The Core Assumptions of Skillful Teaching

This blog post is about “The Core Assumptions of Skill Teaching” that are mentioned in the book “The Skillful Teacher” by Stephen D. Brookfield.

Below are the four assumptions outlined by Brookfield:

I would say Brookfield has given a structure to our thoughts as teachers in the form of these assumptions. I am in agreement cent percent with his thought process.

Talking about the first assumption, every student is different so our approach to teach can’t be same for all especially when we are dealing with diversity in our classrooms. The need of the hour is to have a good mix of strategies that work with our students. Also, in the initial lectures, our aim should be to study the demographic of our class and the background knowledge they behold, so that we can make changes in our instruction, assignments, methodologies etc if needed. Asking our students how we can help them and creating a safe space for them to discuss their fears, struggles and insights could help in carving a path for their success.

With that said, this is not a once in all thing to do – always keep reflecting and asking yourself – Will my actions and decisions be helping my students to learn? What can I do differently to help them learn better?

Second assumption of adopting a critically reflective stance is the key to taking an informed action and revamping our teaching. Reflecting and seeing things from others’ eye (students, fellow colleagues, etc.) can actually help us in giving a new direction and outlook towards developing or changing our classroom techniques.

I would echo what Brookfield mentioned about showing students how we apply critical reflection to our teaching helps us in earning the moral right to ask them to engage in the same process.

Ultimately, trust is built when you do what you preach.

Third assumption of having a constant awareness of how students are experiencing their learning and perceiving teachers’ action is integral part of mindful teaching. All our classroom decisions are to be guided by how students are feeling about their classroom experience. Their feedback and suggestions helps teachers drive the instruction in the right direction.

In order to have truthful feedback from our students, creating a safe space to voice out concerns, is needed. The important thing to keep in mind is that we need to build trust and ensure that the anonymity of feedback is not comprised.

Lastly, college students should be treated as adults is a crucial. Some of the common expectations from students that entails that we are treating them as adults are being respectful towards them, not being bossy to them, believing that they are aware of what they are doing and are being responsible of their decisions.

As teachers we need be mindful that we don’t treat college students as high school students. They have already started their journey of being self-aware and taking control of their lives.

To conclude, these assumptions are guiding principles that would help us to be on the path of becoming a skillful teacher. Not saying, all of us would agree on these, but these are foundational for us exploring and developing more insights of being a skillful teacher.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.