I always get worried by categorical statements about what is and what is not
to count as 'good teaching'. I am sure that good teaching can be
improvisational but I am also sure that good teaching can be highly
scripted, can be delivered to large groups of individuals as well as in
small groups, may involve students improvising (but not necessarily always)
and always depends upon what is being taught, to who and for what purpose.
As Sally Brown and Donald McIntyre ask in their book 'Making Sense of
Teaching' - 'who is to decide what counts as 'good' [teaching] ... [is]
worthy of emulation ..., and on what basis is that decision made?'
If I am following Keith's argument correctly then I think that one criterion
that is being suggested that could be used to judge what is to count as
'good teaching' is something (not quite sure what) to do with emergence that
follows from improvisation; 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. But (and here I am struggling) I was trying to connect this line
of argument with something that Jay was saying about newness and emergence
in relation to complex systems: 'it is important not to confuse NEWNESS or
the perception that something new has come along with EMERGENCE of a new
level of organization' and 'not everything which is emergent has to be new!
... frequently it is the same old pattern re-emerging once again, though
perhaps each time with slightly different details in the trajectory that
gets us there.'
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'.
Is the teacher necessarily the crucial observer of emergence? If I sit in a
lecture hall with sixty others and listen to a lecture I am sure that the
lecturer will not be aware of the emergence of new ways of thinking about or
conceptualisng a problem, but I may be and so will others who I then talk
about the problem with.
Or am I just hopelessly confused?
Geoff Hayward
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phillip White" <Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 6:28 PM
Subject: Re: Teaching as improvisation
> Keith wrote:
>
> >In response to Phillip, yes I believe that good teaching is
> >improvisational.
> >Especially with those who are trying to implement sociocultural,
> >collaborative
> >classroom methods; for them to work the students have to have the freedom
> >to
> >improvise. And collaborative emergence is a common outcome of
> >improvising
> >classroom groups.
>
> there, i think you have it - that the more open/flexible the top-down
> organization of teaching is, then more opportunities for bottom-up
> emergence are probable.
>
> a lecturer delivering a lecture to a hall of sixty is less open to
> noticing emergence that small group collaborative activities.
>
> 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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