions. , 1986 .

[19]  B. Joyce,et al.  Models of Teaching , 2024 .

[20]  Muska Mosston.  Teaching: from command to discovery , 1972 .

[21]  J. Brophy.  Teacher behavior and student achievement , 1984 .

[22]  Freema Elbaz,et al.  Teacher Thinking , 2018 .

[23]  Richard A. Gibboney.  A Critique of Madeline Hunter's Teaching Model from Dewey's Perspective. , 1987 .

[24]  Philip W. Jackson,et al.  The practice of teaching , 1986 .

[25]  Gary D. Fenstermacher,et al.  Approaches to Teaching , 1986 .

[26]  Robert Glaser,et al.  Adaptive Education: Individual Diversity and Learning , 1977 .