Week 13: Talking about Teaching

07/01/2014: Talking About Teaching

This weeks lesson can viewed Here

In all it was a review of some of the main teaching points we already covered before the end of term. We discussed the following in rotating pairs:

Actually we didn't cover differentiation as it was one of our more recent topics and the discussions of 1-4 resulted in a significant coverage of it.

Active Learning:
Practical Sessions
Open Discussions that involve the students
Activities
Real Environments
Searching Questions
Self Assessment

Active learning is not something done to the students, but something students do to themselves. The opposite of an Active learner is a Passive learner (not desired). Passive learners would expect that all they need to do is sit back and soak up information.
Geoff Petty (2004). Teaching Today. 3rd ed. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. 55-58.

Geoff Petty also talks about: 'Giving the problem to the student'
eg:

'How do you find your lab reports, Peter?'
'Oh. OK I suppose.'
'What do you find most difficult about them?'
'The conclusion bit, Sir.'
'Yes, lots of people find conclusions hard. So what are you going to do to improve them?'

Teachers must see themselves as a learning facilitator or learning manager, and encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning.


Learning Outcomes:
Geoff Petty (2004). Teaching Today. 3rd ed. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. 391-403.

Were discussed in earlier sessions and can be read: Here
Learning outcomes are testable statements describing what you intend your students to learn; for example

The student should be able to use inverted commas correctly.
The student should be able to solder resistors to a circuit board.

The point is that 'Outcomes' precisely describe observable learner performance, shifting the focus on to what the student will be able to do as a result of their learning, and away from what the teacher will do. Well defined outcomes help both student and teacher. Outcomes will reflect the needs of differentiation too.


Alignment of Learning:

We must have a clear idea of what we want students to be able to do, and make sure the student knows those objectives.

Intended Learning Objectives / Learning Activities and Assessments must be aligned.

The basic premise of the whole system is that the curriculum is designed so that the learning activities and assessment tasks are aligned with the learning outcomes that are intended in the course. 

Related to Active Learning, Alignment is about getting students to take responsibility for their own learning and establishing trust between student and teacher. If students construct their own learning and this takes place inside the students' brains, where teachers cannot reach, then the real learning can only be managed by the students. All teachers can do is to create an environment which is encouraging and supportive of students engaging in the appropriate and necessary mental activity. We can do this by providing the pieces and specifications of what the students must become able to do as a result of modifying their cognitive structures, and set up or suggest activities that students can use to achieve these changes or intended learning outcomes.

We must have a clear idea of what we want students to be able to do at the end of a unit of study, and communicate these intended learning outcomes to students so they can at least share in the responsibility of achieving them. However, we know that students will inevitably tend to look at the assessment and structure their learning activities, as far as they are able, to optimise their assessment performance. We must therefore make sure that the assessment very obviously does test the learning outcomes we want students to achieve

Behaviour Management:
We gave good coverage to this here: Behaviour and Classroom Management
And our discussion in this lesson reiterated much of that earlier material.
Geoff Petty (2004). Teaching Today. 3rd ed. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes. 101.

• Effective Lessons
• Good Organisation
• Good Rapport (teacher/student relationships)
• Effective Discipline (almost impossible unless the first three conditions are satisfied)

We had some positive reflection on this subject which sparked a lively discussion. Overall I found this whole lesson very valuable in further impressing the knowledge we had already gained.