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Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

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Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#31

Post by codegeek »

Tough or not, Good teachers are good at the following:

- Get the students genuinely interested in listening to the teacher. This is critical. If a student has no interest in listening to you, they will most likely under-perform. On the other hand, a not so high IQ'ed student might over-perform if they actually become interested in listening and learning. Inspiration and motivation are the key.

- Make each student feel that the teacher is talking to them . Yes, sort of personalized. I remember a professor in college and every time he spoke, I could relate to it and really loved listening to him because it felt like he was only talking to me. Guess what, I excelled in that class.

- Encourage students to talk, ask questions, debate whatever.Related to #1 point.

- Actually take an interest in students if possible. For a small class size, this is not very difficult. Get to know your students as much as possible outside. Lot of students do bad in class not because they are stupid but because they might have other factors in their personal life impacting their performance. Find out if possible and figure out a way to work around that. Remember, everyone is different. Every student is different.

- Last but not the least, be interested in teaching. Yes, did I need to say that ? If you really love to teach, you will find out ways to get your students to do well.

If you are good at most of the above, one could care less if you are tough or soft or whatever.

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#32

Post by yawboakye »

phillmv wrote: post #26

It's impressive to me how she takes all this unrelated research and weaves it into "tough teachers" (tho that's possibly the fault of her editor). It seems like the actually determining feature was that, > "The core belief of these teachers was, 'Every student in my room is underperforming based on their potential, and it's my job to do something about it—and I can do something about it,'" Punishing people for fuckin…

She's asking teachers to deliver "tough love" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tough_love

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#33

Post by [deleted] »

NoahTheDuke wrote: post #24
brudgers wrote: post #23

Sure criticizing a below average performance tends to correlate with a better performance next time, and praise of above average performances tends to correlate with the next performance being worse. That's because the comparisons are to an average. And he found that all of them "deliberately picked unsentimental coaches who would challenge them and drive them to higher levels of performance." The article ignores sel…

>That's because the comparisons are to an average. Also known as Regression toward the mean[1]. Talked about a bunch in Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean

[deleted]

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#34

Post by al2o3cr »

"Sure, our teacher was tough - but look at how many students came back to his funeral!"

Of course the ones that showed up for the concert liked him - the ones that wanted to piss on his grave were, I'd guess, off doing that. Confirmation bias much, WSJ?

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#35

Post by cafard »

"Rote learning, long discredited, is now recognized as one reason that children whose families come from India (where memorization is still prized) are creaming their peers in the National Spelling Bee Championship."

Clearly, What America Needs is spelling bee champions.

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#36

Post by sliverstorm »

al2o3cr wrote: post #34

"Sure, our teacher was tough - but look at how many students came back to his funeral!" Of course the ones that showed up for the concert liked him - the ones that wanted to piss on his grave were, I'd guess, off doing that . Confirmation bias much, WSJ?

Of course the students that showed up for the concert liked him. But the point is, that's how many students liked him enough to come to his funeral.

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#37

Post by rayiner »

It's probably my personal leanings from growing up in an immigrant family, but I think the article is spot-on. American educational philosophy is a total disaster. American teachers are simply not in control of their classrooms. Kids need structure, they need discipline, and they need order. It's a prerequisite for learning.

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#38

Post by gingersnaps1 »

I had a teacher like this in high school for math. He taught algebra, geometry and calculus. He also ran the math team. ( He used to teach at Kenwood Academy in the Chicago public schools where I graduated in 1987 but now he is at New Trier. http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/person.aspx?id=4450 ). He was a strict, no-nonsense, here is the homework, here is the test, here is your grade, "oh, you didn't understand that, too bad, we're moving on" kind of guy. Was he successful? That depends on how you define it. There is a lot of survivor ship bias. Most kids would have some exposure to him for algebra and geometry and so when calculus was an option kids would think "hmmm, do I want to go through this with this guy?" Those who said yes did well. ( I think students scored either 4 or 5 on the test, 3s were rare and lower was almost unheard of ) The thing is that many very bright, capable kids who were interested in math said no to calculus because of him. I certainly never felt like I learned more from him than any other teacher I had who tried to get everyone to learn the material.

Maybe a better comparison would be algebra and geometry since he taught those classes but other teachers did as well. Did his students perform any better than the students of other teachers? I would say not although I don't have the data to back it up. I had another teacher for algebra and then him for geometry and when I was in his geometry class with other students that had him for algebra I felt we were even. I never felt like the kids who had him for algebra were way ahead of me when it came to doing the algebra that came up in geometry.

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#39

Post by watwut »

I agree with some points in that article. I remember that overly nice teachers aiming primary for fun often taught us very little. It was pleasant, but we have been behind. However, I believe you can have high expectations without being jerk about it.

But:

0.) Practice is not the same as rote learning especially in math above third grade. Practice in math means that you have to solve many different exercises and occasionally having to come up with solutions by yourself. Practice in math means that you are occasionally faced with exercises you have not seen before and you have to logic-think your way out of that.

Rote learning is quite opposite of that. Drilling essentially the same exercises over and over is opposite of that too.

Incidentally, those international tests try to confront students with unfamiliar situations and measure how they perform there.

1.) Why is everybody so obsessed with multiplication tables? It is something 6-7 years old have to learn. I just doubt that whatever happened in the first grade is all that much important years later on when you are 16 years old (age those international tests are done).

Even if you had worst first grade teacher in the world that did not taught you how much 2+2 is, teacher in fourth grade was supposed to force you to learn that. How come it did not happened?

2.) Is it possible that while super tough teacher in the beginning could be great for talented committed students, but not really match for average one? Only student with huge commitment and talent would persist and all others would gave up.

I was such average kid in music, hated that and stopped playing as soon as I could. It is quite possible that if I would find at least something enjoyable on lessons, I would learn more.

Of course, it does not really matter whether I play music today. But, it would matter if I would learn to hate math or computers the same way as I hated music practice.

Re: Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results

#40

Post by colomon »

yawboakye wrote: post #29
vicbrooker wrote: post #17

The implications in this article that strict = effective are flat-out stupid. A teacher does not have to be hardass to encourage children to have high expectations and to be OK with failure. I think a truly effective teacher, at all levels, will encourage curiosity and creativity in subject-matter. The best way to do this, in my view, is mutual respect. The teacher's idolised in this article seem to operate through f…

> I think a truly effective teacher, at all levels, will encourage curiosity and creativity in subject-matter Yes. The question is how do you encourage curiosity and creativity in kids? No, we are not talking about adults. I see this humble request as something similar to what JFK asked when he said America should send a man to the moon. If you have the opportunity, read about the changes all levels of education in t…

"I speak and (perhaps) write good English because he piqued my interest and taught me to strive because I can always get better."

You used "piqued" correctly, that already puts you beyond probably 80% of native-born English speakers in writing. ;)

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