Teaching

Review what your roles, responsibilities and boundaries would be as a teacher in terms of the teacher training cycle. Education is as fundamental to us as life itself. From birth onwards we are learning from our parents, our siblings, our peers, our teachers, the media and of course our mistakes. We ourselves construct our own learning styles through experiences we deal with everyday. Within those experiences we learn about our responsibilities and roles in life and discover what boundaries we should not cross. The same can be said for education. As keen as many students are, we must not forget that for many this will be their first venture into education since leaving school and additionally, be they new to education or old hands, all students learn at different speeds and react to teaching in different ways. For effective teaching to take place and to ensure all students have an equal chance of learning a good teaching method will need to be adopted. To help in this we need to understand the way people learn. As explained on the Learning and Teaching website (Atherton 2005), Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (1984) gives us an idea into the progression by which students understand and process their experiences and consequently modify their behaviour. David Kolb, ‘ Experiential Learning Cycle’ (in Gravells, 2007:23) said: “People learn through four distinct processes and are considered the basic steps to learning and are repeated as learning continues. Concrete experience (feeling), reflective observation (watching), abstract conceptualisation (thinking) and active experimentation (doing)”. So for example, when learning to ride a bicycle you may fall off after hitting a tree, thereby giving the initial experience (feeling). Looking at why you hit the tree (reflection), considering how you can avoid hitting the tree when you try again (thinking), then trying again, putting what you have learnt into practice (doing), is Kolb’s cycle in action. Where possible, the learning cycle should be applied at the start of a problem as past experiences may offer an opportunity for improvement. Becoming competent within your field of expertise and ensuring your knowledge base stays up to date allows you to be confident in your material, however the delivery is equally as important. I recall having a tutor, who was in my opinion a bully and his attitude towards teaching seemed to have the opposite effect to the desired outcome. There was never any room for debate or questions, apparently he was always right. Using traditional methods lecturing and dictation can be useful tools, but only to a point. Since different people learn better in different situations, teaching styles should be varied as necessary. Frank Coffield, (in Petty, 2009:143) said: “Learning styles questioning are unlikely to be valid and reliable. Students will still benefit from reflecting on how they like to learn, but they need to be encouraged to exploit their strengths and work on their weaker styles”. Encouraging open forums and discussions, asking for students opinions, and asking them to relate the material with their own experiences is likely to make learning far more effective. Evaluating your student’s progress throughout the course, using formal testing or informal questioning at the end of a session will help to assess whether or not new strategies need to be devised to achieve the necessary level of understanding. Of course teaching is not only about passing on information, but about the preparation and continued commitment needed throughout the course and the environment in which we teach. Lesson plans, schemes of work, handouts, course materials and student progress files are just the tip of the iceberg, knowing too how to keep within the boundaries is just as important. As tutors we are professionals and as such not only adhere to the codes of practice set by such bodies as the Institute for Learning Code of Professional Practice (2007) and those of any institution in which we are teaching, but those which are important to us e.g. equality, diversity, confidentiality, integrity and mutual respect. Obviously there is much to teaching and its relative responsibilities, but teaching too is a learning cycle in its own right. Every student is an individual and every course different and so each will come with its own set of problems and pleasures. Our goal is to answer some questions and pose more leaving students with the knowledge of where and how to find answers for themselves, confidence in their ability to be able to do so and the understanding of how to interpret that knowledge for their own use. References Gravells, A. 2007. Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Learning Sector. 2nded. Exeter: Learning matters. Petty, G. 2009. Teaching Today. A Practical Guide. 4thed. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd. Bibliography Gravells, A. 2007. Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Learning Sector. 2nded. Exeter: Learning matters. Petty, G. 2009. Teaching Today. A Practical Guide. 4thed. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd. Atherton, J.S. 2009. Learning and Teaching: Experiential Leaning, (Online) Available at: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/experience.htm (Accessed on 2nd December) Institute for Learning 2009. Code of Professional Practice, (Online) Available at: http://www.ifl.ac.uk/professional-standards/code-of-professional-practice (Accessed on 2nd December)