Ptlls,_Assigment_1,_Understand_Own_Role,_Responsabilities_and_Boudaries_of_Role_in_Relation_to_Teaching

Assignment 1: Understand own role, responsibilities and boundaries of role in relation to teaching. 1. Review your role, responsibilities and boundaries as a teacher / in terms of the teaching / training cycle. The main concern of a teacher should be the education of their learners. In order to do so a teacher must follow/comply with a list of roles, responsibilities and boundaries while keeping in mind the training cycle which represent the main activities of a teacher: Identifying needs of Planning, Designing, Facilitating, Assessing, Evaluating. The first role I want to talk about is to ensure a safe, secure and enjoyable working environment. I think this is one of the most important points in this role list as it is the key to open the learners desire to learn. Students, especially adults won’t appreciate a hostile or stressful environment; they will leave the course at the first coffee break! Adults already have to deal with stressful situations. To keep their attention, I need to find the right balance between the role model and the authority figure in a way that they feel respected and so respect me. Being the leader of the class but involving the learners making the right decision about the course planning is a way to make it enjoyable for them. They will feel heard and so at ease to express their point of view. Another role is to identify the students’ needs. Why are they doing this course' What do they expect from it' What is their motivation' Some adults will do further studies for a social purpose and others as a personal or professional development. In either way, I will have to find out their motivation during interview process, or during the first session to be able to keep up with their expectation and to keep them motivated. I should keep in mind that although if they are studying in a group, they are individuals with different and personal needs, some won’t feel comfortable talking in front of the whole class, another one may hide behind others in a group work. I think it is important to set up a one to one tutorial at least once to make sure each individual evaluation is accurate and so their need is determine in order to progress not out of the loop, and to define the “how to plan”, which is also a role. The last role that I want to acknowledge will include the administrator’s role, as well as the planner. Some people think that the teacher’s job all takes places during the class, but it is not true at all. In order to respond efficiently to the student’s expectation, value for their money for example, I need to have an overall plan of the course, to be able to procure them with very clear objectives, finding the right balance between the different learning styles to maintain everyone interest and to define an end point. It is like baking a cake knowing the ingredient but not the quantities! There is no way you can know how much information you can put into one session if you don’t plan it. Every step must be timed; always leaving flexibility for questions. An adult learner will have clear expectations of me, I need to know my subject very well and show enthusiasm in teaching it. My support material has to be properly planned and using all the methods and resources necessary. Now that we have identified some of my roles as tutor, we will talk about my follow on responsibilities. In order to ensure a safe and secure environment, I must follow the health and safety policies and the policies from the institution I work in. As a role model, my responsibility is to show the right example and to provide the learners with all the information they need to respect the rules all ready in place in the locale we are using and to know everything about the facilities that are available. Another of my responsibilities is to support my learners; I can’t really pretend to assess them if I don’t give them the entire tool-box to succeed. Adult learners don’t expect the work to be too easy, otherwise they will get bored but they certainly don’t want it to be impossible either. I need to determine first what kind of learning preferences they have as of activist, theorist, reflective or pragmatic as well as their learning styles. The best way I know to determine their learning style is to do a learning style questionnaire. If my class is principally made of visual learners, I must prepare my session providing a lot writing information in an appealing form as of a well made power point presentation. A kinaesthetic learner’s class will easy get bored with a theoretic lesson. Knowing my students will enhance me to support them in the most suitable way in their learning, as well to plan the lessons the more adequate materials/activities. Knowing my students will also help me help them to achieve their full potential. Some students may need more time spent on a practical exercise than others to fully understand it. I must do my best to spend time with this student without showing any favouritism. Finally I will define my boundaries. Most of them such as “not being late”, “respect the learners and their ideas”, “not being judgmental nor discriminative”, “not being familiar and following the house rules and H&S policies”, “using appropriate language”, are very simple and should be used; I expect the same kind of behaviour from my students both toward me and each other. Other few boundaries are difficult to delimitate without hurting the learners feeling such as: landing money for a coffee, or have inappropriate relationship. The application of these boundaries is a lot easier with children; they don’t expect to be considered at the same level as their teacher. I think the best way to respect these boundaries both from the teacher and the learners is to define them clearly, explaining the “why” if necessary from the beginning of the class. As in the teaching circle, it all goes in circle coming round, a role will have one or more responsibilities going with it and boundaries as well that will send you back to your role. 2. Analyse different ways in which you would establish ground rules with your learners, which underpin behaviour and respect for others. As Learners are adult, one of the best ways to establish ground rules is to open a discussion between the learners and the tutor as involving them in any course decision will reassure them on the fact that they are considered as adults. I will start with the practical issues that will help them to feel comfortable in negotiating with me, such as starting time, coffee breaks finishing time. I am now going to analyse 3 different ways to establish this ground rules. The first one will be as an exercise where the students have to define the different boundaries they imagine should be relevant for the class. At the end of the exercise, each group should present their ideas, and I could add up at the end if any important one is missing. The second way to do it will be a game where each group of students will have a lot of card. Each one representing one boundary, the students will have to prioritize and explain each one of them. Both exercises will enhance the opportunities for students to talk to each other and to speak up in front of the whole class; it will help them feel comfortable to speak about a simple topic. It will need to be short thought because adult learners don’t expect to lose too much time on that topic. The last way to determine the boundaries in the class is simply to read them aloud. It is true that some student may appreciate the rapidity of this technique and the fact that it is not impacting on the time of their lesson. But the negative side of this technique is that it won’t bring the student together, open the conversation or create any kind of atmosphere within the class. To underpin behaviour and respect, a teacher needs to show the right example by being there on time, having prepared the classroom, being prepared with the right material, looking clean and presentable, presenting himself in a smiley way, as well as welcoming the students. Bibliography * Preparing to teach in the Lifelong Learning sector, Gravells A(2007) * Adult Learning, adult teaching (Daines J, Daines C and Graham B (2006) * www.abdn.ac.uk/admin/aimsobs.shtml, Guidance on Aims and Objectives for Teaching and Learning from the university of Aberdeen