Dear Newbie Colleague

Dear Newbie Colleague,

Welcome to the exciting world of Teaching J

I want here to share with you some insights from my Teaching experience. I would start by highlighting to you some of the most important educational trends that, in my opinion, should guide any teaching effort in the 21st Century.

First of all, make sure your work with the students is equipping them with skills required for their future job market. Wagner (2010) suggested seven skills as required to survive in the future job market. He emphasizes the importance of discontinuing teaching practices that prepares students with skills for jobs that won’t exist anymore upon their graduation. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Effective Oral and Written Communication, Accessing and Analyzing Information, as well as Curiosity and Imagination, are all vital for future professional success.

Empower students to take ownership of their learning, through structured Independent Learning and peer tutoring is another trend that I advise you to take very seriously as you’re working with your students. For example, Mitra (2007) concluded from long years of research, that learning can become a self-organized process given the right pedagogical structure. He highlights the power of the group of learners in sharing knowledge in a self-organized manner. Always try to provide your students with Independent Learning and Peer Tutoring opportunities, in authentic learning environment. 

Strive to transform your role from instructor to mentor and facilitator. ESTEVE (2000), described the expectations from teachers today, and facilitating group work came at the beginning of the list. This would also put the students into the framework of working independently and in groups and solicit your helps when needed. You’ll be surprised of how much more your students can achieve on their own by getting our own limitations out of their way. You’ll be so glad to see many of your students reaching places you haven’t thought yourself of.

Moreover, encourage your students to learn with, rather than from technology. Jonassen, Howland, Marra, & Crismond (2008) argued that the lack of effective use of educational technology when merely utilized for the purpose of storing information for later retrieval. This makes technology no different from books and libraries. According to Jonassen et al., effectiveness in the use of educational technology is achieved when learners use it to create and construct knowledge. Involve your students in learning opportunities that requires them to develop objects with technology to foster deeper thinking and learning.

Increase students engagement in the learning process by employing the latest tools that they use in their daily life activities, with their families and friends, like Social Media tools. In their book, “What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media”, McLeod & Lehmann (2012) stated that:

“There is near-universal agreement that schools must find ways to transform older teaching practices in order to harness the tools that students have at their disposal today”.

Be prepared to make and accept mistakes, there is no way you can come up with teaching and learning strategies that would work perfectly well for every scenario. Every group of students you meet will have their own unique characteristics that will force you to make the necessary changes to accommodate their situation and still help them learn. Be creative and innovative and when something doesn’t work, just reflect and take any necessary corrective actions to meet your course Learning Outcomes.

Last but not the least, keep learning yourself through workingshops not only workshops. Learn by doing, keep in touch with your industry to always get up to date knowledge and experiences to your classroom right from practitioners.

Wish you all the best with your new career J

Regards,

“oldbie” Teacher

REFERENCES

ESTEVE, J. M. (2000). The Transformation of the Teachers’ Role at the End of the Twentieth Century. Educational Review, 52(2). Retrieved from http://oppimateriaalit.jamk.fi/edusociety/files/2010/06/Thetransformationofteachersroleartikkeli.pdf

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., & Crismond, D. (2008). Excerpt from Meaningful Learning With Technology. Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall (pp. 5-10). Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/reference/article/how-does-technology-facilitate-learning/?page=3

McLeod, S., & Lehmann, C. (2012). What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media. John Wiley and Sons.

Mitra, S. (2007). Hole in the wall. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Wagner, T. (Harvard E. S. (2010). The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do About It (First Trad.). Basic Books.

Teaching Strategies Individual Reflection

The first conclusion comes to mind as a result of viewing the group project presentations is that teaching strategies investigated in this project need to be all blended and employed together in delivering any long-term teaching and learning experience. In other words, the teacher need to develop a course plan that carefully examines and considers the nature of the delivered topics, the targeted cognitive level, and the level of the students in order to devise a pedagogical framework that would best deliver the course and help the students to succeed in meeting its objectives. Such pedagogical framework needs to include various teaching and learning strategies to maintain the interest of the students.

For example, Direct Instruction and Interactive Lecturing are very effective when used in introductory scenarios. This is when introducing the basics of new topic that the students need to remember and understand first before progressing to higher cognitive levels. It is through Direct Instruction and Interactive Lecturing that the students start to build the base they need to be prepared to deal with more challenging scenarios. This is also the case in many courses that students need to finish in their first two years of their programs, where most courses are introductory courses to knowledge areas that the students are encountering for the first time.

Collaborative Learning and Project Based Learning can then be employed in delivering more advanced topics in a course or a program. Students can build on the basis that they remember and understand, that were acquired through Direct Instruction and Interactive Lecturing, to evaluate and create solutions for new problems. Collaborative learning is excellent strategy to analyze and evaluate Case Studies, where Project Based Learning motivates the students to create something new.  

Using different teaching strategies in different scenarios of nature of the subject, the targeted cognitive level, and the students level would also imply the necessity of aligning the assessment strategies to assess the same skills that the teaching strategies have developed. Therefore, in situations where Direct Instruction and Interactive Lecturing were mainly used, assessments strategies need to also focus on assessing students ability to remember and how deep they understand. On the other hand, Collaborative Learning and Project Based Learning should qualify students to demonstrate the ability to apply their knowledge in real-world scenarios to evaluate challenging situations and create a relevant solution.