Development of teacher's practical theory

The teaching theory governs (among others) the lesson delivery, the student/teacher relationship, the image that will be generated in the student’s memory, and the teacher’s reaction to various incidents that would arise with students. Simply, it draws the teaching profile which in turns, reflects on the student’s motivation towards a particular subject, a particular teacher, and consequently towards the whole learning decision. The student would keep the image in mind forever. Some retouches may take place the life journey, but the image itself never leaves the memory.

The cultural rules which I have absorbed during my childhood made me a follower to my teachers, doing exactly what they asking me to do. Writing homework on time, underlining the date with red, and numbering the pages on my copybook … I’ve been always recalling that teachers must get full respect, admiration, and must be obeyed. This practice made me the first in my classes and gave me full appreciation from schools. It also kept my GPAs high. Maybe some teachers were not at my expectations level, but still, I was always trying to get the maximum out of them.

After several years, when I started my career in the education field, I was holding the same image in mind. Students should be serious in my class, should respect me in full, follow my directives, and do whatever I ask them to do without questioning; and to make this happen, and because I wanted to be a memorable one, I was preparing the lesson plans in advance including the questions to throw during the lesson. At times, I was denoting the student name to which I’ll pose the question. I’ve been also very strict with class time and attendance.

This all was fine but the results were not as I wanted. The feedback from students showed that my personality is not favorable to them, my lesson was extending beyond their understanding, and they were asking so many questions about why we should learn this. I had the impression that they were defeating my strict rules and the framed environment which I have created for them, so I decided to change my way and the challenge was how, with that teacher image from the 6^th decade of the 20^th century dominating my personality. Not only the teaching method must be altered, the perspective of teaching and learning must be changed and therefore, I registered for a training was called teach the teacher from which I was in touch with various teaching experiences.

Step by step, along the 16 years in the field, with a lot of work and revision, I feel that I’ve sent that image to the trash folder in my deep but it is not yet deleted permanently.

My findings in general, are:

•  The teaching process is and must be in continuous development to match the new ages of learners who are living newer ages of technology.
• A particular subject can be taught in various methods based on the audience, their needs, and capabilities.
• Teaching in academic environment differs from teaching in vocational environment.
• Working student needs differ than non-working student needs.