FACTORS THAT NEED TO BE PRESENTED FOR TEACHING LEARNING TO BE REALISED

By OTU JEMIMA BLESSING 109036050

POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN EDUCATION FULLTIME 2010/2011

Presented To Dr Rosita Igwe

For the course ASE703 Concepts and Principles of Teaching

7th of February, 2011.

ABSTRACT
The teacher fills many roles: examiner, vocational adviser, disciplinarian, moralist, administrator, and many more. But all are subsidiary to his chief function, namely to teach. What he teaches will vary from generation to generation, age-group to age-group, culture to culture. It might be reading, writing, and arithmetic. It might be a moral code, citizenship, the elements of a trade, or a religious system. Yet whatever he teaches the intention is the same, that his pupils will learn it: the primary purpose of all teaching is the promotion of learning. This paper emphasises on learning itself, for there are certain fundamental principles of learning common to all subjects and all learners, principles which are therefore an appropriate topic of study by all teachers. It could perhaps be objected that in order to promote learning the teacher need not know about learning as such; all he need know are the procedures, methods, techniques, stratagems or dodges which promote it. But that is not enough for the most effective teaching; it requires the knowledge of learning itself. The teacher is seen as the single most important factor in the learning process, so this paper focuses on factors the teacher need to present for teaching learning to be realised.

INTRODUCTION
The main point has been that the teacher will promote learning most effectively if he has insight into the nature of learning; in short, if he can answer the question, How does learning take place? On the one hand, there is the question, What makes learning take place? In more formal language, What conditions govern learning? None of these things reward, practise, punishment is itself learning, though they may be the things that make it occur, they are simply anything which make learning take place. So if the teacher needs to promote learning, he must use procedures providing the conditions which govern learning. With a complete knowledge of what learning is and its conditions of occurrence, the teacher could work out for himself the essential characteristics of teaching technique and be completely independent of imitation and trial and error. Here would be teaching par excellence. Unfortunately, no one as yet possesses all the necessary knowledge. What is already known can nevertheless realise an effective teaching learning. WHAT IS LEARNING? To define is to call for assertion not for experiment. To define a word is to state how one is using it. Anyone who defines learning is but indicating the events he means when he uses that word. What teachers, and most other people, usually have in mind when they use the word learning is not a formal definition (which I may copy) but a collection of events they regard as instances of learning.

Variety of events accepted as instances of learning will include; o Learning to do something; learning to drive a car, learning to recite a poem, learning to play the violin, and others. o Learning a skill like riding a bicycle, filleting fish, typing, dancing, learning a game or a trick. o Learning to be something: a doctor, teacher, drunkard and others. o Learning to feel to judge whether someone had in fact learned to enjoy classical music, feel ashamed of telling a lie, like porridge and others. The definition of learning will read thus; To learn is to adopt a new response to a situation. In different sorts of instances learning, different aspects of the definition will receive emphasis. The definition treats learning as observable, for it is possible to observe the kind of situation present, and also the two series of behaviours constituting the old and new responses. This does not mean that the brain plays no part in learning, or that behaviours never occur out of sight of the interested observer. What the definition does is oblige us to regard these hidden occurrences as conditions governing the observable event of learning rather than as part and parcel of that event itself. Some definitions contain reference to Experience. This paper has avoided mention of experience for two reasons. For one thing, experience is often equated with consciousness, whereas it is obvious that learning often occurs without the learner realising what is happening to him. Second, mention of both experience and of response would be redundant. We cannot know that the learner is experiencing some specified thing unless he makes observable response to it. And since mention of only one of these (experience, response) is enough, mention of the observable event appear to be the better choice.

WHAT IS TEACHING?
Teaching is an activity a unique professional, rational, and humane activity in which one creatively and imaginatively uses himself and his knowledge to promote the learning and welfare of others. Teaching is an activity with four phases: a curriculum-planning phase, an instructing phase, a measuring phase, and an evaluating phase. The activity of teaching, of course does not always proceed step by step through the four phases from phase 1 through phase 4.

There are times when teachers change their objectives in the midst of the act of instructing. They may change their instructional intentions (developed before they entered the classroom) because the demands of the active instructional situation suggest that that they should do so. Indeed failure to give up original intentions and to develop, during the active stage of teaching, more relevant intentions can lead to chaotic classroom conditions. Defining teaching as a four-phase activity, each phase of which has distinguishable characteristics, is a means by which order can be brought to this highly complex activity. This definition provides an organising framework within which teaching as an abstract activity can be discussed and analyzed. The actual act of teaching as it occurs in the lives of any particular teacher and his students on any particular day is, however, a complex, dynamic, human activity that does not easily lend itself to a single, stereotyped mode of description or analysis.

FOCUS OF THIS PAPER

There are many definitions of pedagogy. Perhaps the simplest is 'The science of teaching' (Oxford English Dictionary). However, the term denotes more than just a set of teaching techniques. Pedagogy encompasses:
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What is taught/learned - the content How it is taught or learned - approaches to teaching and learning Why it is taught or learned - the underpinning values, philosophy or rationale.

The three are intertwined and the 'why' will have a strong influence on what is taught or learned and how.1This paper is concerned about the approaches to effective teaching and learning. If we take a moment to brainstorm a little on the reasons why some students in some classrooms might learn more than students in the same or another classroom, that is what are the reasons, both within and across classrooms and schools that influence what and how much students learn. The major question addressed in educational psychology is, "Why do some students learn more than other students?" Unfortunately, the possible answers to this question are enormous. Oftentimes research findings and theories of teaching and learning seem to contradict one another. What is an educator to do? We discover that the complexity of teaching and learning can only be brought to effectiveness by a certain number of factors. The Kentucky Department of Education has been working in teams to develop Characteristics of Highly Effective Teaching and Learning as support focused on the instructional core.

The teams have looked at the research that establishes what the characteristics are and they have organized the characteristics around five components:      Learning climate; Classroom assessment and reflection; Instructional rigor and student engagement; Instructional relevance and; Knowledge of content.

This paper will present the factors that aid effective teaching learning under these five components, but first the components will be analysed. Note that presentation as used here emphasises the work of the teacher.

Components of Highly Effective Teaching and Learning

Learning Climate: a safe environment supported by the teacher in which high, clear expectations
and positive relationships are fostered; active learning is promoted.

Classroom Assessment and Reflection: the teacher and student collaboratively gather
information and reflect on learning through a systematic process that informs instruction.

Instructional Rigor and Student Engagement: a teacher supports and encourages a students
commitment to initiate and complete complex, inquiry-based learning requiring creative and critical thinking with attention to problem solving.

Instructional Relevance: a teachers ability to facilitate learning experiences that are meaningful
to students and prepare them for their futures.

Knowledge of Content: a teachers understanding and application of the current theories,

principles, concepts and skills of a discipline. It is important to mention that increased focus on student learning is the primary goal in using of these characteristics.

Some factors to be presented for teaching learning to be realised are discussed below under the five components: 1) LEARNING CLIMATE  Pick out Important Concepts and Skills to emphasise on for learning Is Not Necessarily an Outcome of Teaching Cognitive research is revealing that even with what is taken to be good instruction, many students, including academically talented ones, understand less than we think they do. With determination, students taking an examination are commonly able to identify what they have been told or what they have read; careful probing, however, often shows that their understanding is limited or distorted, if not altogether wrong. This finding suggests that parsimony is essential in setting out educational goals:

Schools should pick the most important concepts and skills to emphasize so that they can concentrate on the quality of understanding rather than on the quantity of information presented.  Always show positive expectations for expectations Affect Performance Students respond to their own expectations of what they can and cannot learn. If they believe they are able to learn something, whether solving equations or riding a bicycle, they usually make headway. But when they lack confidence, learning eludes them. Students grow in self-confidence as they experience success in learning, just as they lose confidence in the face of repeated failure. Thus, teachers need to provide students with challenging but attainable learning tasks and help them succeed. What is more, students are quick to pick up the expectations of success or failure that others have for them. The positive and negative expectations shown by parents, counsellors, principals, peers, andmore generallyby the news media affect students' expectations and hence their learning behaviour. When, for instance, a teacher signals his or her lack of confidence in the ability of students to understand certain subjects, the students may lose confidence in their ability and may perform more poorly than they otherwise might. If this apparent failure reinforces the teacher's original judgment, a disheartening spiral of decreasing confidence and performance can result.
 The act of teaching is a complex process that is influenced by a field of forces of

which teachers can be only in part aware and which the teacher can only partially control so the teacher should strive to understand all the forces that influence what will be taught in the school. The education of young people is embedded in the prevailing culture and, because it is, cultural forces of many kinds affect the process of education.

This result in teachers being involved in a great cultural effort which, directly or indirectly, is the concern of everybody, and which should be continuously responding to a wide range of real-world events. The culture in which children are raised has a profound effect on their disposition and capacity to learn. This same culture directly affects what will be taught in the school. No teacher can be aware of all these cultural forces. On the other hand, no teacher can close his classroom door in the hope that such forces and their effects on him and his students will go away. The teacher has not created the students who come to him; he must first accept them for what they are. He must seek to understand those factors in his students that tend to impede or accelerate their learning and, where possible, he must do what he can to help his students become efficient learners.

2) CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT AND REFLECTION  Find out what Students know and relate them to the new concepts for what Students Learn Is Influenced by Their Existing Ideas People have to construct their own meaning regardless of how clearly teachers or books tell them things. Mostly, a person does this by connecting new information and concepts to what he or she already believes. Conceptsthe essential units of human thoughtthat do not have multiple links with how a student thinks about the world are not likely to be remembered or useful. Or, if they do remain in memory, they will be tucked away in a drawer labelled, say, "biology course, 1995," and will not be available to affect thoughts about any other aspect of the world. Concepts are learned best when they are encountered in a variety of contexts and expressed in a variety of ways, for that ensures that there are more opportunities for them to become imbedded in a student's knowledge system. But effective learning often requires more than just making multiple connections of new ideas to old ones; it sometimes requires that people restructure their thinking radically. That is, to incorporate some new idea, learners must change the connections among the things they already know, or even discard some long-held beliefs about the world. The alternatives to the necessary restructuring are to distort the new information to fit their old ideas or to reject the new information entirely. Students come to school with their own ideas, some correct and some not, about almost every topic they are likely to encounter. If their intuition and misconceptions are ignored or dismissed out of hand, their original beliefs are likely to win out in the long run, even though they may give the test answers their teachers want. Mere contradiction is not sufficient; students must be encouraged to develop new views by seeing how such views help them make better sense of the world.

3) INSTRUCTIONAL RIGOR AND STUDENTS ENGAGEMENT  Use Practise for people Learn to Do Well Only What They Practice Doing If students are expected to apply ideas in novel situations, then they must practice applying them in novel situations. If they practice only calculating answers to predictable exercises or unrealistic "word problems," then that is all they are likely to learn. Similarly, students cannot learn to think critically, analyze information, communicate scientific ideas, make logical arguments, work as part of a team, and acquire other desirable skills unless they are permitted and encouraged to do those things over and over in many contexts.  Use proper Feedback for effective Learning by Students Requires Feedback The mere repetition of tasks by studentswhether manual or intellectualis unlikely to lead to improved skills or keener insights. Learning often takes place best when students have opportunities to express ideas and get feedback from their peers. But for feedback to be most helpful to learners, it must consist of more than the provision of correct answers. Feedback ought to be analytical, to be suggestive, and to come at a time when students are interested in it. And then there must be time for students to reflect on the feedback they receive, to make adjustments and to try againa requirement that is neglected, it is worth noting, by most examinationsespecially finals.  Student learning can be measured only through observations that reveal changes in behaviour. There are some important ideas embedded in this assumption which need clarification. These involve making distinctions among such things as o Observation of behaviour o Observation of the products of behaviour\ o Change in behaviour o Change in the products of behaviour, and o Expressing awareness of behaviour and of the reasons for it. Teachers should make observations of behaviour either directly or indirectly. In some instances the behaviour is performed as they observe. In other instances what they observe is a product of the behaviour such as a homework or assignment. Change in behaviour can only be inferred from two or more observations of behaviour or, in the case of changes in products of behaviour from two such products of behaviour. An English teacher who reads a students composition is not observing behaviour but rather the product of a students behaviour. The same thing applies to changes in feeling states. A teacher may observe a student regularly express anger when other students disagree with him in a discussion.

4) INSTRUCTIONAL RELEVANCE  Use Concrete Experiences for progression in Learning Is Usually From the Concrete to the Abstract Young people can learn most readily about things that are tangible and directly accessible to their sensesvisual, auditory, tactile, and kinaesthetic. With experience, they grow in their ability to understand abstract concepts, manipulate symbols, reason logically, and generalize. These skills develop slowly, however, and the dependence of most people on concrete examples of new ideas persists throughout life. Concrete experiences are most effective in learning when they occur in the context of some relevant conceptual structure. The difficulties many students have in grasping abstractions are often masked by their ability to remember and recite technical terms that they do not understand. As a result, teachersfrom kindergarten through collegesometimes overestimate the ability of their students to handle abstractions, and they take the students' use of the right words as evidence of understanding.  Use multi directional communication, the communication that emanates from many sources (especially student sources) and is directed to many destinations simultaneously The teacher can instruct in group settings, i.e. a teacher and two or more students. This is often done through interactive processes or direct communication. Teachers can also work in group settings where groups instruct. The instructional strategy that utilises student group activity is characterised by the persistent use of: o Multi directional communication o The extensive use of the interaction separation designation o The use of the teacher strategy move of clarification where the teacher interacts with the group.

5) KNOWLEDGE OF CONTENT  Be a professional who is capable of making rational, humane, and creative decisions regarding the teaching act. Teaching learning makes many professional demands on the teacher. Central to these demands is the fact that the professional makes decisions that affect the welfare of other people. The professional renders a service to other people because he has a specialised knowledge and skills which those he serves do not have. If the teacher holds this view, then he must become capable of; o Using a body of specialised knowledge

o Making rational professional decisions o Making these decisions on behalf of others.  Present to the learners concepts in form of problems to be explored, rather than as factoids to be ingested Ernst von Glasersfeld, the "father" of constructivism, believes that education has two main purposes: to empower learners to think for themselves, and to promote in the next generation ways of thinking and acting that are deemed important by the present generation (Glasersfeld, 1995). Moreover, in his view, constructivist learning is best put into practice by dint of presenting the learners with issues and concepts in the form of problems to be explored, rather than as factoids to be ingested and then regurgitated. To this end, the teacher's role is very important, as is evidenced below: The teacher cannot tell students what concepts to construct or how to construct them, but by judicious use of language they can be prevented from constructing in directions which the teacher considers futile but which, as he knows from experience, are likely to be tried. Nevertheless, this poses a problem, in the sense that the teacher may thwart the development of critical reflection on the students' part by acting in such a preventative way. For Thomas and Harri-Augstein (1985), constructivist learning and, in general, all approaches to learning and teaching are organized attempts to bring some kind of meaning to our lives. For them, education can be an enriching experience, as long as the meanings that emerge are personal and significant in some part of the person's life. Meanings should also be viable, that is, they should prove useful in mediating one's transactions - with stored knowledge and the world around. What has become clear is that taking a constructivist perspective on education is tantamount to viewing education as a means of helping people to construct their own meanings. In their attempts to understand the meaning that teachers make of their work (we will not concern ourselves with students' meanings), researchers have resorted to a wide variety of different methods, ranging from looking into the thinking and planning that teachers do outside the classroom, through ethnographic studies, to autobiographical accounts of the understanding teachers bring to their work. At any rate, it seems to be the case that, when confronted by new challenges, a teacher strives to resolve them in ways that are commensurate with the understanding she brings to the problem - a process that leads in turn to new horizons of understanding and maintains that teaching is "not the passing on of a parcel of objective knowledge, but the attempt to share what you yourself find personally meaningful" - an assertion that could be said to encapsulate the philosophy of constructivism. The above views have certainly blazed a trail in (language) teaching, inasmuch as they have been instrumental in casting the role of the teacher in a different, more liberating "mould." Teachers are no longer seen as competent or incompetent because they are simply unique. They do not act as gateways to knowledge because they themselves embody the curriculum, conveying not just what they know, but also their position towards it, as well as the personal ramifications which it may have for them.

The teacher as reflective practitioner It stands to reason that, if teachers are to be effective in the approaches they decide to take, they should act in accordance with their espoused beliefs. In reality, though, this is hardly the case. According to Chris Argyris and Donald Schon (1974, 1978), there is usually a discrepancy between what teachers say they believe (their "espoused" theories) and the ways in which they act (their "theories-in-action"). What could resolve this discrepancy is an attempt to help teachers become "reflective practitioners" (Shon, 1983), thereby subjecting their professional practice to ongoing critical reflection and making clear their own particular world view. Smyth (1991: 116) suggests that this critical reflection can be fostered by means of asking a number of questions:
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What do my practices say about my assumptions, values and beliefs about teaching? Where did these ideas come from? What views of power do they embody? Whose interests do my practices seem to serve?

While critical reflection is not negative in its own right, it does imply that teachers should be cognisant of their belief systems, in order to monitor how far their actions reflect those beliefs. However, in keeping with constructivism, becoming effective and autonomous is a shared process, whereby both teachers and learners monitor, reflect, and act. Thus, a teacher needs to look both inwards and outwards. She needs to become aware of others' points of view, as well as her own beliefs - about learners, about learning per se, and about herself. Teachers' beliefs Beliefs cannot be defined or evaluated, but there are a number of things that we should know about them. Beliefs are culturally bound and, since they are formed early in life, they tend to be resistant to change. By virtue of the fact that they are difficult to measure, we almost always have to infer people's beliefs from the ways in which they act rather than from what they say they believe. Beliefs about learners Teachers hold any or a combination of beliefs about their students. Roland Meighan (1990) suggests that there are at least seven different ways in which teachers construe learners and that such evaluative constructions have a profound influence on their classroom practice. So, according to him, learners may be construed as:
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resisters receptacles raw material clients partners individual explorers democratic explorers

These constructs are seen in terms of a continuum which mirrors the nature of the teacher-learner power relationship. Thus, the first three constructs are teacher dominated, whereas the latter involve learner participation. More specifically, the notion of learners as resisters sees learners as recalcitrant individuals who do not wish to learn. This assumption, however, gives rise to the assertion that punishment is the most appropriate way of overcoming such "recalcitrance." An even more common conception of learners is one in which they are viewed as receptacles to be filled with knowledge. The teacher is seen as having a "jug" of knowledge which he pours into the learners' "mugs." This is what Freire (1970) describes as the "banking" concept of education, where learners are like bank accounts where deposits are made and drawn upon. Even though we have not dwelled upon Meighan's theory in detail, it should be apparent by now that constructivism fits more comfortably with the latter end of the abovementioned continuum.

Beliefs about learning Teaching is not indivisible from learning. We can be good teachers only if we know what we mean by learning because only then can we know what we expect our learners to achieve. If our goal is to prepare our students to pass an exam, then this will affect the way in which we teach. If we see foreign language learning as a perennial process which has social and cultural implications, then we will take a different approach to teaching it. Gow and Kember (1993) suggest that most approaches to learning can be subsumed under any of the following points:
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a quantitative increase in knowledge memorisation the acquisition of facts and procedures which can be retained and / or used in practice the abstraction of meaning an interpretative process aimed at the understanding of reality some form of personal change

Teachers' beliefs about themselves For humanistic teachers, teaching is essentially a personal expression of the self, which has particular implications with regard to teachers' views of themselves, since a teacher who lacks selfesteem will not be able to build the self-esteem of others. The teacher who does not accept his learners for who they are makes it difficult for them to accept themselves. By the same token, the language teacher needs to impart a sense of self-confidence in using the language, while at the same time respecting learners' attempts to communicate in the foreign language. Apart from the five components discussed above, the following model is an attempt to consider most of the possible answers to the question: Why do some students learn more than others?

According to the model, the reasons can be classified into four categories. A Transactional Model of the Teaching/Learning Process o Context All those factors outside of the classroom that might influence teaching and learning. o Input Those qualities or characteristics of teachers and students that they bring with them to the classroom experience o Classroom Processes Teacher and student behaviours in the classroom as well as some other variables such as classroom climate and teacher/student relationships o Output Measures of student learning taken apart from the normal instructional process.

OUTPUT In my opinion, the most important of these categories is the Output category because the variables in the rest of the categories are used to predict or relate to the variables measured in this one. For example, when we ask "Why do some students learn more than other students?" we must first be clear about what we mean by "learning." We must also be clear about how we measure learning.

At the present time in this country, when we say "How well or how much has the student learned" we mean "How well has the student done on a standardized measure of student achievement in the basic skills of Reading, Language Arts, and Mathematics?" If we change what we mean by learning

(we want to know how much Science or Social Studies students have learned or we want to know if they have developed appropriate social skills) or if we change the particular measure of learning (use the Metropolitan Achievement Test instead of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills), then we may change the important variables that relate to student learning. As we will see, there are a variety of outcomes that are important in today's world (such as cognitive development and character) that are not presently discussed when we talk about student learning. I believe the most important category is Output because once that has been defined it impacts the importance of the variables in the other categories.

CLASSROOM PROCESSES The second most important category, at least from the perspective of the educational institution and educational psychology, is the Classroom Processes category. This includes all the variables that would occur in the classroom. There are three subcategories: Teacher Behavior, Student Behavior, Other/Miscellaneous. The category of Teacher Behavior consists of all the actions a teacher would make in the classroom and includes three additional subcategories: Planning, Management, and Instruction.

Planning refers to all of those activities a teacher might do to get ready to interact with students in the classroom. Management refers to controlling student behavior, while instruction refers to actually guiding student learning. There are a variety of specific teacher classroom variables that have been related to student learning. For example, Walberg (1986), in a meta-analysis of teacher effectiveness research found support for the following individual variables:
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Use of positive reinforcement Cues and corrective feedback Cooperative learning activities Higher order questioning Use of advance organizers

However, Rosenshine (1995) showed that the approach to instruction labeled direct or explicit instruction was most likely to positively impact on learning as measured by scores on standardized tests of basic skills. Alternatively, changing the desired outcome measure puts the focus on different instructional methods. For example, if the desired outcome is creativity and independence, then open education may be a better alternative (Giaconia & Hedges, 1982). Alternately, if better relationships among diverse students are the goal, the cooperative learning would appear to be the better instructional method (Slavin, 1995). Therefore, it is important to specify desired outcomes and their measures before decisions are made as to the implementation of specific instructional methods. Given the moderate correlations between teacher behaviour and student learning as measured outside the classroom, however, it seems prudent to focus on student behaviour within the classroom and the impact that teacher behaviour has on that set of variables. Student Behaviour includes all of the actions a student would make in the classroom and includes one very important

variable (at least in relationship to predicting student achievement on standardized tests) and that is Academic Learning Time (ALT). ALT is defined as "the amount of time students are successfully covering content that will be tested" (Squires, Huitt, Segars, 1983). ALT is a combination of three separate variables: Content Overlap, Involvement, and Success. Content Overlap is defined as "the percentage of the content covered on the test actually covered by students in the classroom" and is sometimes referred to as "Time on Target." Involvement is the "amount of time students are actively involved in the learning process" and is often referred to as "Time on Task." Success is defined as the "extent to which students accurately complete the assignments they have been given." A high level of Academic Learning Time means that 1) Students are covering important (tested/evaluated) content; 2) Students are "on-task" most of the class period; and 3) Students are successful on most the assignments they complete. These three variables can be relatively easily measured and can be considered the vital signs of a classroom. If all of these are appropriate, there is a high probability that the classroom is functioning well. However, if any one of these variables is lower than expected, further inspection of classroom processes should be undertaken. There are a variety of other classroom factors which have been related to student achievement such as the classroom climate and the opportunity for students to engage in leadership roles. One of the most important concepts that have been developed in educational psychology during the past 30 years is that classroom process variables are the most direct link to student achievement (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986). More specifically, the teacher's classroom behaviour (incorporated in the categories of planning, management and instruction) has a direct influence on student behaviour (most importantly, Academic Learning Time) which, in turn, is most directly linked to measures of student achievement.

INPUT The third major category of variables, Input, refers to descriptions of teachers and students prior to their coming into the classroom. There are again two important subcategories: Teacher Characteristics and Student Characteristics. Some important subcategories of teacher characteristics includes the teacher's values and beliefs, knowledge, thinking and communication skills, performance skills, and personality. Of course, there are many more possible subcategories, but these seem to be the most important.

The most important teacher characteristic (in terms of predicting how well teachers will perform in the classroom as well as student achievement) seems to be the teacher's values and belief or more particularly Teacher Efficacy (Ashton, 1984). This variable is a measure of the teacher's belief that students can learn and that he/she can teach. Another important set of teacher characteristics includes the teacher's knowledge with respect to the content domain (knowledge of subject matter to be taught), human growth and development (theories, topics, and stages), learning theory (behaviouristic, cognitive, constructivist, humanistic, social cognition), and the teaching/learning process (concepts and principles as well as their application in formal and informal environments). This course is designed to address three of these important areas: human growth and development, learning theory, and the teaching/learning process. In the state of Georgia, a teacher's knowledge is evaluated through the completion of college-level courses and passing the Teacher Certification Test (TCT). At VSU, one requirement related to a teacher's thinking and communication skills is successful completion of a speech course at the undergraduate level. Performance skills are measured through a requirement of student teaching and an annual evaluation using the Georgia Teacher Observation Instrument (GTOI). Finally, while there is no single personality that seems to make the "best" teacher, it is certainly a variable that has attracted a lot of interest. One measure of personality that has become popular in education circles is the Keirsey Temperament Scale (a version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). There are a wide variety of Student Characteristics that have been related to classroom behaviour and student achievement. Bloom and other researchers (e.g., Anderson & Block, 1977; Bloom, 1971) engaged in the development of mastery learning have shown that when time to learn is allowed to vary, a student's prior knowledge is most important. Other researchers have shown that when time to learn is held constant, as it is in most learning environments in the United States, then a student's intelligence or academic ability is most important. This issue of "time to learn" is very important. If we truly believe that everyone can learn and that it is important to learn, then it would seem we would make a greater effort to provide the appropriate time to learn. However, if we believe that ability is more important and that only the most capable individuals can learn all we want them to learn, then the present system will continue to produce a result that verifies that expectation. Other student characteristics that have been found to be important include study habits, Age, Sex/Gender, Motivation, Learning Style, Cognitive development, Socioemotional development, Moral and character development, and Race/Ethnicity. In fact, the list of important student characteristics is so long entire books have been written on them.

The above is a simple example of how some of these variables might interact. Context variables such as the size and region of the community impact teacher and student characteristics while the context variables associated with the family impact student characteristics. Of course, there are other important context variables that could also be considered as described above. Additional context variables associated with school and state policies combine with teacher and student characteristics to impact teacher behavior. Teacher behavior along with student characteristics influence student behavior, especially those variables associated with Academic Learning Time. Student classroom behavior then influences teacher classroom behavior in an interactive pattern. Student classroom behavior, therefore, is the most direct influence on student achievement as measured by instruments influenced by state policies. Student achievement at the end of one school year then becomes a student characteristic at the beginning of the next. Additional outcome variables that are important for success in the information age can be considered in the same manner.

CONCLUSION There is no such thing as "the perfect teacher." Giving a homily on what "good teachers" do appears to be unhelpful and unrewarding to those who want to improve their own practices. A far more helpful approach seems to be the study of teachers' beliefs, which inform and shape their actions. Constructivism lies at the heart of this endeavour, as it offers valuable insights into the cognitive as well as affective aspects of the relationship between teachers and their self-images, and teachers and students. Teaching is not merely information or knowledge, but mainly an expression of values and attitudes. What teachers usually get back from their students is what they themselves have brought to the teaching-learning process.

REFERENCES
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