My nice group

I have just been preparing some resources for our group teaching session on role play and thought I would share some thoughts about this group activity.

When working in effective teams group members often help other individuals to clarify and enhance their knowledge and understanding.  When they do this they may also have to refine their own understanding as when you teach something you have to really think about the ideas and concepts you are trying to communicate.  This is what collaborative and social learning is all about.  ‘Social learning theory stresses learning with others as well as from others’ (Jarvis, 2006: 114).  I feel lucky that I have been put in a group where this works well. 

Thanks guys.

References

Jarvis, P. ed., (2006) The Theory and Practice of Teaching, 2nd edition, New York: Routledge.

 

'Deep learning'

 I enjoyed the session yesterday; I was also pleased that I was able to remember some of the topics that I had covered in my first year.  I was a bit worried that I would not have understood the information in on a deep level and forgotten what I learnt; it just goes to show how effective a good teacher can be.  Deep learning could be characterised as fully functional awareness and understanding with the ability to apply knowledge to new situations.  Surface learning is seen to be the passive accumulation of facts and figures.  This can also be described as rote learning where information is simply memorised to be reproduced during assessment.  ‘We can help our students to be deep learners by designing active learning experiences and placing less emphasis on detailed, passive note taking.  Deep learning is encouraged by engaging and applying learning to problem- based situations, encouraging discussion and structuring reflection’ (Reece and Walker, 2007: 79).  So within modern education it seems be agreed that educators should be developing ‘deep’ learning with their learners, as opposed to ‘surface’ learning.  

References

Reece, I. and Walker, S. (2007) Teaching, Training and Learning; A Practical Guide, 6th edition, Tyne and Wear: Business Education Publishers Ltd.

First Blog - here goes

I thought this week’s session was good and really useful in improving my understanding of learning theories as well as how I can apply this knowledge in my teaching practice.  I enjoyed Simon’s session as he is clearly very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about this topic.  He made the theories and concepts easy to understand and completely relevant.  ‘Thanks to ingenious theorising backed up by rigorous experiments in neural physiology, psychology, social psychology, cognitive science and elsewhere, we now understand a great deal about why we learn, how we learn and consequently what can help us to learn’ (Petty, 2009: 3).   

 

 

It made me think about how educators know so much but for some people education is not effective and they just don’t achieve well. Some learners may have barriers to learning due to a physical disability, such as visual impairment or hearing loss or specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia or Asperger’s.  These bring with them fairly specific educational needs which are usually diagnosed and then measures should be put in place to deal with them.  However, some students have barriers to learning are less obvious such as mental health issues which can be a result of illness or as a consequence of an unstable home life.  It is much more difficult to deal with these less definable issues as they are often connected to factors outside the scope of schools, colleges or universities.

 

 

As a tutor I want to enable all my students to develop skills and capacities which will improve the quality of their working, personal and family life.  To achieve this some students may need extra assistance to overcome barriers hampering their ability to take part in learning situations and equip them with the skills they need to enable them to progress.  The question is how much can we do as educators to help and how much should we do?

References

Petty, G. (2009) Evidence-Based Teaching; A Practical Approach, 2^nd edition, Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd.