I am thrilled to announce that my suspicions, interests & ideas have transformed themselves into a real question that can actually be researched! Yay!
What happens to student self-efficacy (that is, the belief in his/her own competency) when that teacher takes on the role of a facilitator?
Yay!
My intuition has been telling me that self-efficacy is closely related to autonomy, autonomy to community & community to self-efficacy. I need to start thinking about the types of qualities, responsibilities & tasks define the 'role of a facilitator'. I suspect that being a facilitator is not necessarily distinct from being a non-facilitating teacher. In fact I doubt that one could both be a teacher and a non-facilitator. Facilitating seems to be an essential task of all teachers. I wonder, though, what are the nominal differences between the facilitator-teacher and the teacher-facilitator?
Dear Emily, Abigail, Sheridan, Vanessa, Ivy, Patty & David,
I am especially interested in what you think about facilitating and teaching. What are the connections and differences you see between them? When have you acted as a facilitator in your classroom? Did you do or say something particular that made you call that particular moment of teaching, facilitating?
Thank You!
Danielle
Also, I have decided to talk to Grinell about my questions. I am curious about what molded him into the facilitator-teacher we all know and love. Stay tuned!
YAY, DANIELLE! I'm glad that you were able to take your suspicions, interests, and ideas and formulate them into a question! Your question sounds very promising and has definitely intrigued my curiosity. Grinell's approach to teaching (or I should say facilitating) was really different from what I have become accustomed to in the classroom. At first, I was unsure of what to actually do because I was just so used to having my teachers tell me exactly what to do (and even how to do it). Therefore, having Grinell sit up in the front of class saying nothing and simply waiting for us to initiate our own learning was odd. But I grew to appreciate it because he put the power of learning in our own hands! I'm very interested to hearing more from you as you research and do your project!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I love the shout outs asking for help...so smart! :)
ReplyDeleteSecond, I was there when you kind of had your realization that self-efficacy is the way to go...Congratulations! I also think it's possible to incorporate self-regulation in there too :) Maybe not as part of the question, but as a part of the research. Third, I'm glad you have recognized that defining facilitator is a key part of your question. As I was reading the question I was thinking the same thing because it can look different in so many ways. Also defining what self-efficacy would look like in a classroom is important I think. I am interested in your collection ideas also. What grade will you be in next semester? Do you know what grade you would like to implement your research in? Depending on how you want it to look. Maybe you could do surveying/interviewing the students or journaling or simply doing observations or doing like a goal system for each student and seeing the process they take and progress they to reach that goal. IDK! I'm just throwing things out there. I also just Googled quickly and found this website that talks a lot about what we learned in Roxana's class, but it might have some helpful resources also... http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/efficacy.html
If you want to talk more about your topic I'm here!