Concept of Teaching

As revealed in the earlier build up, there have been some misconceptions about the concepts of teaching and learning, which the introductory part of this chapter has done some work in establishing the differences that exist between the two concepts. It therefore calls for a look at what teaching is as a concept different from learning as some researchers and educational philosophers had sought to establish. In considering what teaching actually is, this research takes views from various researchers and educational philosophers who have researched on the concept in question.

First of all, Broudy (1961:14) was of the view that “To teach is deliberately to try to promote certain learning.” This view establishes something that all the researchers who put teaching and learning at parallel could not see. He makes use of the word ‘deliberate’, which means that teaching is to do something well thought of and performed in order to result in learning. He continues to explain that some factors may

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hinder teaching; and that these factors may emanate from the teacher, pupil or the environment but as far as some amount of effort has been put in place, teaching has undoubtedly taken place. Broody further supports his position on what teaching is by expounding that it [teaching] “allocates the teacher a definite area of responsibility.” He continues that “There are procedures that one can rightfully expect he will follow, and there are results that he can conscientiously try to achieve.” (p.15).

Stanton (1977) sampled four different authorities and all the definitions they gave about teaching pointed to what had earlier been established by Broudy in 1961. Stanton first quotes Dearden (1967:136) who opined that “What, then is characteristic of teaching as an activity?... the central intention which lies behind his efforts.” He then cites Scheffler (1967:120), who wrote, “Teaching may be characterized as an activity aimed at the achievement of learning…” Then comes Soltis (1968:33), who looked at teaching this way; “When we teach, we are trying to get someone to learn something…” Lastly, he quotes Hirst and Peters (1970:78), who opined that “But what characterizes teaching, and how are we distinguished its activities?... behind all the activities there lies the intention to bring about learning.”

From the four definitions quoted by Stanton, certain key words (efforts, aimed, trying and intention). These words are informing us of an action [deliberate attempt] that brings about a reaction [learning]. The words inform us that the action must be planned and performed to perfection in order to result in an expected outcome. It is noted from Broudy’s (1961) definition that he makes use of the word ‘deliberate’, which means that an effort must be put in place; there must be an aim; teachers should try to cause a change in learners and there must be an intention to carry out teaching to achieve a goal or goals. To sum it all, it can be seen that there is a common denominator between all the definitions that have been given about education so far.

One researcher who also looks at teaching from different viewpoints is Frick (1961:146); he starts with what various teachers will say about teaching.

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He states that some will call teaching an art, and in poetic terms attempt to describe what they mean. Others will say teaching is a science and attempt to analyse the process in terms of component parts. Others will describe what they have observed themselves and other teachers doing, and say, “This is teaching.”

He further looks at an educated layman who sees teaching as living for people around to emulated, thereby, equating teaching to one’s way of life. In very simple terms, the educated layman is saying that once you live an exemplary life for people to follow, you have taught them directly or indirectly, making you a teacher and those who followed your example, your learners. This assertion will compel teachers to live exemplary life but Frick quotes a brilliant lawyer who refutes what has been said by the educated layman. The lawyer is said to have quoted after listening to the layman’s sermon that, “He is wrong about teaching- to me teaching is the specific act of one who knows that answers telling or explaining the answer to those who don’t know it. It is simple.” The layman and the lawyer are standing on different sides of a coin but a serious look into what they have both said will paint a very beautiful picture about teaching. The layman is simply ignoring the fact that there needs to be a teacher and a learner together before teaching can take place, whiles the lawyer thinks that cannot happen under any circumstance. What must be noted here is that in both situations teaching can take place (Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith, & Bem, 1993; Frick, 1961; Atherton, 2011).

To expatiate on the argument above, it must be noted that even when there is a teacher present as well as learners, as in the ‘normal’ face-to-face practice in everyday classrooms. To this end Amponsah (2010) explains the transactional distance model by Moore. He explains that the distance is pedagogical and not geographic therefore necessitating special organization and teaching procedures in any educational programme. He further states that transactional distance can be overcome by ensuring that the medium of the delivery [of teaching] has direct effect and also the quality of the dialogue need to be fine-tuned to suit the teaching learning environment.

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… teaching is the application of the best known principles of human behavior in efforts to promote the highest possible achievement of personal adequacy through learning. In addition it involves the teacher in continuous study to discover new knowledge concerning the nature of personal adequacy in society, and the processes involved in the achievement of such adequacy.

Frick’s definition goes a step ahead of those given earlier in this study as it does not only talk hit on the point that an effort should be put in place to ensure that teaching has resulted in learning. He goes further to point out that for teachers to be able to bring about a permanent change in learners; teachers themselves should embark on regular study to discover knowledge all the time. This suggests that for teachers to bring about adequacy in learners and the society at large, they must be adequate prior to embarking on teaching. The definition also points to the fact that for teachers to be au fait in their jobs, they must be abreast of [current] teaching methods, techniques and strategies all of which will be discussed in this study later. Vakalisa (2011:2) adds that “effective learning takes place when the teacher has a sound knowledge of the learning content, a broad repertoire of teaching methods, as well as classroom management strategies that create an environment that is conducive to effective learning.” In a similar vein, Kottler (1999) establishes that teachers should be encouraged to develop skills so as to gain access to the inner world of their learners. His belief was that when teachers possess the right skills, they can earn the trust of their learner.

For any change to take place in a person’s life, it naturally has to start from the mind (cognitive domain) before it is processed and acted out. It is for this reason that educationists have embraced Bloom’s taxonomy; which mainly deals with how people think. Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy of mastery learning is made up of six levels of thinking and they range from lower-order to higher-order thinking as shown in the figure below.

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Figure 2.2: Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy of mastery learning Higher-order thinking Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application Comprehension Knowledge Lower-order thinking Source: Bloom (1961).

Bloom’s taxonomy of mastery learning theory (1961) which is still valid and has a direct link to Frick’s definition on the basis that whiles Bloom is alerting that the teacher needs to be prepared adequately ahead of the teaching itself, the latter paints a picture of a teacher who has to be ready to take learners through the lower-order thinking process to the higher-order, which, by and large, means that the teacher really has to do some learning and thinking in order to perform optimally. Killen (2009) fully agrees to what Frick and Bloom have both established. He opines that “Teaching can be thought of as the process of guiding learners as they work with information.” He continues that in teaching, “teachers help learners to find information, remember it, understand it, organize it, apply it, evaluate it and do creative things with it.” It is obvious that what Killen has done is to use verbs in the place of the nouns that have been used in Bloom’s taxonomy, thereby making his definition a defense or reiteration of the latter’s work.