...Students must make what they learn part of
themselves.
- Chickering & Gamson
The point raised over and again in this module is that teaching for
students to learn is what matters, not teaching for the sake of good teaching.
No matter how well prepared and enthusiastic the teacher or interesting the
course content is, it is vital to create and facilitate an environment
conducive to student learning.
I am with Dr Susan Banki on the responsibilities of a good teacher -
subject knowledge and thorough preparation prior to class is paramount as is
planning and thinking in advance about how students learn as well as getting
the point across to them effectively. These coupled with qualities such as
being passionate about teaching and being able to engage students can achieve
excellent learning outcomes. The flipped classroom environment that Susan
creates for her students is highly stimulating. I really like how her students
had the opportunity to not just apply garnered theoretical knowledge but also
had a platform to 'voice out' with each of the flipped activities designed by
her. As Susan says, it really does take courage to do something out of the box.
And she definitely has that, along with the mentioned balance of humility and
confidence. All in all, an admirable and effective approach of flipped learning
and teaching.
During this module, I have garnered many insights on teaching for
learning, through the pre-session activities and classroom discussions, from
the case scenario of disparity between Malin and her students, and RMIT's inclusive teaching principles. Constant 'unstuffing' of the curriculum (which was touched
upon in the very first module), simplifying concepts for easy understanding by
students, encouraging student interaction on different types of media, boosting
their confidence, understanding their background and psyche, facilitating student
collaboration (via Think-Pair-Share, for example) and providing ongoing
feedback are different strategies to optimise the students' learning
experience.
For the purpose of peer observation, I attended a lecture by a senior
academic of my faculty. Interest in the topic was the main reason for choosing
this particular session. This was the first time I attended a lecture to learn
how it was delivered rather than focus on the content. The interactive learning
platform was new to me and very intriguing; being able to write notes alongside
the lecture slides on their mobile devices along with intervallic quizzes to
assess students' uptake of each section of the lecture kept them constantly
focussed during the hour. The academic's enthusiasm and knowledge of the
subject, poise, easygoing demeanour, humour, use of interesting analogies,
real-world examples and simple language to break down complex medical concepts,
were all crucial in keeping the students engaged throughout the lecture.
In addition to answering questions and acknowledging comments throughout
the session, he explained the rationale behind the quiz answers and was keen to
take questions from students at the end of the lecture. Apart from being
inspired by the academic's style of teaching, I intend to use the interactive
learning platform when I start lecturing. In spite of the woes faced by many
academics like Joelle Renstrom due to use of mobile devices in the classroom, technology
has become an indispensable part of teaching and is here to stay, given the
advent of blended and flipped learning.
 |
| Toohey's model for student-centred learning |
Here is my proposed teaching strategy based on Toohey's framework and constructs garnered from this module.
Image source: https://universityteachingandlearning.wordpress.com/2016/04/10/reflective-post-on-teaching-strategies/tooheys-learning-process-model-hughes/
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