Re: Teaching as improvisation

From: Phillip White (Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu)
Date: Fri Jun 07 2002 - 13:27:37 PDT


Geoff wrote:

>I always get worried by categorical statements about what is and what is
>not
>to count as 'good teaching'.

        first, thanks for the reference on teaching - i'll check it out. and
also, i didn't want to suggest that only improvisational teaching is
"good" - in fact, i'd really get totally stumped if i had to come up
with a definition of good teaching. i recognize it as contextually bound
- relational - and often aperceptive.

        that said,
>
> and, if I follow Phillip's argument correctly,
>then such emergence is more likely to be noticed (by a teacher?) in a
>small
>group rather than in a lecture hall of 60, presumably becasue you can spot
>something new or different in a small group compared with a large
>collective.

        and what you wrote above, and continued with, in reflection i saw that i
was being teacher-centric - as if what counts as learning is what the
teacher notices. but, really, i don't want to even suggest that.
>
>
>Phillip says: 'a lecturer delivering a lecture to a hall of sixty is less
>open to noticing emergence that small group collaborative activities' but
>could it be that the act of teaching in a lecture hall is not about the
>observation of emergence as newness but about the same old pattern
>re-emerging, albeit with 'slightly different details in the trajectory'.

        yes - again, contextually bound & relational.
>
>
>Is the teacher necessarily the crucial observer of emergence?

        my response is to say "no" - that of course differences that make a
difference will emerge that the lecturer may or may not notice.
basically, my guess is that a lecture is a more tightly constructed venue
of teaching with greater distance / both physically and emotionally /
between the teacher and students, than in a small class setting that is
focused on activities in which the teacher is a participant or participant
observer - and in the case of the small class setting there is a greater
chance for the teacher to notice evidence of emergent learning to which
the teacher can then respond to improvisationally at the moment.
>

        having said that, it could also be that a teacher would be so focused on
the format and structure of an activity that no notice is taken of
evidence of emergent learning, because that's not what the teacher is
looking for. but i guess i'm moving back into a teacher-centric position
here -
>
>Or am I just hopelessly confused?

        i'd say i wasn't very clear. and i may well not still be very clear.
i've only begun to construct words and theories and behaviors around the
concept of emergence over the last twelve months now. so i feel very
fuzzy about it.

phillip

>
>

   
* * * * * * * *
* *

The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.

                          from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.

phillip white
university of colorado at denver
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu



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