Accountability in Teaching
The Kindness of Holding Students Accountable
The main goal of any educational institution is successful students. This sentiment hardly needs to be discussed or debated, but the methods used by teachers to foster this result need to be discussed constantly. One quality that is often brought up in these conversations is accountability. Accountability is a stepping stone on the path to responsibility and success for our students. All too often, unfortunately, teachers miss or ignore the chances in their classrooms to act in the students' best interests and foster accountability. As we will see, accountability is the threshold that guides students to autonomy, freedom, motivation, and success in their academic lives.
"Accountability is a stepping stone on the path to responsibility and success for our students"
What is Accountability?
Merriam-Webster defines accountability as "...an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions". In an academic setting, this translates to both the students and the teachers being accountable to each other, for the common goal of educational achievement and socialization. In other words, students and teachers need to acknowledge, and be constantly aware of, the fact that they are working together for the benefit of the student. While this concept is implied from the start of every school year, it is a constant fight to make sure that both teachers and students keep this basic tenet in mind as an underlying motivation for everything that happens in school.
With this basic concept of working towards the best interests of each student in plain view, it is possible for teachers to stop playing the role of friend and start playing the role of mentor. Once this power dynamic is in place, most students should have no problems being held accountable to their teacher. It is easy to see how there must be a certain amount of respect for the teacher's role in this relationship. This respect must be earned by the teacher and should never be taken for granted as a given. There are many ways that a teacher can gain this respect, with a few being the use of empathy, the commitment to truly listen to students, and the demonstration of a strong knowledge of subject matter.
How Accountability Feeds Success
Once the "teacher as mentor" dynamic has been established, guidelines can be created that provide a framework for interaction in the classroom. As a mentor, the teacher naturally provides instruction and creates expectations that students try to fulfill. This is the basic starting point of accountability as the students become accountable to the teacher. The teacher can expect that students behave appropriately in the class, complete assignments conscientiously and on time, and perform well on exams. This carries over to classroom management in that teachers who have gained respect as mentors rarely need to do more than express dismay or disappointment in students who act inappropriately in order to have students notice their mistakes and change their behavior. For example, teachers can create deadlines and minimum requirements for assignments that students need to follow. The subsequent success, or lack thereof, needs to be addressed. Conversations between teachers and students should revolve around why the expectations were or were not met and how the student can do better in the future.
After the framework has been created and students enjoy varying degrees of success following the classroom guidelines, teachers can start allowing students to work with greater autonomy. Autonomy can be equated to academic freedom for students, and it is a type of implied reward for a student's accountability. Teachers need to provide chances for students to have increasing control over their educational experience by giving students opportunities to choose their assignments and the methods they will use to complete them. This academic freedom can be used as a reward for being accountable. Teachers need to communicate the idea to students that by proving their accountability, they have gained more academic freedom. This will soon become a strong, positive influence on a student's motivation.
The next stage of the model requires assessment by both teachers and students about whether the in-class objectives have been met. If it is deemed that a student has not been successful, then they need to be given another chance to prove their accountability in some way. Students need to learn that failure is merely one step on the ladder to success. Teachers can give guidance at this phase and prove their own accountability to students. Modeling their dedication to a student by assuming a portion of the accountability for an unsuccessful result provides two-fold benefits of strengthening the student-mentor relationship, while reinforcing the benefits of accountability. Students learn that excuses are not needed when minor failures are merely setbacks rather than insurmountable breakdowns that require blame. Students own up to their successes and failures because both lead to a desired result.
If it has been deemed that a student has been successful in meeting the requirements of the classroom activity, they will feel a greater sense of self-empowerment. This is because students have been accountable throughout the entire journey. Students can then transfer this accountability to the teacher to themselves. They will then become able to self-regulate, self-motivate, and ultimately oversee their own academic journeys in the future. In short, they have learned that being accountable has led to greater autonomy and freedom, which led to greater enjoyment and success, and finally to greater responsibility in empowering themselves. This feedback loop is a characteristic that teachers hope will become a permanent part of their students' intellectual toolkits that they use in their academic, and eventually professional, careers.
"Students own up to their successes and failures because both lead to a desired result"
How to Help Students Be Accountable
There a few methods that teachers can employ in their classrooms that will create an environment that rewards accountability. The first of these methods is to be very clear when setting rules and limits in the classroom. It should not be assumed that students have a clear idea about what a teacher wants or expects in the classroom. While common sense is something that we should all expect from students at the junior and senior high school levels, classroom sense does not necessarily enjoy the same standing. Classroom rules and teacher expectations need to be written and shared in the first class and repeated at appropriate times throughout the year. Friendly reminders are easy and go a long way in making limits highly visible to students. As the year goes by, and students have earned the trust of the teacher, these rules and limits will be implied and need not be mentioned as often.
Another method that teachers can use to promote autonomy is to help students formulate a plan. One job of the teacher as mentor is to highlight the path a student needs to take to be successful. Spending an appropriate amount of time at the outset of a project to explain possible methods for success should not be omitted. Often, teachers give students an assignment and immediately explain what the finished product should be. While this is an effective way to let students know what is expected of them, it does not give them suggestions that will lead to greater success. The younger the student, the greater the need to include this step in any project. Some students require more help in this regard than others, and as the year progresses students should be given more and more autonomy at this stage.
Cueing is another method that can help students become more accountable. Cueing involves reminding students what is expected of them. In a classroom, this cueing needs to take place when students seem to be headed off task or seem to be stuck at one stage. An encouraging word about the expected outcomes, or a helpful suggestion to get past a bump in the road can help students feel that both teachers and themselves are invested in the end result. The atmosphere created by cueing promotes focus and problem solving abilities in students.
Finally, there must be consequences for lack of accountability. While some teachers and students may have a negative connotation of the word consequences, this need not be so. Consequences merely refers to the result of not doing one's part in the manner expected. For example, one consequence could be the redoing of an assignment after receiving guidance from a teacher. Another consequence could be a lower grade on an assignment, coupled with guidance on how to do better next time. One final consequence can be a restriction on autonomy when the next assignment is given. All of these consequences need to be consistent and fair so that the dignity of the teacher-student relationship is not damaged. Students may even be included in the decision making process of what consequence they will receive. This will give them practice in self-regulating themselves in the future.
"These boundaries are meant to be used as the training ground for self-empowerment in the future"
Everyone Wins
In a classroom where accountability is the first step to responsibility, everyone is a winner. The teacher-as-mentor model is easy to explain, but more difficult to put into practice. Teachers who already have created a positive relationship with their students will find accountability an easy concept to employ. Unfortunately, however, many teachers tend to take the easy way out when it comes to making consequences a regular part of their classroom experience. Students, and children in general, benefit by having boundaries set in their social and educational environments. These boundaries are meant to be used as the training ground for self-empowerment in the future. Boundaries are not meant to be restrictive by nature, they are meant to be safe zones that provide a springboard to the heights of success.
Sources
1. Boundless. "The Importance of Accountability." Boundless Management https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/introduction-to-management-1/core-requirements-of-successful-managers-19/the-importance-of-accountability-123-7081/
2. Bivins,Thomas.(2017)http://journalism.uoregon.edu/~tbivins/stratcomweb/readings/ Resonsibility-Accountability.pdf
3. "Accountability." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 3 July 2017.