Teaching Today A Practical Guide Fourth Edition - part 7 pot

Strategies Make sure the goals negotiated are achievable, not too long-term, available in writing to the learner and to you, and have a date when achievement might be expected. If long timescales are unavoidable, monitoring will be necessary. Consider negotiating a learning contract, as described in Chapter 41. Action planning This process often occurs immediately after goal setting. The aim of the action plan is to think of concrete activities which will help achieve the learner’s goals, and so devise ways of closing the gap between where the learner is now, and where they want to be. Action plans should be in writing, and should be available to you and the learner. But how should activities be decided? Strategies As ever with self-directed learning, it is best to ask fi rst. The student will be much more committed to their own ideas than to yours, and will also develop their action-planning skills. However, you may need to negotiate changes to the plan. Action! Learners may fi nd it diffi cult to work alone, and there is a danger that bad practice will be consolidated rather than corrected without a teacher to check and correct. If you can remain available to monitor the learner’s progress, this will help. Alter- natively, arrange for peers to support each other. The next self-evaluation should include an evaluation of the learner’s working methods: how did they fi nd working alone? What was most diffi cult about it? The teacher as facilitator In self-directed learning, the facilitating role of the teacher is crucial and not well understood. Too many teachers simply pass over full responsibility to students who are not yet ready. The role of the teacher is to be ready to help the student towards independence, but not to help where there is no need. A useful facilitation strategy for any stage in the cycle is to ask the student fi rst, then to use question and answer to lead the student to make good any defi ciencies in their suggestions. Only when this fails should you take more control. In this way, the teacher and student become a partnership, but the student is always given the lead initially. Here is a teacher acting as a facilitator with a management trainee who is self-evaluating. Student … so I think my main strengths are organisational, and my main weaknesses are that I am not so good with people, especially those older than myself. 370 The teacher’s toolkit P02b.indd 370 3/3/09 14:52:45 Facilitator Not good with people? Student Well, I’m not bad with most of them I suppose. Facilitator Your last piece of work certainly suggests you are excellent with some of them. Student Okay, so it’s mostly problems with those who are older than me. Facilitator Why is that, do you think? (Student explains.) Facilitator So what could you do about that then? (Student makes a suggestion, setting herself a challenge.) Facilitator Resources. What might help you in this challenge? (Student looks blank.) Facilitator Can you think of any other young managers at work who you could talk with about managing staff older than yourself? This coaching or facilitating role is very far from leaving the student to fl ounder alone. The teacher is ‘leading from behind’, and helping the student learn not only the immediate topic of how to manage older staff, but also how to learn indepen- dently. Note that in the above exchange, the facilitator: asks for a diffi culty, but then gives it to the student: ‘what could you do about • that then?’ encourages the student to recognise her own strengths, as well as her weak-• nesses shows that they value the student.• ‘Bridging’ is an excellent strategy to fi nish off a facilitation session (see page 342). Carl Rogers suggests that if students are to develop the self-belief that makes self-directed learning possible, the emotional climate created by the facilitator is crucial. The facilitator must empathise with the student, must be non-judgemental and must show that they value the student as an individual. Many teachers would praise the student for taking initiative in the learning process, but Rogers would probably not agree, preferring intrinsic to extrinsic reinforcement. Instead, he would encourage learners to recognise their own successes. There is a continuum from teacher-directed to self-directed learning, as shown in the diagram below, and students may need to move along it gradually, rather than be thrown in at the deep end. Consider using independent learning before self-directed learning. Students may also fi nd it easier to be self-directed about resources or monitoring than about setting themselves goals or self-evaluating. Why use self-directed learning? The ability to learn by oneself is the greatest gift any teacher can give a learner; indeed, it is the ultimate aim of all education. The educational gains for self-directed learning are the same as those described in the previous chapter for independent learning (see pages 362–4). These gains are very impressive, and in any case, the ultimate purpose of teaching is to make all students into self-directed learners, so why not give them some practice? Self-directed learning 371 P02b.indd 371 3/3/09 14:52:45 Further reading See the further reading section for Chapter 33 on independent learning, together with: Knowles, M. S. (1975) Self-Directed Learning, Cambridge University Press. Petty, G. (1997) How to Be Better at Creativity, London: Kogan Page. Deals with the emotional diffi culties of self-evaluation and self-improvement. Rogers, C. (1994) Freedom to Learn (3rd edition), New York: Merrill. The teacher’s toolkit 372 P02b.indd 372 3/3/09 14:52:45 P02b.indd 373 3/3/09 14:52:45 P02b.indd 374 3/3/09 14:52:45 Part 3 Resources for teaching and learning 35 Visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint ® and interactive whiteboards 375 The verbal channel of communication is the most used in teaching, but for many purposes visual information is more effective. In pages 149–52, we saw that trials have shown that if students create mind-maps, fl ow diagrams or other ‘graphic organisers’, their understanding is improved by about two grades! This is, in part, because visual representations can help us ‘see the wood for the trees’, by summa- rising key points and showing how these are related to each other. Information needs to be structured like this to go into our long-term memory. Getting students to summarise their understanding in a visual way and then to check this is a great way to learn, and was considered in Chapter 32. But we can also use the visual channel to present new information to students in a way that is easy to digest. Some researchers say information enters our brain in the following way: The main advantages of visual aids They gain attention• . You cannot teach without the attention of your students, no matter how carefully prepared your lesson may be. A new picture on a screen is diffi cult to ignore – a new sentence in a speech is not. Gaining atten- tion in the age of television and computer games is not easy, and we need all the help we can get! Moreover, while the student is looking at your visual aid, he or she is not distracted by competing visual stimuli – the view out of the window, for example. P03.indd 375 2/3/09 16:45:03 Resources for teaching and learning 376 They add variety• . They aid conceptualisation• . This is a major advantage of visual aids. Many concepts or ideas are understood visually rather than verbally – for example, ‘practical skills’ like soldering. If knowledge is understood and remembered visually, you should transmit it visually. How a table is laid for a seven-course dinner is best shown by means of a picture, or better still the real thing. Most novice teachers realise this; but they often fail to grasp that many abstract concepts such as ‘fractions’ or ‘cash fl ow’ are also best conveyed and under- stood in a visual way. This idea is explored in more detail in pages 149–54. They aid memory• . Research shows that most people fi nd visual information easier to remember than verbal information. They show you care• . Going to the trouble of preparing visual aids shows students you take their learning seriously. Displaying non-visual information in a visual way Non-visual abstract ideas can be displayed by a huge variety of methods. Treat the ‘graphic organisers’ on pages 149–52 as an ‘idea bank’ of techniques for represent- ing information visually. Next time you are planning a lesson, check through it for ideas. (Consider also maps and tables of fi gures.) The advantages of the visual channel to teachers are enormous, but you would be surprised how often poor teachers ignore it. Types of visual aid 1 Handouts Modern photocopiers can reproduce newspaper articles, including photographs. They can also increase or decrease size to suit any requirement. If you want a poster-sized copy of a postage stamp, or an architect’s drawing reduced to the size of a postcard, it can be done. With careful use, they can cope surprisingly well with faint masters, often making copies which are better than the original. Most colleges and schools have photocopiers which will automatically print on both sides, collate and staple. There are pressing environmental reasons for copying back to back. You can photocopy on card or on coloured paper. Colour photocopying is also now available (though still expensive). Masters for worksheet handouts can be obtained commercially, and these are often excellent value for money. The masters are supplied with a copyright waiver allowing the purchasing institution to photocopy the masters, usually for use within that institution only. P03.indd 376 2/3/09 16:45:03 Visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint ® and interactive whiteboards 377 Making your own handouts Handouts can give information, or they can be in the form of a worksheet; some- times they combine these two functions. You can cannibalise magazines, websites and brochures, and photocopy or computer-scan diagrams from textbooks, adjust- ing the size if necessary – but beware the copyright restrictions described below, and acknowledge sources. Then this material can be ‘cut and pasted’, either physi- cally or on computer, together with linking text in type or neat handwriting, to produce a handout with impact. Try ‘gapped handouts’, where space is left for students to answer questions, • fi ll in words and phrases, or label a diagram. Don’t forget that overhead projector transparencies can be photocopied as a • handout, or handouts made into a transparency. If you can, word-process your handouts. (But don’t be afraid to draw your • own diagrams – I have for this book!) Leave 2 cm margins on both sides of the page, or you will hole-punch text!• Don’t overcrowd; if handouts are unattractive they will not be read. Pay atten-• tion to layout – for example, use indenting and bullets, as in this list. Would it help to present your handouts in the form of a booklet? If your school or college has an agreement with the Copyright Licensing • Agency (CLA), there will be notifi cation of this displayed near the photocopier. It usually allows you or your students to copy the following for any one course in one academic year. However, you may only make one copy for each student, and one for yourself. Up to 5% or one complete chapter of a book published in stated – countries. A single article from a journal or periodical (some journals and – periodicals are excluded from this arrangement, so check before copying). Using handouts in class Talk your class through the handout, or ask them to use it for individual or group work. Ask them to highlight important parts of the text. In this way, they will become familiar with its contents; otherwise they are unlikely to be read later. Handouts don’t teach. Students learn a great deal by writing their own notes in their own words, or by explaining to each other in pairs (Petty 2006). Do this in class and distribute handouts later. Students learn most from handouts when they have to do something with them: ask students to underline key points or summarise the content with a graphic organiser. Ask questions in your handouts and leave spaces for the answers. Handouts can save a great deal of time, for you and your students, but don’t make them overlong. If you feel more information may be required, set reading home- works from books or journals. One last word: don’t forget to save trees by using handouts only when they are necessary, and always copy on both sides. P03.indd 377 2/3/09 16:45:03 Resources for teaching and learning 378 2 The whiteboard Some use board work like a huge scrap-pad for jottings and sketches; others see it as a neglected art form. Some use it for putting up notes for the students to copy. Others use it to draw attention to the landmarks in the lesson, displaying only the key ideas as they are covered. Some write a fi ve-point summary of their lesson before the class arrives, and barely touch it during the lesson. Maths and science teachers use board work to demonstrate how to solve problems, and to give instructions for experiments. Some teachers prefer to do their board work before a lesson, others during it. Most feel lost without a board of some kind, but some think it should be consigned to the museum. No teaching aid is more adaptable to the teacher’s style, and perhaps this is its real strength. You must decide for yourself how to use it; try the different approaches described above, then choose, combine and adapt to develop your own style. Inter- active whiteboards make the device even more adaptable – this is considered in the next section. General advice Always start with a clean board; if necessary, ask for cleaning fl uid.• Make sure you are using a dry marker pen, not a fl ip-chart or other type. • Some markers have a chisel end, allowing you to control the thickness of the line. Hold the markers like a pencil. All colours show up quite well, but black or blue show best.• Make sure it really • is a whiteboard: a projector screen is irreparably damaged by pens! Don’t use your usual handwriting, or block capitals which are diffi cult to read • if used exclusively; use a print style. Novice users tend to write too big rather than too small; in most cases, lettering with capital letters about 3 or 4 cm in height is best. Try it out from the back of the class. Until you get used to it, plan what you are going to put on the board before • the lesson. Don’t stand in front of the board, and make sure there is no glare on it.• Talk to the students, not to the board; you may need to raise your voice a bit.• Use colours only for a specifi c purpose; use black and blue for writing the • main information. Don’t get the board cluttered; erase unwanted • material – but not too quickly. The technique The main problem is keeping your lines of writing horizontal. To achieve this, shuffl e your feet sideways as you write, keeping your hand at the same height relative to your shoulders for the entire line. This is easier with a roller board, where most teachers write at about eye height, moving the board up every line or two. It’s almost impossible to write below chest height; kneel down if you must, but can they see it? The ‘whiteboard shuffl e’ P03.indd 378 2/3/09 16:45:04 Visual aids, Microsoft PowerPoint ® and interactive whiteboards 379 To draw a straight line without a ruler: relax and draw with confi dence, keeping your eyes on where you want the line to end – not on the marker. Use a similar technique for drawing a circle, or alternatively use a piece of string with a loop in it, in which you place the marker. Board compasses, protractors, etc., are usually available if you need them. If you are concerned about discipline, look over your shoulder every few words, or better still use a data projector or overhead projector (OHP). Some tricks and traps Some classes have a Pavlovian reaction to anything written on the board: they write it down in their notes. If you intend to use the board as a scrap-pad, you must tell the class beforehand that they should not copy unless you tell them. They might need reminding until they get used to this. (If you have two boards, you can use one as a scrap-pad and the other for notes.) If a whiteboard eraser smears, it needs washing with meths/alcohol or cleaning with a proprietary whiteboard cleaner. Board writing is a messy business; think carefully about the clothes you choose to teach in. If you have a roller board, you can prepare the board before a lesson and roll it out of view until you need it. Any board work that you intend the class to copy sets an example for the class. If you work untidily, don’t expect them to be neat. Warning! There is an unwritten rule in most schools and colleges that you should always leave the board clean for the next teacher. If you intend to ignore this rule, you would be well advised to attend self-defence classes. 3 Microsoft PowerPoint ® , interactive whiteboards and OHPs Microsoft PowerPoint ® , Apple Keynote TM and similar applications enable a computer or interactive whiteboard to display a series of screens called ‘slides’. These can contain text, images, graphics, sound and video clips, or any combina- tion of these. The slides can be displayed on a computer, on a classroom screen via a digital projector or on an interactive whiteboard. These presentations, like any other computer fi le, can be saved on your institution’s intranet, enabling students to access them at any time, including from home (see the next chapter). The most effective use of this medium from the learning point of view is asking students to create their own Microsoft PowerPoint ® shows. Many students fi nd this more motivating than a conventional writing task. It also develops ICT skills and, if presented to the class, communication skills. Students can share their shows on your institution’s computer system, as explained in the next chapter. The most common faults with presentations using computer, interactive white- boards or OHP are: P03.indd 379 2/3/09 16:45:04 [...]... date) extracting and storing data about magazine articles from a computer magazine, with key words that would enable a student to search for an article on a particular subject for an essay (Every vocational subject has its trade magazine.) Activities using spreadsheets Professional accountants, engineers, architects, mathematicians, statisticians, scientists, economists and stockbrokers all make full... is advisable to use it as a teaching aid For example, you can gather the class round the poster and use it as a focus for part of a lesson; it can then be left up as a reminder Posters are particularly useful for teachers of foreign languages 3 87 Resources for teaching and learning How about using one noticeboard in your classroom for a regularly changing poster display? Making your own posters Aim... watching TV You will have to work hard to make your students attend to a programme, and learn from it On most DVD or video machines, you can fast-forward to the sections that interest you; pause the programme to talk about what the class has just seen; and rewind to replay a particularly important section Some machines have a ‘freeze-frame’ feature, enabling the picture to be stopped and a still frame... www.learningmatters.co.uk McNaught, A (2004) Exploring E-learning for Literacy, Numeracy and ESOL Teachers, Coventry: Ferl/Becta MORI (2002) ‘E-learning at Home and School’, executive summary Available from www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/ofi 390 36 Students learning with computers: e-learning, ICT and ILT Computers are an extraordinary presentation device for teachers, as we saw in the last chapter But they are... used again to show other weather fronts This is great for annotating a diagram, painting or maths worked example A sequence of slides can create a similar effect in Microsoft PowerPoint® If you are using an OHP, create the master with permanent pens Then add the details with water-based pens, which can then be erased, leaving the master untouched The master can then be used another day 382 Visual aids,... well? Ask your students, look at their work, and reflect! 4 Models – and the real thing If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many for a model? And what about the real thing? Models can be commercially produced or made by the teacher A language teacher may bring cooking utensils into the classroom; an engineer may gut and adapt an old alternator for classroom use A biology teacher may show her class... full use of spreadsheets, so teachers in these areas and in related areas should use them too They are particularly useful for processing numerical data, and for performing calculations and recalculations that would otherwise be too laborious to contemplate Spreadsheet applications allow the user to draw graphs and pie charts, etc., using their data Some uses of spreadsheets I have seen are described... of a four-stroke petrol engine • Can you use or adapt the real thing? Bringing real objects into the classroom usually excites interest ‘Real things’ can be sectioned, labelled, partly dismantled and so on, to aid your teaching For example, bird skeletons can be labelled; a computer disk can be butchered so that it may be taken apart; an old barometer can be sectioned or dismantled and adapted for... ropes, and experiment with: • Hiding and revealing text or graphics, asking questions and then revealing the answer • Enlarging or zooming into parts of a diagram or image • Annotating diagrams, images or calculations with a pen – for example, drawing great circles round important parts and labelling them (or getting students to) • Playing ‘decisions, decisions’ games, as described in Chapter 19 These can... PowerPoint® and interactive whiteboards Annotating a diagram on an interactive whiteboard Animation You can create a limited ‘freeze-frame’ type animation with a series of slides shown quickly one after the other More sophisticated animations can be created using presentation software Ask someone to show you how, or experiment after searching the on-screen help under ‘animations’ Sectioning the presentation . revealing • the answer. Enlarging or zooming into parts of a diagram or image.• Annotating diagrams, images or calculations with a pen – for example, • drawing great circles round important parts. labelled, partly dismantled and so on, to aid your teaching. For example, bird skeletons can be labelled; a computer disk can be butchered so that it may be taken apart; an old barometer can. usually have better things to do than read a poster, so it is advisable to use it as a teaching aid. For example, you can gather the class round the poster and use it as a focus for part of a