INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY ACADEMIC INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY VOLUME 10, NUMBER 1, 2008 Conceptualization and Perceptions of Teaching as an Artistic Form: National and International Implications for Evaluation and Assessment Dr. Monday T. Joshua Faculty of Education University of Calabar, Calabar – Nigeria Akon M. Joshua (Mrs.) Faculty of Education Cross River University of Technology, Akamkpa Campus, C.R.S., Nigeria Imo E. Umoinyang Institute of Education University of Calabar, Calabar – Nigeria William Allan Kritsonis, PhD Professor and Faculty Mentor PhD Program in Educational Leadership The Whitlowe R. Green College of Education Prairie View A&M University Member of the Texas A&M University System Visiting Lecturer (2005) Oxford Round Table University of Oxford, Oxford, England Distinguished Alumnus (2004) College of Education and Professional Studies Central Washington University Donald F. DeMoulin Argosy University - Atlanta Florence Banku Obi Institute of Education University of Calabar, Calabar - Nigeria Eno P. Ntukidem (Mrs) Institute of Education University of Calabar, Calabar – Nigeria Tyrone Tanner, EdD Associate Professor PhD Program in Educational Leadership Prairie View A&M University _____________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT Various definitions of teaching and the different conceptions of teaching (as a labour, a craft, and an art, the production of a product, a client service, an enterprise and as a profession) have been highlighted in this paper. The conceptualization of teaching as an art, and therefore, the teacher as an artist, has been analyzed in this paper, leading to the position that teaching techniques and their application are not standardized for all situation and cases; but the teacher’s personal goal skill and perceptions interplay to produce effective teaching. The implications of evaluating teaching as an art have been discussed; and self-evaluation has been projected as the major tool of artists (teachers) to 1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY ACADEMIC INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY 2__________________________________________________________________________________ achieve improvement in their trade. It is concluded that with self-evaluation as a tool, teachers can groom themselves professionally and maximize learning in their students. It is recommended that within the context of organizational goals, every teacher should set his/her own personal goals/ objectives for specified periods of time and periodically evaluate himself/herself based on those goals/objectives. _____________________________________________________________________ Introduction Teaching is a very important concept not only in the classroom, but also in the entire educational system and beyond. Teaching is an activity or a process that goes on everyday, every time and everywhere. People do teach one thing or the other to other people most of time of their conscious living. Parents/guardians, for example, do teach their children/wards, spouses teach each other, friends teach themselves, church/religious leaders do teach their members/followers, village heads teach their subjects, and many other examples. Thus, teaching is very central to everyday living, and it plays a significant role in the education or bringing-up or socialization of the young and old in the society. In school, teaching is one of the two main activities that go on in the classroom. The other is learning. The teachers are employed and positioned to “teach”, while the students/pupils are admitted and positioned to “learn”. The underlying assumption is that teachers are to bring about learning in his/her pupils; or simply put, ‘teaching results in learning’. The effectiveness of teaching, based on this assumption, is judged by the quantity and/or quality of expected learning that has taken place in the learners. However, it is generally accepted that very many factors (variables) interplay in the classroom or in any teaching-learning situation within and around the learner, which are completely outside the teacher’s control or manipulation. And so, to base the success or effectiveness of a teaching activity on the quantity or quality of learning it produces may be anything but fairness to the teacher. So, teaching still begs for another or more acceptable definition. There are many definitions in the literature, each depending on the philosophical or theoretical orientation of the author. The traditional view of teaching as a process of making impression on passive pupils, filling their empty minds and brains with what they should know, has gradually given way to relatively never view of teaching. This view still recognizes two parties in the teaching activity, namely the teacher and the learner, but also specifies that each of these two has distinct roles to play. In this direction, Bidwell (1973) defines teaching as a series of interactions between someone in the role of a teacher and someone in the role of a learner, with the explicit goal of changing one or more of the learner’s cognitive states (what he knows or believes; or his skill in performing cognitive tasks or effective states, his attitudes, values or motives). This definition implies that teaching is more of an interaction between people performing specific roles – the teacher and the learner(s). According to Onwuka (1990), a more modern view of teaching is that it is an attempt to help someone to acquire or change an attitude, knowledge, idea, skill or appreciation. It is the provision for experiences and guidance of activities designed to MONDAY T. JOSHUA, AKON M. JOSHUA, FlLORENCE BANKU OBI, IMO E. UMOINYANG, ENO P. NTUKIDEM, WILLIAM ALLAN KRITSONIS, TYRONE TANNER, DONALD F. DEMOULIN ____________________________________________________________________3 promote learning on the part of those engaging in the activities. It is a complex process of co-operation and intercommunication between teacher and learners, not a one-way traffic in information from teacher to learner. All these expressions on, or definitions of teaching generally imply that teaching in the classroom is more or less an interaction between two key role-players, the teacher and the learner(s). The learner can be seen and analyzed as the individual that is to benefit from the teaching activity/exercise; or as a group of knowledge seekers seated in class with one major aim in mind, which is to learn. Essentially, teaching consists of setting the stage so that someone can learn. The teacher and the learners are both involved in setting the stage for learning to occur. This implies that the teacher too continues to learn. Thus, teaching involves creating or providing opportunities and experiences that will enable the major role players to acquire the knowledge, skill, attitude and appreciation that will serve as tools leading to change of behaviour (which is learning). Conceptualization of Teaching as an Art Teaching has been conceptualized in different ways. Each conceptualization has implications for teaching, learning and evaluation of teaching. From the integrative reviews of literature by Darling-Hammond, Wise and Pease (1983), Stark and Lowther (1984) and Joshua (2001), six major conceptualization of teaching work have been identified. These conceptualizations are: i) Teaching as a Labour and teacher as a Labourer whose role is to implement instructional program exactly as it has been prescribed by superiors (administrators) Teaching as a Craft and teacher as a Craftsman or Technician whose role is to manipulate the materials and tools around him/her to produce results (learning) with little input from learners. Teaching as an Art, and teacher as an Artist whose role is to keep on trying to develop more flexible, creative and adaptive ways of making people learn. Teaching as the production of a product, and teacher as a Producer (and learners are the finished products) whose role is to ensure that the finished/expected products are in the right quantities, qualities and at right time with minimum excuses. Teaching as a client-service and teacher as a specialized Service Provider whose role is to satisfy his/her ‘client’s (who are learners and parents/society) in providing services that are safe, beneficial and acceptable while being paid for these services in a rather contractual manner. Teaching as a profession, and teacher as a Professional who has been prepared to solve peculiar problems as they come, and whose role is to exercise sound professional judgement as to when, where and on whom to apply one technique/strategy or the other to solve problems and maximize learning in the teaching-learning situation. ii) iii) iv) v) vi) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY ACADEMIC INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY 4__________________________________________________________________________________ In addition, to these six, Akinpelu (1981) adds that teaching can also be conceptualized as an enterprise. Of particular interest in this paper is the conceptualization of teaching as an art, and the teacher as an artist. An art is the making of painting, drawing, and sculpture which are beautiful or which express the creative ideas of the producer (in this case, the artist). Art also refers to the creation or performance of drama, music, poetry or painting. Thus, in arts, the key concept is creativeness of the principal actor (the artist), with the skills that are required for such creativeness. The artist is always himself/herself. He/she is constantly imagining and devising creative ways of producing a product that first of all meets his/her own desire/expectation, and then that is beautiful and attractive to another person, certainly the interested party. He/she is constantly working on his/her arts, and is constantly seeking improvement to meet his/her changing values, impressions and orientations, and the changing times and environment. Because, the artist is out to first of all impress himself/herself (that is, he works to realize his/her own dreams/imaginations/goals), he/she is the first critic of his/her work of art. Whenever he/she completes a work/product, he/she will first scrutinize it (or evaluate it) to see how it has conformed to what he/she had desired to achieve. While others may be applauding him/her for a work well done, he/she may be reminiscing about his/her dream/imagination/goal that might not have fully actualized. In addition to being a major critic of his/her work, the artist readily welcomes the critique of fellow artists and other significant others, receives them as input and utilizes them to further improve his/her work of arts. In conceptualizing teaching as an “art”, the implication/assumption is that teaching techniques and their application are not standardized for all situations and cases, but may be novel, unconventional or unpredictable. This is not to say that technique or standards of practice are ignored; but that their forms and uses are personalized and situation oriented. Under this context of teaching as an art, teaching is seen as a more personalized and creative activity, and the teacher is seen as an “artist” who keeps on trying to develop multiple perspectives about teaching and learning to become more flexible, creative and adaptive. A teaching art would involve choice of presentation and evaluation procedures and implementation of these procedures would depend not only on policymakers’ (educational administrators’/practitioners’/researchers’) implicit theories on the “right ways of doing them”, but also on the realities of the organizational context (DarlingHammond, Wise & Pease, 1983; Gage, 1978; Joshua, & Joshua (2001). Implications for Evaluation of Teaching – The Case for Self-Evaluation Evaluation as a concept or term has been variously defined. Generally, evaluation is a process or activity directed at ascertaining whether or not some set goals/objectives have been realized. It is a continuous and constant activity that most human beings engage in whether knowingly or unknowingly, and whether systematically or haphazardly. Bloom and others, quoted in Ndubisi (1990), view evaluation as the systematic collection of evidence to determine whether in fact certain changes are taking place in the learners, as well as to determine the amount or degree of change in individual students. Gronlund (1985) gives his own definition of MONDAY T. JOSHUA, AKON M. JOSHUA, FlLORENCE BANKU OBI, IMO E. UMOINYANG, ENO P. NTUKIDEM, WILLIAM ALLAN KRITSONIS, TYRONE TANNER, DONALD F. DEMOULIN ____________________________________________________________________5 evaluation from an instructional standpoint (which is the major focus in this paper) as a systematic process of determining the extent to which instructional objectives are achieved by pupils. These definitions and many others not cited here point to the fact that evaluation in education should be seen as a continuous process that usually looks for diagnosis of strengths and weaknesses in any educational activity or product. There arises the need to view evaluation in a broad sense. Such broad-sense approach to evaluation was illustrated by Bloom and others, and Ndubisi (1990) presents the illustration as follows. The broad-sense approach views: i) ii) iii) Evaluation as a method of acquiring and processing the evidence needed to improve the students’ learning and teaching; Evaluation as including a great variety of evidence beyond the usual final paper-and-pencil examination; Evaluation as an aid to clarifying the significant goals and objectives of education, and as a process for determining the extent to which students are developing in these desired ways; Evaluation as a system of quality control in which it may be determined at each step in the teaching-learning process, whether the process is effective or not, what changes must be made to ensure its effectiveness before it is too late; Evaluation as a tool in educational practice for ascertaining whether alternative procedures are equally effective or not in achieving a set of educational ends. iv) v) All these views on evaluation point to the fact that evaluation of teaching involves gathering data to ascertain whether the instructional objectives for the particular teaching exercise have been achieved or not. And since it was earlier stated that the teaching exercise (in schools) involves two persons, teacher and learners(s), each playing his/her role, and since instructional objectives are usually expected to be stated as behaviours of the learners, evaluation of teaching implies the judgement as to whether the teachers’ expected outcomes in the learners have been realized or not. In the conceptualization of teaching as an art; the teacher was identified as an artist, and it was noted that artists are their own best critics. The evaluation approach that is most suited for, and that is usually identified with, teaching as an art (and teacher as an artist) is teachers’ self-assessment or self-evaluation. Other possible or available approaches of teacher evaluation are principal/administrator evaluation of the teacher, peer evaluation of the teacher, student evaluation of the teacher, use of student test scores as basis for teacher evaluation, classroom observation and teacher interviews (Darling-Hammond, Wise & Pease, (1983; Joshua, 1998, 1999). The tools and processes used to assess teachers (whether their competence, job performance or effectiveness) are based on assumptions about how these qualities are linked to one another, how they may be measured, and how the measurements may be used to make decisions. How a teacher (being an artist) may use self-evaluation to improve his professional role is further examined. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY ACADEMIC INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY 6__________________________________________________________________________________ Self-Evaluation This is an evaluation approach in which the teacher makes a critical personal (or self) assessment of his/her strengths and weaknesses against both personal standard/expectations, and organizational (school) standards/requirements. According to Darling-Hammond, Wise and Pease (1983), self-evaluation has recently joined other sources (approaches) of assessment as a technique in teacher evaluation. It is less formal than other approaches, and is obviously not suitable for accountability or summative decisions. It may not be regarded as a formal/proper evaluation approach/process in itself, but as an important source of information and motivation in a broader evaluation programme. The combination of self-evaluation and individual goal-setting may promote self-reflection and motivation toward change and growth. A teacher may/can use information, quantitative or qualitative or both, derived from any evaluation techniques (e.g. HOD’s rating, student or peer rating, analysis of students’ achievement scores, etc) to make judgments about this or her own teaching, as to whether he/she is succeeding or not. Redfern (1980) and Lewis (1982) consider self-evaluation as an essential component of what they call cooperative evaluation models. Self-evaluation of the teacher implies that the teacher is his/her own critic, and makes an in-house assessment and clean-up, if necessary. Before other significant others call his/her attention to certain flaws, the teacher on self-evaluation has already discovered/identified some of them, if not all. Self-evaluation requires close monitoring of one’s actions and inactions to identify the effects they are producing on the teacher’s clientele, and how desirable or otherwise these effects are. In selfevaluation, the teacher seeks to verify whether his/her goals and objectives for the teaching exercise in a given period of time have been realistic and/or realized. The teacher seeks to convince or reassure him/herself whether he/she is making positive and expected impact in the learners to enable them progress in the expected direction In self-evaluation, the teacher is holding him/herself accountable for some salient aspects, if not all the outcomes of teaching-learning process. In spite of the organizational (school) or outside goals and the prevailing teaching-learning environment, the teacher who believes in self-evaluation is very willing, not necessarily under pressure or fear of sanction, to accept some blames for some of the things that may go wrong during the teaching-learning process. He/she sees him/herself as having an interaction with a group of learners for whose purposes/needs he/she was employed in the first instance. If the interaction does not produce tangible and worthwhile results, he/she first of all is interested in and actually finds out the outcome of the interaction, and, as an artist, quickly identifies what he/she did not do well, and goes back to rework such aspect(s) of his/her professional skills. A believer in and doer of self-evaluation does not pass the buck, the complete back, when certain things do not go well in the teaching-learning situation, unless he/she is thoroughly convinced that he/she has no part in the entire buck. Rather, he/she investigates and collects information to discover what he/she did not do well, and what improvement(s) he/she could make. Such believer is constantly gathering information to enable him/her improve his/her professional career on a steady basis. A teacher’s use of self-evaluation approach does not mean that he/she excludes or undermines other approaches of teacher evaluation like the ratings of the HOD/Administrator, students, peers and other significant others. As an artist, the MONDAY T. JOSHUA, AKON M. JOSHUA, FlLORENCE BANKU OBI, IMO E. UMOINYANG, ENO P. NTUKIDEM, WILLIAM ALLAN KRITSONIS, TYRONE TANNER, DONALD F. DEMOULIN ____________________________________________________________________7 teacher still believes in, and uses, feedback from others in the instructional arena as inputs in the onerous task of giving the best to his/her clients, and seeking to be the best that he/she can possibly be. In making the critical self-assessment and the subsequent judgement on self, the teacher relies on information from his/her students, colleagues, head of department/supervisor, analysis of student scores and other “mirrors” in the instructional arena. Thus, self-evaluation, as an approach of teacher evaluation, works best when it is used in combination with other approaches to serve the purpose of formative evaluation, which includes fostering the professional growth of the teacher. Most teacher evaluation processes are aimed at changing the ‘bad’ practice of teachers, and reinforcing the ‘good’ practices. It is necessary therefore, to come to grips with the subjectively reasonable beliefs of teachers, and to give full weight to teachers’ beliefs and intentions in assessing what they do and in guiding them in the formation of alternative beliefs about useful courses of action. It should be accepted that teachers are rational professionals who make judgements and carry out decisions in uncertain and complex environments and that teachers’ behaviours are guided by their thoughts, judgments and decisions. Thus, teachers need to be themselves, set their own goals, and like artists, be the first to assess and critique their own products, take some responsibilities for the success or failure of their own actions/inactions, and chart new/remedial courses of action aimed at realizing the initial goals/objectives of instruction (Darling-Hammond, Pease & Wise; 1983; Shavelson & Stern, 1981). Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations The various definitions of teaching have been highlighted in this paper. Generally, teaching has been viewed as an interaction between two parties who have specific roles to play in the interaction process. Different conceptions of teaching have also been presented and teaching has been conceptualized as a labour, a craft, an art, the production of a product, a client-service, a profession, and as an enterprise. The conceptualization of teaching as an art, and therefore, the teacher as an artist has been elaborated on and analyzed in this paper. The implication of evaluating teaching as an art has been discussed; and self-evaluation which is the major tool of artists to achieve improvement in the trade has been presented and discussed. The merits and concerns of self-evaluation have also been highlighted. It is concluded that teachers can actually walk themselves in the path of not only their enhancing professional growth, but also maximizing learning in pupils/students that are placed in their charge if they employ the tool of selfevaluation. This tool will enable them gather as much information as possible to personally assess themselves on the job, identify any flaws, take some responsibilities, and draw-up and follow certain corrective plans to realize predetermined personal and organizational goals, all without external pressure or fear of sanction. Based on this conclusion, it is hereby recommended that: i) Teachers be encouraged to set their own personal goals for specified period of time – weekly, monthly, termly and sessional INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY ACADEMIC INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY 8__________________________________________________________________________________ ii) iii) iv) Teachers be encouraged to verify on their own the realization of their personal goal Teachers are required to write self-reports and submit these to their immediate bosses. Ministries of Education and other supervising bodies should commission studies aimed at producing teacher evaluation instruments (including one for self-evaluation), and let these instruments be placed at the disposal of teachers. References Akinpelu, J. A. (19981). An introduction to philosophy of education. London: Macmillan. Bidwell, C. E. (1973). The social psychology of teaching. In E. M. Travers (Ed.), Second handbook of research on teaching. Chicago: Rand McNally. Darling-Hammond, L., Wise, A. E., & Pease, S. R. (1983). Teacher evaluation in the organizational context: A review of literature. Review of Educational Research, 53(3), 285-328. Gage, N. L. (1978). The scientific basis of the art of teaching. New York: Teachers College Press. Gronlund, N. E. (1985). Measurement and evaluation in teaching (5th ed.). New York: Macmillan. Joshua, M. T. (1998). Teacher evaluation: Different approaches and competing rationales. Nigerian Journal of Educational Foundations, 2(2), 92-106. Joshua, M. T. (1999). Faculty evaluation as a panacea for enhancing quality teaching in Nigeria’s tertiary education. Nigerian Education Journal, 3(2), 97-111. Joshua, M. T. (2001). Different conceptions of teaching: Implications for learning and evaluation of teaching in universal basic education (UBE). International Journal of Research in Basic and Lifelong Education, 1 (1&2), 366-373. Lewis, A. (1982). Evaluating educational personnel. Arlington, VA: American Association of School Administrators. Ndubisi, A. F. (1990). Curriculum evaluation. In U. Onwuka (Ed.), Curriculum development for Africa (5th ed.). Onitsha, Nigeria: Africana Publishers. Onwuka, U. (Ed.). (1990). Curriculum development for Africa. Onitsha, Nigeria: Africana Publishers. Redfern, G. B. (1980). Evaluating teachers and administrators: A performance objectives approach. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Shavelson, R., & Stern, P. (1981). Research on teachers’ pedagogical thoughts, judgments, decisions and behaviour. Review of Educational Research, 51(4), 455-498. Stark, J. S., & Lowther, M. A. (1984). Predictors of teachers’ preferences concerning their evaluation. Educational Administration Quarterly, 20(4), 76-106. Formatted by Dr. Mary Alice Kritsonis, National Research and Manuscript Preparation Editor, NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS, Houston, TX www.nationalforum.com