Balance of powerAsmaa Mohammed Abdu El_RahmanEman Ahmed HusseinLeila Mohammed Ibrahim

The balance of power

• According to theories of radical and feminist pedagogy and researches related to self-regulated learners , students’ motivation, confidence and enthusiasm for learning, teachers control the processes through and by which they learn.

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• Teachers authority is so taken for granted that most of us are no longer aware of the extent to which we learn.

Why students don’t have authority and power in learning?

• 1. they can not be trusted to make decisions about learning.• 2. they lack intellectual maturity.• 3. they do not have good study skills.• 4. they are not well prepared.• 5. take courses to take grades.• 6. do not care about learning.

How the balance of power changes• In order to achieve balance in power, we have to understand

the role of power in classrooms.

• We have to create a learner-centered environment . Students should have a positive impact on learning process.

Power is shared• When teaching is learner-centered , power is shared rather

than transferred wholesale.

• Faculty and school still make key decisions about learning , but they no longer make all decisions and not always without student input.

Some objection on power-sharing idea

• They assume that: • 1. students end up running the class and teaching themselves.• 2.students leave the teacher with no viable role in the

educational process.• 3. this philosophy ultimately dispenses with the teacher.• 4. the goal is to equip students with learning skills so

sophisticated that they can teach themselves.

Unethical transfer of power• A teacher violates his legitimate power and authority if he

allows entry-level students in his required survey of sociology course to select the textbook . These students do not have experience or knowledge of the discipline to make a good textbook decision.

An appropriate sharing of the decision-making process• Imagine if the teacher surveyed a variety of textbooks in the

light of his goals and objectives for the course and his understanding of students learning needs and then selected five books that would accomplish his aims and meet student needs.

Gradual transfer of power and control is very important• 1. teacher should give students the chance to offer input or

make recommendations.• 2.letting students make decisions in one or two areas of study.• 3.letting students decide which assignments they will

complete in the course with some direction from teacher side.

The benefits of power sharing :Power sharing has wonderful effects on three elements of the

educational process :

1. Learners or students .2. Teachers .3. The environment in the classroom .

For learners :They begin to exercise their power tentatively and anxiously , so they

need feedback and reinforcement to move forward with more confidence.

They will be engaged , involved , connected with course and they are motivated to work harder.

They can able to apply the content to their own communications as they understand themselves as communicators and see communication happening all around them .

For teachers :They no longer struggle with passive , uninterested , and disconnected

students.Students’ energy motivates and drives the teacher to prepare more ,

risk more , and be rewarded more by the sheer (completely) pleasure of teaching .

Power sharing avoids adversarial relationship between the teachers and their students , because the students no longer feel powerless and they can resist the teachers’ requirements .

For the environment : There is a much stronger sense that the class belongs to everyone .For example : when something is ineffective , students are much more

willing than in the past to fix it .

Policies and practices that redistribute power sharing :• It means how we can achieve greater equality of power sharing by

organizing four areas of potential decision making for learners including the following:

1. Course Activities and Assignment Decisions .2. Course Policy Decisions .3. Course Content Decisions .4. Evaluation Activities.

Course Activities and assignments :Students can be involved in decision making about course activities

and assignments in a number of ways at different levels of decision making.

Students can pick assignments they like with little insight as at how these choices might reflect learning preferences.

As a result this will give students an authentic role in making decisions about their assignments to create a context or framework that positively influences the kinds of decisions they make .

For example : Assignments that it have date and deadline to be finished and submitted.

So , it will have a significant impact on who works in the course and how hard they are willing to work and complete a great number of assignments.

Course Policy Decisions :Students can be involved in decision making about course policies like

setting the participation policy in the beginning public speaking course.

Course policy decisions should be more explicit and having a feedback opportunity in which students learn how to make more constructive contributions .

For example : The teacher use a round – robin technique to class working on policy ..

Steps :1) Students are placed in groups of four , and each student is given a

different question about participation like the following ;• Should students lose participation credit for engaging in some kinds of

behaviors ?• What behaviors and how much credit should they lose ?2) Each student asks every other person in the group his or her question ,

take notes on the answers , and respond to the questions that have been given to others.

3) All the persons with the same questions form a new group in which they share responses collected and look for common themes and differences.

4) Then the teacher responds a memo to each group that raises questions and asks for elaborations .

5) The rest of time comparing and contrasting the responses and trying to a draft of participation policy , and then the teacher and his students review it more and more and vote on whether to accept it .

The benefits of course policy decisions :

• Students will be much more aware of participation on a daily basis .• Students will see that various behaviors constitute participation like

the following; *Answering questions asked by the teacher and other students .*Asking questions of the teacher and other students and commenting

on the questions and answers of other students .

• As a result students will assess involvement in discussion with their teachers and classmates .

Course content decisions

• a set of content decisions we already allow students to make:• We let them choose:• speech topics • select subject for art work • write papers on topics of their own choosing.

The circumstances under which students could make content decisions for a significant course:

• 1-The teacher could identify an appropriate set of readings on each of the topics.

• 2-the students begin with a short ,informal paper

• 3-after writing the paper and sharing it with small group of fellow students, the group gets the instructors-created list of potential topics. • 4- together, the group uses that list and their papers to construct a

prioritized list of course topics.

• 5 – finally , from them the teacher selects the topics that will be covered in

the course.

Evaluation Activities

• Johnson 2000 , involves students in the development of the entire course syllabus• He explains his motivation :• “One principle of learning which has always been

important to me as a learner , and as a teacher has application here. Students are very much turned on when they are involved in making the decisions that affect them .the converse is especially poignant . they are turned off when someone else makes their decisions for them.”

Questions that emerge when the balance of power changes

• The most fundamental one • “can you design a set of course activities and assignments that

responsibly give student more control over the decisions that affect their learning ?

• How much power is enough • How much decision making might be required to motivate one

student vs how much it takes to motivate the class?

How much freedom they can handle

• The amount of decision making it takes to motivate students must be weighed against their intellectual maturity and ability to operate in conditions that give more freedom at the same time they also require more responsibility .

How much freedom they can handle

• 1-Most students arrive in college classrooms having made almost no decisions about learning.• 2-Many students are missing the solid study skills

that would inform good learning decisions.• 3-With little experience making decisions and

lacking the sophisticated study skills that characterize effective learners ,the chance that the student will make poor learning choices is high.• 4-Not all the students in the class are at the same

level of intellectual maturity.

When do teachers compromise professional responsibilities?

• Most students are years , if not decades , away from having the skills and intellectual maturity necessary to assume responsibility for their own learning .

• There are areas where teachers need to retain some control , perhaps significant control .

To finish up

• Learner - centered instruction involves a reallocation of power in the class room .

• It requires that faculty give students some control over those learning processes that directly affect them .

Thank you