The Science and Art of Effective Secondary and Post-Secondary Classroom Teaching: An Analysis of Specific Social Interpersonal and Dramatic Communication Teacher Behaviors That Motivate Secondary and Post-Secondary Students Classroom Attendance and Attentive Listening

By Thomas D. Sharts M.Ed

In this day and age with the advent and rise of teaching secondary and post-secondary courses via online instruction, classroom teaching has almost been forgotten as a primary and relevant means for instructing students at the secondary and post-secondary level. Today more than ever, effective classroom instruction is a requisite delivery process for communicating information in a manner that inspires students to attend class and listen attentively once they are present in class.

This book explores six social interpersonal and dramatic communication teacher behaviors (student respect, empathy, praise/encouragement, humor use, use of personal narratives/ storytelling and enthusiasm) that are an integral part of the definition of teacher effectiveness because they are correlated with motivating secondary and post-secondary students classroom attendance and attentive listening in a classroom environment. Moreover, this book explores how these six teacher behaviors should be utilized as significant criteria when recruiting and training prospective secondary and post-secondary classroom teachers.

In summation, the need for classroom teachers still holds an inspiring and relevant place in civil societies. Likewise, this book underscores how educators can use knowledge regarding effective classroom teaching to comprehend that skillful classroom instruction is both a science (behaviors that are learnable) and an art (behaviors based more upon natural oral communication gifts); yet all such behaviors should guide our recruitment and development of upcoming and currently employed classroom secondary and post-secondary teachers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503535787

Thomas D. Sharts M.Ed

Thomas D. Sharts is Department Chair of Social Sciences and Fine Arts with Northern Marianas College. Also he has authored the following books: The American Deception; The Poor Man’s Bible A-Z; Avant-Garde Sociology; The Five Areas of Being Human; Sunday School Lessons and Sermon Topics for Real Faith in the Real World; Building a NonProfit Entity, Organization or Agency; The Science and Art of Effective Secondary and Post-Secondary Classroom Teaching; Shartsy’s Artsy Sayings; Bipolar Sagacity; Factual Wisdom for the Age of Apostasy; Bipolar Sagacity Volume 2; Understanding the Heart Origins and Some Relevant Explanations for Male Pornography Addiction; Bipolar Sagacity Volume 3; Bipolar Sagacity Volume 4; Bipolar Sagacity Volume 5; Bipolar Sagacity Volume 6; Bipolar Sagacity Volume 7; Bipolar Sagacity Volume 8 and Shartsy’s Artsy Sayings Volume 2. Mr. Sharts has twenty three years college teaching experience and has taught in higher education in both the United States and overseas. From 1999 to 2007, he was the Founder and Executive Director of Friendship Helping Ministries in Charlotte, NC. In 2019, Mr. Sharts received first prize with the Beverly Hills Book Awards for Bipolar Sagacity Volume 6 in the category of Philosophy; and in 2017, Mr. Sharts was the winner of the National Indie Excellence Book Award for the book Bipolar Sagacity. Also in 2017, he was recognized with a finalist distinction for the Montaigne Medal with the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for Thought-Provoking prose in reference to the book Factual Wisdom for the Age of Apostasy. Mr. Sharts interests are reading, writing, sports, and the visual and dramatic arts. In 2002, he was the recipient of the Community Quarterback Award for Human Services Leadership as designated by the National Football League’s Carolina Panthers. Mr. Sharts is also available for public speaking engagements or educational seminars in reference to sociological analysis on identified specific topics, business analysis, nonprofit creation and development, self-help analysis, etc. He may be contacted at [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2015 by Thomas D. Sharts M.Ed.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2015901076

ISBN:        Hardcover      978-1-5035-3577-0

                   Softcover        978-1-5035-3579-4

                   eBook             978-1-5035-3578-7

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Rev. date: 02/28/2015

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction: Understanding the Basic Issues and Teacher Behaviors Associated with Motivating Specific Student On-Task Behaviors

Chapter 2 Literature Review

Chapter 3 Classroom Teaching as a Science

and an Art

Chapter 4 Additional Effective Teacher Performance Behaviors and Classroom Teaching Skills Correlated with Motivating Student On-Task Behaviors

Chapter 5 Discussion and Recommendations

Appendices

Bibliographic References

Introduction

This book’s thesis was born out of the original question: why do students designate a classroom secondary or post-secondary teacher as a favorite teacher? An exhaustive literature review revealed little significant work in relation to favorite teachers; however, plentiful information was found in relation to specific teacher behaviors associated with effective secondary classroom teaching. Likewise, many studies and books have been written on the effectiveness of classroom teaching but few precisely define what so-called effective secondary or post-secondary classroom teaching actually is from a behavioral performance perspective. In addition, during my exhaustive literature review, there was little information on training programs for teachers at the college or university level or studies that examined those teacher behaviors that motivate post-secondary students in reference to classroom attendance and attentive listening. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to assume that the teacher behaviors identified in this analysis of secondary education students (in reference to motivating student classroom attendance and attentive listening) are similar in power for motivating those students attending a community college, college or a university.

This book will precisely identify six teacher performance behaviors that effective secondary or post-secondary classroom teachers consistently perform/model in association with motivating students to attend class and listen attentively while in class. In addition, this book will highlight those teacher classroom behaviors that are learnable or scientific – thereby leading the reader to an understanding that certain effective secondary and post-secondary classroom teaching behaviors can be learned through study, training, and observation. Also, this book will explore the possibility of those artistic/natural abilities individuals possess that could potentially help them succeed as future educators in a secondary or post-secondary classroom setting. This book will also explore how future schools of secondary teacher education (sponsored and implemented by institutions of higher education) might recruit prospective educators and develop relevant curriculum to increase the likelihood that graduating students will have a truly significant and long-standing career in classroom teaching. Lastly, this book will highlight some additional teacher performance behaviors/teaching skills and issues of concern that are correlated with effective secondary or post-secondary classroom teaching.

However, before this delineation of effective secondary and post-secondary classroom teaching behaviors is examined, it is imperative to mention that the primary goals of any effective classroom teacher should be the relevant outcomes of helping students realize academic achievement or other life-skills areas of significant growth correlated with developing civil behavioral qualities. Likewise, if a teacher has nothing to share of any relevant academic or civil value (due to the fact of his or her limited knowledge or scholarly aptitude) then the contents of this book are truly null and void. Therefore, it is this author’s belief that it’s absolutely essential to also give powerful consideration to the requisite need of making certain that all of our current and future educators at the secondary and post-secondary levels are scholars in association with those fields of study they are held responsible to teach for the purpose of educating inquiring minds.

In closing, most if not all of the literature research and commentary that supports the basis of this book’s thesis relate to findings associated with secondary classroom teaching experiences. However, the validity of this cited research and commentary is very much applicable and transferable to a community college, four-year college, university or graduate university classroom teaching environment - with the only significant difference being the dearth of classroom management issues found in higher education environments – primarily due to two factors: 1)the fact that students and/or parents are paying for the educative experience, and 2) the overall greater aggregate mean level of a student’s attitudinal maturity while attending an institution of higher learning. That being said, it is rather remarkable that amidst United States institutions of higher education, there are currently zero teacher education degree programs dedicated to certifying or educating community college, four-year college, university or graduate classroom instructors in learning effective classroom instructional skills.

Thomas D. Sharts M.Ed

Note: The author is aware of the complexity of those primary sociological realities/variables that influence diverse student populations and their respective on-task behaviors in a secondary or post-secondary classroom environment; specifically a student’s historical reality, social structural reality, cultural reality, economic reality, political reality, social institutional reality and environmental reality (social and physical). Also influencing students on-task behaviors are those sociological realities/variables that affect classroom teachers’ performance behaviors and the institutions where they work. Without question, at any given time, any or all these cited sociological realities will indeed impact a student’s motivation to attend/or not attend class as well as to listen attentively or not listen attentively in a classroom environment. In addition, four other areas of being human such as a student’s spiritual, physiological, psychological and vocational realities will have a similar influence upon his or her attendance and attentive listening behavior in a classroom environment. Likewise, the above cited sociological realities/variables and these four areas of being influence a secondary or post-secondary classroom teacher’s performance behaviors as well.

Chapter 1

Introduction: Understanding the Basic Issues and Teacher Behaviors Associated with Motivating Specific Student On-Task Behaviors

Most teachers who educate secondary students or young college students in a traditional classroom setting (where teachers are the primary socializing agents, disseminators of requisite knowledge, and managers of classroom behavior) often experience pupil disobedience toward specific on-task behaviors such as class attendance and attentive listening during instruction. In most cases, episodes of pupil disobedience toward these specific on-task behaviors may be the consequence of any of the following four external or internal variables: 1) negative peer influence, 2) a curriculum that lacks relevant vocational guidance, 3) a curriculum understood by students as boring because it usually emphasizes adult concepts related to perceived adult-only experiences, and 4) classroom teachers who have limited skills to motivate classroom attendance and attentive listening during instruction.

However, despite these four negative factors affecting students on-task behaviors, I believe secondary and post-secondary classroom educators can alleviate the above-mentioned liabilities if they model specific social interpersonal and dramatic communication performance behaviors like those usually reported in favorite teachers or preferred in any reported effective teacher. My past teaching experiences at the secondary and community college level (as well as past/recent informal surveys with many community college students) has continually recognized that those secondary and college classroom teachers most often reported by students as favorite teachers consistently modeled preferred social interpersonal and dramatic communication behaviors in their classroom performance.

Those social interpersonal teacher behaviors most often reported by pupils in their favorite teacher or most preferred in any effective teacher were: demonstrated respect for students, modeled empathy, and use of praise/encouragement. In a study conducted by Johnson and Prom (1986) pupils identified student respect, empathy, and praise as three significant process behaviors modeled in the performances of their most memorable classroom teacher. In addition, my past/recent informal surveys with secondary and community college students revealed that those dramatic communication teacher behaviors most often reported by pupils in their favorite teacher or most preferred in any classroom teacher were: use of humor, revelation of personal narratives/storytelling, and demonstrated enthusiasm for teaching. In their operational definitions of dramatic communication teacher behaviors Norton and Nussbaum (1982), Baughman (1982) and Nussbaum (1982) cited enthusiasm, use of humor, personal narratives/storytelling as three significant performance behaviors in the process of classroom teaching.

Likewise, this book will examine