5. “Guide on the side” is often perceived as being absent
“We are paying you! You got to teach!”, “My teacher is not good coz she doesn’t give notes!”, “My teacher don’t give answers!”…
These are some common comments that we will hear when we are trying to “guide on the side”. The students are so used to the spoon feeding system in education causing them to be so dependent on their teacher on everything from notes to answers for their homework. So, without discussing the answer with them, they will not complete their homework especially the questions that require them to do a little bit of thinking. Discussion session will end up becoming a chit chatting session. They will ask the teacher to give them the answer or show them the solution. Therefore, those teachers who trying to promote self-directed learning, constructivist approach will be regarded as not a good teacher as they try to encourage the students to work on their own to solve a problem.
7. Learn while they learn
Learning is a life long process and there is no graduation from learning. When I was a student, I used to envy the adults who do not need to study anymore and no need to sit for exams especially the teachers cause they are the one who set the exam questions. Now that I am an adult, I realize that it’s not fun at all to be an adult as I still need to study to learn new things and sit for exams. It is important that teachers should not feel contended with their current state of knowledge because the world is moving very fast and we need to keep up with the current development of everything especially in the field of science and technology.
One of the things that I enjoy while I was teaching is the mutual sharing and communication between me and my students. I always find that teaching and learning is never a one way traffic process. Whenever the students came up with something that is not in their syllabus and I am not sure about the answer, I’ll check it out and this give me an opportunity to learn new things. I still remember the first time I conducted the frog dissection session couple of years ago. I was as nervous as my students. I’d prepared activity sheets for them, identify the parts and organs in the frog before the big day. Of course, there are a few misses throughout the process but as the time goes by I picked up more and learned more. This year is my third time conducting the dissection session with the form 4 kids and I was more confident than the first time and improvement on the activity was done. So, not only the students but I also benefited and learn something new. =)
22. It’s not all about you – let go of ideas and assignments that don’t work
Nobody is perfect. No matter how perfect the preparation work may be, different students have different cognitive level and when it comes to different students, teachers need to let go and alter ideas, worksheets and assignments in order to benefit the students to the max. For example, I prepared two sets of monthly test paper for two different class of students where one is the elite class while the other is almost the worse performing class in the whole form.The changes were crucial as to meet the cognitive level of the students. As teachers, we need to motivate the students to learn rather to “kill” them with difficult tasks.
29. Leave room for choice in assignments and projects – topic, team, individual/ group, live meetings, etc
Teachers are not dictators. When preparing the lesson, teachers will have all kinds of ideas and activities to be carried out but we also need to put into consideration the students’ interest and respect their ideas.
For example, students can make their own decision in choosing their team members to form their own group to carry out the project for their PEKA folio on the environmental issues. They are allowed to choose the topic they are interested and source out the information on that issue to be compiled into a folio. Besides that, they are also required to do a presentation in front of the class regarding the environmental issue in whatever ways they are comfortable with as long they deliver the message.
I think I'm quite flexible in this respect (#29). It's more work for the teacher but in the end if your get interested students and interesting essays then it's worth it. My class recently carried out debates for their oral exams. I assembled a list of about 20 debate topics for 7 groups to choose from. I put in some generic and some controversial issues for them. After the whole class has done their debates I allowed them to choose whichever topic they liked to write an essay on.
ReplyDeleteCurrently my students keep a weekly journal on whatever they like as long as they write about three quarter page per entry.Some do a very good job at writing but as usual there are those who dont care. Maybe I'll turn it into a blog journal so that their friends can read too and they'll take more pride in their work.
Tat's a great idea. As mention in class just now, teenagers like to be acknowledge. If they know their work is on the Internet where everybody can see and read, I bet they will feel so proud of themselves. =)
ReplyDelete#29 remind me the incident happen last semester when I apply cooperative learning model in my Form 4 class. A group of good performance students came to me and express their bad feeling that they don't satisfied with me by applied this model in class for 2 weeks just to teach 1 chapter. They feel that they are playing in class for 6 periods and learn something they felt not really important to them, they afraid I'm doing something wasting their time and "suggested" to me better teach them something important which is in syllabus. I was shock! From the conversation, I realize that they were too used to spoon feeding all the time, they don't realize that the ability to search for knowledge independently and able to share the knowledge with peers more important than able to comprehend or remember the facts given.
ReplyDelete...those teachers who trying to promote self-directed learning, constructivist approach will be regarded as not a good teacher as they try to encourage the students to work on their own to solve a problem... Add lazy to the list..
ReplyDeleteYee Hui,
ReplyDeleteSpoon feeding is the comfort zone of our current students. They will resist changes to their zone of comfort... (in fact, we all do..)
True guys... our students are so used to spoon-feeding method in learning. Once we stop feeding them, they will feel so lost and don't know what to do. Till when they will start to stand on their own feet? Let's start a revolution!!! =)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that students always waiting answers from teacher, even the teacher has already given guidence, they stil not confidence to write it on their own, they will always come and ask you whetehr the answers written by them are correct or wrong.
ReplyDelete