Component One: Instructional Concepts

Instructional concepts refer to one of the most common levels at which teachers discuss what it means to be a teacher. It is a label we have applied to describe nonspecific instructional ideas - ideas that we technically cannot directly 'do.'

Here are four examples of what teachers specifically stated about themselves as teachers: organized, interesting, kind, and motivational. You might ask: "Why call them concepts?" We would then ask you to think about: "What do they have in common? And, How are they different from a skill such as asking an analysis level question or a tactic such as Think Pair Share or a strategy such as Mind Mapping or an organizer such as Multiple Intelligence."

Let's take four examples of concepts related to instruction: authenticity, variety, relevance and accountability; and four concepts related to teacher qualities: humorous, enthusiastic, caring and thoughtful. Instructional concepts 'guide' rather than 'prescribe' specific courses of action. Teachers must do something (perhaps apply a skill, or tactic, or strategy) to enact those concepts.

Let's take a couple of examples. What would teachers do to make the concepts of thoughtful and safe 'come alive' in the classroom? Perhaps you might see them provide time for students to think to themselves first before having them share their ideas with a partner; or you may see them suspending judgement of students ideas as they share their ideas publicly. In terms of 'accountability,' you may see a teacher do something to structure accountability in group work by employing a tactic labelled 'Numbered Heads.' Numbered (or lettered) Heads is invoked when a teacher assigns a number to each group member (e.g., 1, 2, 3) and each group is then assigned a letter (e.g., group A, B, C etc.). supporting that tactic with an instructional skill such as how questions are framed, then the teacher can increase the chances most student will be accountable. That in turn affects participation. That might look something like this:

Discuss in your groups how you might balance this equation. Then in two minutes, I will randomly call on someone from three groups to share the group's thinking. In two minutes the teacher then selects students by Letter and Number.

This of course brings into play a number of other instructional concepts that must be simultaneously considered: failing publicly, saving face, escape clauses, safe classroom, complexity of the question. Tangentially, it also encourages you to activate instructional skills such as time to think, responding to a no response, or a guess, or a convoluted response, or a partially correct response, or a silly response, or a correct response. What appears to be a simple idea (invoking accountability) is in fact integratively complex and demanding.

Now let's explore the concepts related to teacher qualities. Common descriptors are humour, enthusiasm, and caring. Phelan, Davidson, and Cao's (1992) research clearly illustrates the central role of 'caring' as an attribute of effective teachers. The research also illustrates that high performing and low performing students have different understandings of what caring is for them. Although somewhat of an over generalization, higher performing students interpret caring as assistance related to cognitive issues; lower performing students to issues of the heart. Nonetheless, in each of those qualities, the teacher must do something (perhaps apply a skill, or tactic, or strategy) that communicates or causes something to be 'fun'. While humour and enthusiasm appear to be skills - and to a certain extent we agree -- we will take a stance and argue 'no' - they are more akin to dispositions. For example, a teacher must do something to communicate enthusiasm -- such as arm gestures, face gestures, voice modulation, moving around room, acceptance of ideas and feelings etc., (Collins, 1977). As mentioned above, when experienced teachers tell beginning teachers that they need to make the lesson more humorous or more engaging, beginning teachers are not clear about what that would actually 'look like' and 'sound like.'

What does the research on 'humourous' tell us. Let's take a look at the history on humour research. Vance 1981 reports that when attention and arousal are low, then humourous incongruity improves comprehension and retention. In addition, it facilitates transfer at a later date. To illustrate the science with the art of teaching regarding the use of humour, Weinberg, 1974 found that students of High Intelligence and Low Anxiety benefit from the use of humour. Students of Lower Intelligence and High Anxiety were penalized when humour was used. Yet, Terry and Woods, 1971 found that highly anxious students scored significantly higher on a humourously designed test than on a non-humourously designed test. Kaplan and Pascoe (1977) found that recall of humourous examples which related to the content of instruction, as compared to humourous examples unrelated to content, was significant in lecture presentations.

For example, if students were discussing an issue by exploring both sides of an issue (an instructional tactic explained more precisely in deBono's CoRT Program). The teacher may employ a cartoon to affect interest and memory.

Kuhlig's (1983) extensive ethnography on the socialization of classroom humour provides an invaluable grounded theory of humour in education. Her research shows how students are socialized via classroom humour. Interestingly, in Bryant's 1979 study on humour, 62 percent of humour was biased and designed to make the person feel inferior, while 52 percent was found to be nonsense (unrelated to the educational objective or purpose of the lesson). Females use of humour was more likely to connect to the lesson than a male's use of humour; although females were more likely to use humour as a put down. In elementary schools, he found that almost 100 percent of the humour was nonsense and not intentionally part of instruction.

The point is that we cannot simply say to someone, 'Have a sense of humour; humour is much more complex and it appears that it has a differential and often contradictory effect on the learner.

Although instructional skills, tactics, strategies, are also instructional concepts, we argue that what differentiates them from being simply an instructional concept, is that you can 'do them'. As illustrated above, I cannot directly 'do' a concept such as motivation. We often talk as if that is all you have to do: Walk in and motivate. It's that simple. Somehow, as a teacher, I have to interpret what motivation means to the thirty students sitting in front of me. If I say in part that motivation has to do with making the classroom 'successful' -- then I am still at the level of concept. 'Success' is also a concept -- as is 'novelty' and 'variety' and 'meaningful.' I cannot walk into a classroom and 'success' or 'novelty.'

One might not think that this differentiation is important. Yet if you take the time to listen to how experienced teachers often guide less experienced teachers -- they say things like, "Well, tomorrow, just get the students more 'actively involved' -- try to make the lesson more motivating." The students nod their head in agreement; that yes, this makes sense. Then they leave and often struggle with "How do I do that?" When you watch the more experienced teachers, they do it -- implicitly -- but they are often not skilled at the level of explicitly explaining the 'How.'

Additionally, when teachers are invited to communicate the characteristics or attributes that define them as teachers (or, why they should be teachers as compared to those in the community who are not teachers) almost 100 percent of their responses relate to concepts. Some refer to personal qualities (humour and caring) and others to instruction (organized, meaningful). They rarely mention instructional expertise even though when you watch them teach they employ many examples of instructional 'stuff' that the research supports as making a difference in student learning.

In a way, Instructional Concepts are more like Instructional Organizers (presented in Chapter Twelve) in that you cannot directly 'do them.' The difference being that instructional concepts are isolated, and not part of a larger framework or organizer. Instructional concepts are more independently pervasive and appear to be relevant everywhere (here are four more - authenticity, meaning, participatory, engaging).

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