The Art and Science of Teaching

Teaching is both an art and science. Art and science may seem very different, but they are actually quite the same. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines art as "1: skill acquired by experience or study," and "3: an occupation requiring knowledge or skill"(p. 56 and 57). The Dictionary of Psychology defines science as "1. an organized and systematic body of knowledge."(p. 472). The difference I equate to the difference between wisdom and knowledge. The art of teaching focuses on the process of creating atmosphere, delivering relative information through a performance and creatively incorporating unexpected events into the lessons. The science of teaching focuses on the experimental aspect of teaching, facts, and cause and effect

The text The Art and Science of Teaching describes a teacher as "an artist whose medium of expression of the spontaneous, unrehearsed and creative encounter between teacher and student."(Parkay and Stanford p. 115). The art of teaching is presentational as well as improvisational. The lesson should be planned and scripted, but the script must allow for the unexpected teachable moment. It is important to be receptive to feedback. An effective teacher develops the art of reading his students and measuring comprehension.

Constructivist teaching is an artful approach to learning that allows the students to use their thinking skills in order to discover information. The teacher in this case is an artist who skillfully guides the students' thought processes. (Parkay and Stanford p. 64). There is evidence of this kind of approach very early in education. The Fifth Reader, printed in 1881, suggests that the student find words in a written work "and study their connection with the rest, and give the special sense of the words as there used, not the general definition." (Harris, Rickoff and Bailey p.1). Instead of feeding the definition of a word to the student, the student explores and discovers meaning.

In his essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent, the poet T.S. Eliot (1951) developed an analogy of a poet's relationship to both the poem and the reader. I make a parallel between his analogy and the relationship between the teacher, the content and the student:

The analogy is that of a catalyst. When two gases are mixed in the presence of a Filament of platinum, they form sulphuric acid. The combination takes place only if the platinum is present, nevertheless, the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected.

It is interesting that an artist uses a scientific experiment as an analogy. This analogy helps me explain how teaching is an art. If teaching were reservedly a science, Eliot's analogy would fit into the relationship between teacher, content and student. The teacher would facilitate information. The student would absorb the information and as a result, his mind is changed. The teacher's role is that of the slice of platinum. However, this suggests that the teacher remains unchanged by this process. The art of teaching allows the teacher to be altered by the dynamics of the classroom. The teacher gains new perspectives, and learns as well. Eliot's analogy is a useful tool to explain teaching as a science. It also proves to be a valuable tool for distinction.

Mastery Learning, as described in The Art and Science of Teaching, claims, "students learn best when they participate in a structured, systematic program of learning that enables them to progress in small, sequenced steps." (Parkay and Stanford p. 63). This methodic approach is scientific. The information is organized and broken down to its fundamental components. This step-by-step approach is quite like a scientific experiment, and it suggests a formula to follow. The formula can contain any number of content. As long as the content is presented within the perametors of the format, learning should be successful.

The Behavioristic approach to learning reinforces positive behavior. The teacher presents the stimuli and the student reacts. The teacher either reinforces the reaction positively or negatively. (Parkay and Stanford p. 121). This approach focuses on cause and effect. People are more likely to repeat a behavior that results in a positive reinforcement. If the student puts a piece of a puzzle into place, I will sing her a short song. She quickly progressed from fumbling around with the pieces to concentrating and putting the pieces into place. She made the cause-and-effect connection. Put the puzzle piece in the proper place, and get a song. The songs will gradually be faded out and she will be able to piece the puzzle together without reinforcement.

Following is a shift report that outlines how a Behavioristic approach actually works:

ENHANCED MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
DAILY SHIFT REPORT

List treatment plan goals worked on today:
1.Compliance
2.Attention
3.Communication

The following should be described in observable, measurable terms.

What interventions were used for working toward goal attainment?
1. TSS instructed student to squeeze, roll and cut play-doe.
2.TSS directed student's attention during testing.
3.TSS engaged student in reciprocal conversation.

How did the child / adolescent respond to these interventions?
1. Student followed 19/25 directives.
2.Student independently followed directions 5/12 trials, verbal prompt 7/12.
3.Student responded to 2/7 statements appropriately, 3/7 verbal prompt, 2/7 inappropriate response.

Since your last shift, does this represent:

Improvement Consistency Regression

Other: Student was very happy and engaged during this shift. I recorded 26 prompts between the teacher and myself. I recorded 25 appropriate comments to only 4 inappropriate comments. He took a long test today, and I found that even though he did not follow directions, his answers were reasonable. For example, in rhyming: pen = desk; web = house…He also made an analogy between peas in a pod and a foot in a shoe.

Next scheduled date of service:

Signature:Date:

The report models how this approach works. The teacher may use this format to outline goals for the lesson, approaches to take in order to achieve those goals, how the students respond to the intervention and if the course of action was successful. The teacher may find that a certain class is full of visual learners while another is full of auditory learners. The art is adjusting the lesson to accommodate each respective group.

I wrote an essay in a philosophy course I took in college. It was titled "The Beauty of Ugliness." In the essay, I sought to prove that two seemingly opposite concepts were actually interdependent and similar. One tool I used was the thesaurus. Beauty yielded aesthetic, which yielded artistic, yielding magnificent, yielding extraordinary, yielding bizarre, yielding grotesque and finally ugly. I managed to successfully reach polar opposites using words with coinciding meaning. We can approach art and science in the same fashion.

We have indirectly explored teaching as an art and science throughout the course. We can list subjects discussed in the main forum and classify them as either art or science, or perhaps, both. We discussed the importance of good communication skills. I classify that under art because there is nothing really tangible in effective communication. It relies on the moment. Also, communication is intuitive and creative. However, the science of communication is the fundamental components of language itself.

We discussed that a proficient teacher should have knowledge of the subject area. This I classify under science because it is fundamentally factual. However, the science is dependent on the art. The art, in this case, being the skill required in communicating the facts.

We discussed that the teacher needs to be able to assess the students' progress. This I classify as both. The teacher may use a systematic approach to assess progress, which is scientific. However, the art lies in being able to assess understanding distinguished from a student's parroting information. Can the student assimilate the information into the real world?

Professionalism is an art that requires good social skills along with great knowledge of the subject area, which makes it scientific as well. Motivation, problem solving, technology student-teacher relationships are all comprised of art and science. As I progress, I am beginning to really fuse art and science as I did beauty and ugliness.

A long time ago, I took a class on rhetoric. The professor said that someone told Albert Einstein that one of his hypotheses was not supported by any facts. Einstein replied, "It will be." That class helped me understand how we use facts both scientifically and artfully. This course has helped me see teaching both scientifically and artfully.

Resources:

University of Phoenix (2002) The Art and Science of Teaching. Forrest K. Parkay & Beverly Hardcastle Stanford, Pearson custom Publishing

Mish, Fredrick et al. (1994) The Merriman Webster Dictionary.

Baym, Nina et al (1989) The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Third Edition, Volume 2. WW. Norton and Company p. 1274
T.S. Eliot's essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent"
Chaplin, J.P. (1968) The Dictionary of Psychology, Dell Publishing Company

Harris, William T., Andrew Rickoff and Mark Bailey (1878) The Fifth Reader. D. Appleton and Company

http://eportfolio.uophx.edu/eportfolios/MAED/TED/rubric.html