EDUCATION 2

EDC21ES

WORKING IN THE CLASSROOM

TEACHING , TIME AND SPACE

 UNIT 1
Time and space in teaching
Outcomes : By the end of this unit you should have gained an
understanding of the following concepts:
•External time and space
•Internal time and space
•Activities, agents and intentions
•Formal purposes
•Elements of teaching
•Practices
•Institutions
•Regulative and constitutive rules
 INTRODUCTION
Purpose : To provide the student teacher with
knowledge on how to arrange school and classroom
time and space in a way that best enables systematic
learning.

Contents

Unit1: Time and space in teaching

REFLECTION
Reflect on your experiences of physical
space in classrooms.
Reflect on your experiences of clock-
time at school.
Time and space
Time and space are shaped by ordinary
activities
Time and space are shaped by external
arrangements and internal arrangements of
activities
An activity determines the organisation of time
and space
Activities: An activity involves people and the
things that they do , rather than things which simply
happen. People take part in activities intentionally ,
there is human action and intention in every activity
 Human action and intentions
Jumping off a cliff is different from falling off a cliff, and both
are different from being pushed off a cliff. Here are the
differences:
Agent Intention Action
Jumping off a cliff: Jumping off a cliff is something that
someone does, it is an action performed with intention, and
the person who jumps can be called the agent of that
action
No agent No intention Accident
Falling off a cliff : is something that simply happens to
someone, it is an accident, not an action, and there is
no agent or intention involved.
Agent Intention Action
Being pushed off a cliff is not an accident, there is an
agent involved, but the agent in such a case is not the
person who is pushed but the person who did the
pushing. Something happens to the person who is
pushed, she/he is not an agent but the victim of
someone else's action and intention
Human action and intentions
Teachers are the responsible agents in the shaping of
the internal time and space of teaching – they can do
this well only if they understand the activity of
teaching
The distinction between human actions and other
events is extremely important in our lives
Teaching as an activity
Common Picture
Teaching is an activity that is constantly present in the
everyday lives of normal human communities
Most teaching takes place outside the walls and
timetables of school.
Teaching is an activity, and as such, is done by an
agent (or agents) with intentions
How can we tell that someone is teaching?
A person who is teaching must be engaging in some
appropriate action.
We can tell what the appropriate actions and
intentions are only in terms of formal purpose that
defines the activity of teaching
Teaching is a polymorphous activity: activities that
take many forms.
Poly means many, morphous mean having the
shape, form, or structure”
 Polymorphous activities are defined by their formal
purpose.
The formal purpose of an activity is a concept that is
shared in a community.
 The formal purpose of the activity of
teaching
Teaching requires a double object;
 someone being taught(L)- [Who are you teaching?]
 something being taught(C)- [What are you teaching them?]
Basic components of a teaching environment
The formal purpose of the activity of
teaching
Teaching is a co-operative activity between a teacher and
a learner:
Encourage participation
Learners are not passive but active participants of a
learning process
Teachers need to encourage active participation of
learners
Teaching as dynamic activity
Teaching is a dynamic activity and its success depends
on the teachers’ ability to stimulate and engage learners
in actions of learning
Conditions of learning- time and space
The time it takes different learners to learn something
What is being learnt?
Appropriate space for learning
When teachers arrange the internal time and space of
teaching , they need to think about which
arrangements will best enable learning
The practice of teaching (p30)
To call something a practice is to claim that it is an
activity , but an activity with some special
characteristics
Some special characteristics of school teaching are :
It is an activity
It normally takes place in the context of an institution
It involves teaching a number of learners
simultaneously
Those who do this kind of teaching are usually
professionally employed in this capacity
The practice of teaching
The characteristics of practices in general are:
Practices are essentially social
Practices have histories and traditions
Practices are flexible in relation to changing
conditions
A practice can change , but only within the boundaries
of our understanding of what makes it a distinctive
practice
Practices have their own internal standards of success
and excellence
School teaching as a practice
Definition: School teaching is the practice of organizing
systematic learning
Meaning : An agent(s) i.e. teacher(s), need to arrange
sequences of learning tasks that gradually enable the
learner to grasp more and more complex skills and
concepts and this sequence unfolds through time .
Institutions and rules
Institutions are established, and maintained, to provide a
home for practices
A school is an institution that provides a practice of
education
In the heart of a school are the practices of teaching and
learning
Rules within the schooling practice :
 Regulative rules regulate behaviour and actions that are
possible entirely independently of the rules
 Constitutive rules create the possibility of actions that are
not possible without the rules
 Consult your textbook and read more on the two
rules above (page 37-37)
THANK YOU