Teachers as Risk Managers

A Learners” View (ALV) Is Of Choices On The Shortest And Fastest Path To Learning, The Oxygen Of Social Life.

A teacher’s technique in time reduces trial-and-errors by learners. (ALV T-Shirt Wisdom)

Main Page: SECTION 2: Describing a Learners’ View of Learning

Theme: Teachers manage risks of failure of learners to learn, so learners learn lessons.

TEACHERS SERVE IN SOCIETY AS MANAGERS OF RISKS (TRM) of students failing to learn (FTL) how to do what the most accomplished people in society can do. They give learners another chance to learn what they have not learned on their own or with other people. From a learners’ view (ALV), teachers expose themselves to risks their students will fail to learn through choices teachers and learners make during instruction of lessons. Choices by teachers during instruction can set aside risks ascribed to the environment, the content, and the people involved in those lessons.

A risk is the chance (a probability) that teachers will make choices that something harmful will occur, in this case, that learners will not learn a lesson. Risks account for differences between planned and actual results from a lesson. Risks include the possibility of losing some or all of the time and other non-recoverable resources used by learners and teachers in a lesson, when students do not learn that lesson.

Three Types of Manageable Risks

Teachers make choices that can, with a learners’ view, manage three types of risks during instruction.

1. Relying on chance to match instruction with choices learners will likely make during each lesson.

2. Failure to clarify which of the five generic problems (questions), or constellation of these problems, each lesson solves.

3. Failure to AID (accelerate, increase, and deepen) learning promptly during each lesson.

Teachers as Risk Takers

Risks of students failing to learn are inherent to and exist in instruction. Teachers, by their social role of making choices during instruction, are the risk-takers. They willfully expose themselves to one or more risks that their choices will result in students failing to learn lessons they instruct.

While risks seem to exist in all social activities, planning and instructing lessons that accelerate, increase, and deepen (AID) learning – managing and containing risks of failing to learn – is the necessary social part of teaching. Without AIDing learning, the role of teaching does not exist; the activities of people with the title of teacher become as social workers, nurses, or fill some other use in society.

Teachers manage risks by choosing how closely their lessons match choices learners will likely make while trying to learn lessons. Risks of FTL increase to the extent choices by teachers do not match choices learners will most likely make while learning each lesson. Lack of matching choices by teachers with likely choices of learners creates a hazard, a risk of failure to learn. The risk factor is the element – in this instance teachers’ choices – in lessons that data show predisposes a learner to fail to learn.

In this way, the risk factor of FTL in the lesson resides in teachers’ choices. For example, a teacher who uses a visual underline to emphasize a step during instruction creates a risk of the blind student failing to learn that lesson. That student does not sense the cue, so for that student the emphasis does not exists. To reduce that risk, the teacher could use tactile or auditory emphases instead of just a visual cue. In this way, teachers choose through lessons the level of risk students will have of failing to learn each lesson.

Assessing Risks

A 1.0 lesson has a low risk of failure of all students meeting academic performance standards the teacher sets for that lesson. A 0.0 lesson has high levels of risk of no students learning the lesson. Most lessons by most teachers appear to offer levels of risk someplace between these two extremes. Over many lessons with many students, lessons yield a normal (Gaussian) curve distribution of academic performance by learners, a few learning all of the lessons, a few not learning many of them, and most learning some of the lessons.

Risk Management

Risk management in education is a technical-scientific process with ways grounded in experimental behavioral and social science research results. Teachers use technical-scientific ways intentionally or by chance in order to increase the likelihood of offering lessons that all students learn promptly. Teachers who earn 1.0 ratings use a learners’ view (ALV) of learning intentionally during instruction.

References

1. 1.0 Lesson
2. 1.0 Teacher
3. A Learners’ View (ALV) of Learning in One Lesson
4. ALV Patterns in Lessons (APL) by 1.0 Teachers
5. Technical-Scientific Literacy of Educators (TSLE)
6. Why Not Earn a 1.0 Teacher Rating?

Related Reading

1. A Completed Teacher (ACT)): A Learners’ View (ALV) of Teaching-Learning
2. Behind Classic Education: A Learners’ View (ALV)
3. Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Risks of Failure of Lessons by Types
4. Great Social Commission of Educators
5. Learning as Solving Five Generic Problems
6. Life Chances
7. NESI Conversation 4: Doynit on Learning Risks
8. NESI Conversation 5: Learning Risks
9. Performance Standard for Educators 
10. Risk Oversight and Management
11. Rules of Teaching: Digest of a Learners’ View (ALV) of Learning 
12. Value a Learners’ View (ALV) Adds to Education

Related Resources

1. Ali, S. H. (2000). Risk: A Book Review. Canadian Journal of Sociology Online. Captured 09-29-20 AM.
2. Checklists for Educators rev. 2.0
3. Lupton, D. (1999). Risk. NY: Routlage.
4. Risk
5. S.T.O.P. R.I.S.K.S of Failure to Learn (FTL)

Last Edited: July 2, 2015