Traditional and Applied Teaching Tips

First ,let me note that I have been an educator for over twenty years focusing on how to assist others with critical thinking and logical reasoning during problem solving decision making. Throughout my career I have taught K-12, undergraduate students, pre-service and in-service training in academic, specialized personal and professional development employment settings, crisis intervention for the public and staff, and re-organizational workshops for community development. I earned my Master of Science in Education in 1997 and have had mentors in my field that truly understand the value of combining traditional and applied learning curriculum.Secondly, I want to address the learning needs and concerns that I have identified throughout my career in daily life with the public, and in the class room and workplace. These identified learning areas include but are not limited to having the desire and ability to re-think how we problem solve in order to come to a reasonable and productive solution that enhances successful outcomes.

When I began to conduct workshop's in the 80's related to employer/employee relations, anti-ism's thinking for citizens, and crisis intervention many gaps of communication became very visible to me. Initially, I observed that there was no common us of words that were communicating that the outcome was productive. Examples would include the use of emotionally based thinking that only promoted disagreement. By this I mean that students, trainers, and instructors reacted to their own emotional focus of content individually rather then active listen to others involved in the conflict resolution concerns at hand.
Additionally, it was apparent to me that the majority of those in organizations focused on the "rules and policies staying the same" regardless of the cost of retention, new learning, or effective communications. Furthermore, there was more," grapevine pointing of fingers", then interdisciplinary goals and objectives for solutions that were agreeable and feasible. Therefore, as an educator I began to add Critical Thinking and Logic Reasoning in creative activities based on learning styles, focus of topic, viable outcomes that would be easily accommodate new learning maintenance skills that they could work together to achieve more readily after the class, course, or training had concluded.

My first tip then would be for everyone; citizens, academics, employees, and employers, to listen closely to what they are saying, asking, and doing in respect to effective communicating problem solving in their individual venue. I began requesting that they observe their own words, terms of engagement, requests, and expected standards and outcomes. This self-observation was an amazing tool as a first step because they began to re-think their positions on critical issues resulting in an enormous increase in interest level of new learning. My second trip was voluntary sharing of that new learning with examples of how what they learned about themselves could help others gain an understanding of common mis-communications with words, actions, or demands of changing their approaches.I used our 7 sensory perceptions as human beings as educational aids to assist others to decrease their bias and stereotypes personally and professionally.These culturally based rules of learning had not been addressed. Although my new methods of instructing were at first difficult to match with tangible activities;I added learners feedback to the curriculum, regardless of setting and student, so that they became a major part of their own learning.

One of the primary tools I used was to have each learner keep a continuous note taking journal about what they learned about their own words, actions, and reactions to the world around them. These notes included actual words but also drawings or illustrations that fit what they learned about their needs and concerns of how they thought and felt of their role in life's problems academically and professionally or socially. It seemed to flow for all ages and blend their personal and cultural thinking into other settings and almost immediately bonded them to common causes such as problem solving daily life issues, workplace conflicts, They instantaneously became a part of their own new way of reasoning that was grounded in new learning about themselves with goals of results that did no harm and was feasible to any setting or concern.

The next primary tool that I found useful was prioritizing according to Health/Wellness, Safety/Security, and Standards of Effective Communications that were acceptable and productive. Prioritization according to urgency, focused solutions, and ongoing intervention was very helpful when using an agreed upon priority scale starting with survival targeted on the most critical issues at hand. Prioritizing as an individual who is part of a successful team was very progressive as far as active listening, appropriate problem solving, and connected the initial stage, intermediate stage, and maintains stage of critical effective communication for successful individual and organizational morale building. Moreover, I was able to add their feedback of what worked and did not work to future trainings and students of all ages began to use each other as mentors when they wanted or needed to address any issues in resolution success. Some of the most effective tools were to have them share results of what successes they had personally by using the new learning techniques they had created which promoted their self efficacy regardless of concern or setting.

In summary, here are some of the successes citizens, students, teacher/instructors, and employee/employers shared with me based on using these combined learning techniques in their lives:
1. A kindegartner appeared to be scared that other students were yelling, pushing, and pinching him. I spoke to this student individually and asked him what he wanted to do about it. His response was to "go home and never go to school! I asked this student if it was alright to meet with him and his parents to talk about these problems. He agreed to talking with his parents and me. The three of us meet and I gave this student the lead of the discussion. He only felt comfortable talking if he faced the windows and I asked his parents not to interrupt him. He spoke intermittently so it was difficult for parents not to answer for him or make decisions for him. This young child, I shall call " Creative One" said," I want to go home and not be in school." I responded okay, well just for today; will you agree to be the teacher? "Yeah, he said." I ask him,"What can we do to help anyone who wants to go home and not be at school because other s are yelling, pushing,and pinching him?, His reply was,"Make them be friends!" His parents had taught him to "be nice" no matter what and he learned from observing that if he"talked louder and ran faster that others chased him more and he had friends, even though they were not nice ones." It was so hard for the parents to not problem solve for him so I explained that he was learning to think on his own and find a reasonable solution for himself that would give him confidence of how to handle his concerns. I asked him to help me draw pictures of how to teach others to be friends and not yell, push, and pinch, or chase each other in a mean way. He drew a lopsided circle with stick kids that were smiling as they petted a dog. So I got permission to add nature and pets to care for into the classroom; we had a visiting dog; "Creative One Student's" own little beagle named,"Sammy", a baby rabbit, and an aquarium for the students to take care of together. The yelling, pushing, and pinching stopped and this student saw himself more like a friend who had a dog then a student who wanted to go home and never go to school. He stopped disrupting and helped me assist other students who were disruptive so that the proper safe conduct rules were followed.

2. A new student who was multi-racial came to our 9th grade classroom from another country and experienced other students and teachers ignoring them to the point she,"ran from the situation in tears". I observed this happening the first two days and intervened with her. I shall call her "Angie" for this article to protect her confidentiality. She and I discussed our language and cultural differences in dress and food and interactions. She stated she felt like no one liked her and she wanted to go back to her own country." She did not want to tell her grandparents what happens at school because they would blame her and punish her for not standing up for herself." I got her approval to contact another professional who was an interpretor of her language and culture. The three of us changed our curriculum so that people from other cultures would come in once a week and teach all of us about their languages and way of life. "Angie was the coordinator of how we decorated the room together as a class and she introduced the first two presenters and chose the next student to take over her "job" of helping us learn about others who are different then us. It was not long before teachers, administration, and family members/caregivers were volunteering to take part of our new learning.

3. As a "freshman"; first term student sat in class the first day I observed that he was talking to the person next to him the entire class, was not taking notes, and appeared to be uninterested in "Critical Thinking and Logical Reasoning". My solution was to ask all students to write their new learning down and after break to tell the rest of the class what they learned today. After break this student continued to "talk to his classmate" and rather then "pick him out to talk about his new learning"; I chose his classmate to speak in class. This classmate who I shall refer to as "Mira" said," I was talking and did not hear what you said to us." The "freshman student who was talking the entire time spoke up and said," We learned that we are going to have a baby" but I do not know what you said and so that's all if have to say. I resumed class and they both stopped their conversation during class. The next day our "scenario" was survival as new parents by prioritizing all the urgency of pregnancy and childcare as a Health/Wellness Packet." The class was divided into groups of 4 and came to their positive answers to negative parts of pregnancy and parenting, we showed a movie of how to care for new Mother's and Father's and Baby. The next day our spokesperson was a neonatal specialist to answer questions students raised. My original topic was "Successful Learning as new students." Needless to say I replaced that
curriculum with; "Health/Wellness:Student Choice of Topics"

4. Industrial Organizational trainings are usually about "employee/employer" relations problems and this one I will describe was very difficult because it was focused on division of opposing styles of management by administration that appeared to be effecting retention and productive by 20% loss of "long term excellent employees and employers." I chose to have groups of 2 administrators with 2 employees in solution focused sessions. We used scenarios from other companies so that emotionally based communications did not interrupt our productivity. I assigned each participant a role of type of worker and type of administrator based on retention not issue and current administrators were now employees in our group and employees took the role of trainers and I took the role of "participating manager". We had 2 hour sessions for 2 days that focused on "Effective and Productive Communications in the workplace." We retained all but 3 participants who it turned out were the instigators of the dividers in the actual company; they weeded themselves out without being "identified" by anyone in this training and resigned without issue. This company now has a consultant who is on contract for semi-annual problem solving sessions regarding retention; and their company retention rate is now at 92% with only 8% retention loss.

In summary I would like to express thanks to all of the students I have had the pleasure of instructing be they public citizens, students of all ages, employees/employers, or people in crisis for their feedback and successes.