My last post for this Blog - Letter to a newbie teacher

Dear Newbie Teacher,

Welcome to one of the most gratifying experiences in life where you will not only educate others but also yourself. For that to happen you have to be passionate about what you do and believe in your students ability to learn. I love teaching and would like to share with you some of the things which I have learnt over the years:

·        We should always bear in mind that we are facilitators in the learning process for the students. Encourage your students to give you feedback and incorporate it in your teaching strategy.

·        Teaching pedagogy should be student centered, identifying students with different learning abilities in a classroom and addressing them accordingly.

·        Individual feedback in a timely fashion to motivate students and encouraging them to work on the weak areas collaboratively and through peer mentoring

·        Engage students with a variety of classroom activities from an article discussion to online simulation game to in-class team competition. Our students are digital natives, talk to them in their language using education technology.

·        Teaching strategies should be mapped with the cognitive level of learning outcome and with the level of student maturity

·        Assessments should be both formative and summative comprising of short quizzes, time constraint assessments, case studies, group projects and presentations to name some. Cumulatively they will reflect the true learning for any student.

·        Be energetic in class, passion is infectious which is good J

Happy teaching

Trying a New Teaching Strategy & How effective was the teaching strategy

The two new teaching strategies which I tried were Flipped Classroom and Simple Jigsaw.

Flipped Classroom video links of lecture on specific topic were, are accessible to students. Students went over the lesson at their own pace and time before coming to the class. Concept engagement and understanding were then gauged through class exercises. The feedback was mixed as some of the students felt that the flexibility of time and space gave them a better opportunity for understanding. Whereas some of the students felt lost on their own before coming to the classroom.

Simple Jigsaw Class was divided into groups of three. Each group was assigned a specific sub outcome which entailed the concept explanation, application of formula for calculation and interpretation of the result. Student’s feedback was positive and they felt that they gained much from the collaborative exercise.

Teaching strategies – Individual Reflection

There is no single most appropriate teaching strategy which can be applied throughout the semester. Teaching strategy will vary with the cognitive level of the learning outcome in the course content and student’s maturity level. After going through all the four teaching strategies it is quite clear that each one of these can be mapped to a certain cognitive level.

Cognitive level varies with different learning outcomes and student’s maturity level also changes as the semester progresses. Different teaching strategies can then be mapped to Blooms taxonomy for example Direct Instruction can be mapped with Remember and Understand. This will be applicable to students in initial semester levels or while introducing a brand new numerical concept at higher levels. This is reinforced with interactive class activities, exercise sets and problem solving activities.

Blooms taxonomy at higher level of Apply, Evaluate and Create can be mapped to Collaborative Learning and Project Based Learning. Sometimes students are the best teachers to each other. They reinforce their concepts while they explain and discuss with each other. Real life projects give them an opportunity to build an in-depth understanding of the text book concept. This teaching strategy is more appropriate for mature students in higher semesters.

Group Presentation

Hi Everyone,

Here is the link to the Group Presentation for Module III :)

Collaborative Learning