6 Dynamics of Teaching

Setting the Stage

On a hot and humid day in northern Uganda, I prepared my lesson plans and thought about the content I would soon be delivering to a group of agriculture teachers. As I sat in a modest classroom envisioning how the day’s training would go, it began to rain. Normally, rain would not even register on my radar as an element to consider for effective teaching, but that day it was an absolute disruptor of my planned activities. As the rain beat down on the tin roof above my head, each drop clanged and slapped, echoing against the stone walls of the room. The increasingly loud drum beat pelted the room with a wall of sound. There was no way I could attempt to talk over the noise of the rain, so I immediately began to consider alternative locations for the day’s activities.

I surveyed the area and available rooms, and I found that all the locations had the same challenge; so much noise would be a severe distraction for my teaching that day. Then, one of the participating teachers suggested moving to an outside area, underneath a canvas covering. The canvas muted the sounds of falling rain but presented other challenges. With no walls, nor electricity, I would need to reconsider my methods and approaches. I would have to change my strategy due to the environment, for my learners’ attention and for my own abilities. Thankfully, we were able to pivot toward a new plan, including more hands-on interaction and discussion that engaged our learners, and met our objectives for the day. Now, every time it rains, I remember the noise in that classroom and the joyful session I had with teachers as we deeply discussed instructional strategies under a canvas, backed by the soft and gentle rain falling around us. I remember the effectiveness of change in a learning strategy and system.

Change is an essential and necessary element of effective teaching. Each classroom, each topic, each lesson, and each learner presents different characteristics that influence an instructor’s approach. And just as each of these elements are fluid, effective instructors must also be fluid.

Introduction

To begin exploring the role of dynamics in teaching, consider the following Oxford Languages (n.d.) definition:

Dynamics: the forces or properties which stimulate growth, development, or change within a system or process

To fully understand effective teaching, teachers must recognize the forces that are at play in their learning environments and respond to them in appropriate and meaningful ways. What features and facets in your classroom, your school, your system, and yourself influence the strategies you deploy? Do those factors influence what your learners find interesting? To attempt to answer how features in a system make learning interesting, we can look to an analogy provided by celebrated American author Kurt Vonnegut. He viewed stories as a tool to teach and offered insight into what makes a story interesting: their shape (Comberg, 2010).

Vonnegut described stories as having a shape. Imagine a graph. Picture an x axis that displays time from beginning to end of a story. Envision a y axis that portrays a continuum of good fortune at the top to bad fortune at the bottom. Each character’s position on the graph changes—some move from good fortune to bad, some from bad to worse, some from good to better—as the story propels toward its end. These changes constitute a shape in a story. A character with a successful business or relationship at the beginning of a story might make a mistake and see their success turn to turmoil (causing a falling line on the graph), only to solve a problem and have their position on the continuum climb back toward the top. Vonnegut called that shape “man in a hole.” Some stories involve an underdog, down on their luck, beginning their graph at the low end of the y axis, who climbs toward a happy ending as the story unfolds. That shape might be called “uphill climb.”

Vonnegut’s point was that stories become interesting when their shape changes. A straight horizontal line would imply a story with no challenge, no success, no change. That’s an awfully boring story. Stories become interesting, celebrated, or beloved when their characters create dynamic shapes. Just as good stories need dynamics to be interesting, good teachers need dynamics to be effective. Teachers face a complex system of variables that influence successes and challenges in a classroom; this requires a dynamic, changing solution.

Overview of Theory and Practice

We have long known that changing one part of a system can cause change in another part of a system. Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura famously sought to describe whether it was “nature” or “nurture” that dictated a person’s potential and performance. Instead of finding one or the other, his work led to the creation of a model that identified three determinants, or variables that can be changed to elicit a response. As we know, dynamics of teaching rely on understanding how changes affect teaching strategies. Bandura’s model shows how these changes create cause-and-effect relationships. (See figure 6.1.)

First called Social Learning Theory and now known as Social Cognitive Theory, Bandura’s model suggests that learning happens as a result of dynamic interaction of three determinants in a social exchange: environment, personal factors, and behavior (Bandura, 1989). Each determinant influences the other two determinants, and each determinant is influenced by the other two determinants. Introducing a change in one determinant will lead to changes in the others. Therefore, Social Cognitive Theory explains how dynamics in teaching happen; it happens by introducing change and expecting an effect in another part of the system.

Let’s unpack each determinant of Bandura’s model in a teaching context. In an education setting, consider the environment. The location, the physical space, the learning materials, and the orientation to peer learners all play key roles in characterizing the environment. The comfort (or lack thereof) of chairs upon which learners sit, the geography of the locations, the season of the year, the temperature of the space, the decorations, the navigability of the hallways, and countless other elements constitute the educational environment.

Personal factors describe preferences, personality traits, cognitive processes, and other intangible elements that make people who we are. Our values, expectations, identity, priorities, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and knowledge base, among a myriad of other elements, constitute this determinant.

Finally, behaviors play an integral role in Bandura’s model—both instructor and student behaviors. Actions, protocols, and other steps individuals take constitute our behaviors. The things we do and say define this determinant.

In summary, each determinant relies on and influences the other determinants.

• Where you are influences what you do and who you are.
• Who you are influences where you are and what you do.
• What you do influences who you are and where you are.

Social Cognitive Theory provides an excellent lens in examining the dynamics of teaching. The cause-and-effect model implies that change leads to change, and dynamics are all about change. If instructors want to see a change in our behavior, changing our environment will support or inhibit changed behavior. If instructors want to change students’ perceptions, values, or personal factors, our behaviors must be crucially examined.

Applying the Content

After reading about the three-way influence of determinants, and how dynamics of teaching enhance educational activities, we are ready to put it all together. Make your own Bandurian map. Replicate the model from figure 6.1. Then, complete a personal inventory to show how determinants fit together. The suggestions below might inspire your application and reflection.

Environment

Describe an ideal learning environment in which you would like to teach. What are the physical characteristics? What are the spaces available and features? Compare that against an actual learning environment you have observed or learned in. Pay attention to elements in the environment that were helpful or were distracting as they each influenced the other determinants.

Behavior

Divide your behavior section of your map into two categories: learner and instructor. What behaviors do you expect from your learners? What behaviors do you expect of yourself? What behaviors are likely to occur? How can you measure or observe these behaviors to support assessment?

Personal Factors

List your strengths. If you aren’t sure, begin by listing adjectives that you use to describe yourself. Ask a peer or someone you trust for additional adjectives. Then, list your interests and hobbies. Each of these contribute to a toolkit of strengths that you likely embrace as an instructor. Then take it further. What are your core values? What inspires you? What experiences or principles drive you the most?

Dynamic Strategies

Now, take a few moments to reflect on the map you created. How do items in each determinant influence each other? Based on what you know about the determinants in your context, generate a list of ideas that you can use to introduce change in each determinant. Perhaps we can rearrange our classrooms to change our environments, or maybe we can change the volume or tone of our voices to change our instructional behavior. The ideas we create here will be our toolkit for dynamics of teaching. Consider adding activities or breakout groups, games or exercises, discussion topics, and questions that can be used in support of dynamics of teaching.

Figure Descriptions

Figure 6.1: Triangle diagram. Point 1: personal factors, meaning who you are. Point 2: behavior, meaning what you do. Point 3: environment, meaning where you are. Between each point of the triangle is a bidirectional arrow. Jump to figure 6.1.

Figure References

Figure 6.1: Determinants in the social cognitive theory model. Kindred Grey. 2023. Adapted under fair use from Albert Bandura, “Human agency in social cognitive theory,” 1989. American Psychologist, 44(9), 1175–1184. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.44.9.1175

Figure 6.2: Social cognitive theory model (blank). Kindred Grey. 2023. Adapted under fair use from Albert Bandura, “Human agency in social cognitive theory,” 1989. American Psychologist, 44(9), 1175–1184. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.44.9.1175

References 

Bandura, A. (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American psychologist, 44(9), 1175.

Comberg, D. (2010, October 30). Kurt Vonnegut on The Shape of Stories [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ

Oxford Languages. (n.d.). Dynamics. In Lexico Powered by Oxford Languages. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/dynamics