You have to learn it at a greater depth and a more detailed level in order to be able to teach it
Keith S. Taber
I have listened to a lot of Professor Jim Al-Khalili's interviews with scientists for the BBC's 'The Life Scientific' programme.
I enjoy hearing about the science and the scientific lives, but Professor Al-Khalili's recent interview with Professor Alice Roberts particularly struck me in terms of her comments on teaching.
[Note: the material discussed in this posting is copyright of third parties, i.e., the BBC (the broadcast and website) and the scientists (the text produced in the interview). It is used here with acknowledgement for purposes of critique and review.]
I have made a rough transcription of that part of the conversation, below, starting at about 6' 24" into the podcast 'Alice Roberts on Bones', which is freely available on the BBC website – and the whole programme is highly recommended.
I found myself nodding along to Prof. Robert's comments about teaching.
Knowledge for teaching
I absolutely agree that "you have to learn it at a greater depth and a more detailed level in order to be able to teach it" – there is no examination which is as testing as the questions of a class of learners struggling to make sense of subject matter. (See 'Learning from experience and teaching by example: reflecting upon personal learning experience to inform teaching practice'.)
There has been much talk in education of pedagogic knowledge being important alongside subject knowledge (one needs to now how to teach as well as what to teach), which is clearly so. Perhaps it is less recognised, however, that a specialist teacher's subject knowledge, whilst clearly different from that of a cutting edge researcher in the subject, is also a form of specialised expertise – 'subject knowledge for teaching' is subject matter extensively infused with pedagogic expertise.
Teachers are specialist experts
I would argue that an experienced school teacher's subject knowledge will often be more advanced in some areas than an academic/researcher in the same discipline.
The researcher has very detailed and advanced knowledge in their specialist area, but the teacher will have been repeatedly revisiting the 'foundation bricks' (in Prof. Robert's terms) in the light of students' varied learning difficulties and (sometimes highly creative) questions. The 'building a wall' metaphor, a wall that needs sound foundations, reflects a constructivist perspective on learning that has been widely adopted in science education.
A lust for learning
Prof. Roberts has the healthy attitude that the teacher never knows everything, without being complacent. Being challenged ("I really love that") is an opportunity to spot the limitations in your own knowledge, and to do something about it – to "advance your own understanding". The good teacher never stops learning, and seeks to understand better, and so sets an example to her students of valuing life-long learning .
Prof. Alice Roberts talking about teaching
06.24
Did teaching anatomy [at the University of Bristol] enhance your understanding of the subject?
Oh my goodness, yeah, I mean I think it's the same with teaching anything, isn't it?
Mm.
Er, you, you have to learn it at a greater depth and a more detailed level in order to be able to teach it.
And, also, I think as soon as you start teaching, you, you realise where the gaps in your own understanding are. You start probing how well you know a subject, and you think 'oh actually, I thought I know that, and I didn't', and you, and you start to go back to kind of foundation levels.
I always think of it as a wall that you are building up and you get to a certain level of knowledge and then you think 'oh I had better just go and test those bricks at the bottom and make sure they are secure as I though they were',
Yeah {laughing}
and you inevitably find little chinks and you think 'oh I am going to have to work a bit harder than that', > but then > > {laughing} >
<The worst thing is < for me,< you know <, when, teaching, and then, a student, after teaching a course for many years will say 'actually that's not quite right', or 'how can you explain that?' and I'll realise, you know, generations of students, I've been giving them some wrong information, somewhere, and sent them out into the world. Very embarrassing. > Hasn't happened very often >.
< But, I – < But, I really love that. I, you know, when you go, when someone asks you a question and you go 'oh hang on a minute, I think I should know the answer to that'.
I mean some questions you go, 'I'm never going to know the answer to that, but I will go and find out', or you can send your students to go away and find out.
But sometimes you do get asked questions where you think 'actually, I, I would have thought I knew the answer to that, and I don't'.
Yeah, it's never occurred to me.
And so it helps you advance your own understanding. I really appreciate that.
Absolutely.
07.55
