Brookfield Chapter 2: The Core assumptions of Skillful Teaching

"Treating students as Adults." p.31
The foundation of building a trusting and open relationship with students is to treat them as adults.   All people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and feel they are a valuable member of a community.

"Skillful teaching is whatever helps students learn." p.18
Brookfield speaks the need of instructors to be aware of his or her personal beliefs and habits and how they impact on a student.  It may be to leave the student alone to enable learning to occur or intervene at an opportune time or even suggesting a break from an activity or task.  Knowing how and when to make these decisions involves an instructor using their experience and intuitiveness to decide what is best for the student.

"Skillful teachers adopt a critically reflective stance towards their practice." p.24
I really liked how Brookfield outlines ways in which instructors are able to make "informed teaching" decisions and actions by looking at four conditions. p.25
These include:
• assumptions that can be explained and/or justified to ourselves and others
• are actions implemented researched, is there accurate evidence
• does the action achieve the consequence it intends
• view our teaching thru different perspectives
I will most certainly be using this analyzing format to when reflecting and have a acronym to help me remember to check for each condition which for me is PERC (Perspectives, Explained, Researched, Consequence).

"The most important knowledge skillful teachers need to do good work is a constant awareness of how students are experiencing their learning and perceiving their actions." p.28
Instructors need to know where students are in their learning and how to move forward.  Using feedback strategies like surveys, questionnaires or Brookfield's Critical Incident Questionnaire or CIQ are some ways to gain this information to enhance student learning.


Reference:
Brookfield, S., (2006). The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom. {Jossey-bass Higher and Adult Education Series; 2nd Ed.}. John Wiley & Sons, (US).