Week 2 continued

Activity 2

The benefits to the learner of this approach?

Rather than simply being conditioned to think in a certain way, they are thinking for themselves. The information is presented to them in such a way as to make them think and use their previous experiences to process the data. It also gives them a more rounded view – they pull their ideas from their own previous experiences, so they can see the relevance. 

How is it useful in my own teaching context?

It may be useful in my own teaching context as a way to make the courses I design or the way I teach interesting, focused and also to make me aware that I need to find a way to use students' prior knowledge to teach them. I can see it incorporates more interesting visuals, and also has a very structured learning approach (steps 1 – 9). It gives the students more of a chance to think for themselves… so as a teacher, I would need to make sure I gave them that opportunity, and also made sure I had a good understanding of the audience (students) that I would be teaching/creating a course for.

What particular content areas might benefit from this approach?

I can see that online learning would benefit greatly from this – the use of web videos, music, online questionnaires, online resources can make a lesson very visually interesting and also varied.

Drawbacks?

It would certainly mean that students would want to think for themselves, and a certain structure to the lessons needs to be set (steps 1 – 9). It would put more demand on the teacher to getting it right, to be engaging and interesting, especially for the students in question, and ensure that the information presented is right for those people.

If students haven’t learnt this way before, then it may take them some time to feel comfortable in this way of learning… so it may be as a teacher, I would need to take extra time or be available to assist the students in this different type of learning, particularly at the start.

Engagement Activity - Week 2

Activity 1

I believe this type of approach does have value in my own teaching context. Being able to get the right behaviour from students, to allow them to learn and to see the value in learning is very important. It would need to be done carefully, however, so as to still foster a good situation for learning.

I can see this approach to learning would particularly benefit young learners – especially ones new to teaching ideas and how things work. They are young enough to be trained and will listen and want to do the right thing to earn praise, or fun things or activities. 

Limitations to this type of learning – if the student knows and understands what you are doing, then they may not want to do it, simply because they do not want to be conditioned. Also, if the benefit isn't enough of a draw for them, then they may simply not comply at all. It may also be difficult to train students in that way once they have reached the desired level of behavior - you would need to make sure to move the "carrot" as the desired level of behaviour is reached (if still required).

Engagement Activity 1.2

My current job as ICT support isn't an actual teacher or in a teaching profession, however, some of the things I do on a day to day basis do involve teaching others how to do things. Most of my experiences I'll be listing in my blog have more to do with my actual teaching. I was teaching English for 6 months in Poland, and all my real teaching experience and the ideas and information I'll be putting in my blog will be coming from this.

The main components I was teaching really fell in to the spoken category. In learning another language, there are 4 main components of learning: speaking, listening, reading and writing. I was mainly focussed with adults on speaking, however, when teaching children and teenagers, focus was upon all 4 of these components.

For me, the main purpose of learning a language is communication: so that you can communicate with others that speak a different language to yourself. Set tests helped to let the students know how they were tracking in learning the language - whether or not their skills were where they should be. However, in terms of learning another language, the benchmarks did not always necessarily indicate where a student was in learning that language. Some students were able to speak and communicate ideas very well, though had less knowledge of grammar and vocabulary.

Some students would take real ownership of their study, and look at dictionaries, and try to learn extra words and then use them in sentences in class - these students would truly excel due to their interest and extra effort put in. They would really start to learn the language and how it really worked, rather than follow a set of grammar rules. The understanding of the language, though not always measured well by the testing, was of the most importance to me.

Our skill sets and attributes change dramatically, each time we change in to a different role. When studying at school, the responsibilty, whilst with the student, is also heavily with the teacher, to give the content and direction. Once we move to university, this changes somewhat, so that the student has far more responsibility for their learning.

Once the student moves to the workforce, it is again different. To learn workplace skills, it is dependent upon the environment they work in, their collaboration with other staff/workmates there and the workplace culture. The skills learnt in school and university aren't all we need, so they must change as well. Skills such as time management, conflict resolution and team work, evolve and change to suit our requirements in the new area of responsibility, and must continue to change and evolve as we go through various careers and changes.