The Postgraduate Student as TeacherTutor Demonstrator

1
The Postgraduate Student as Teacher/Tutor/
Demonstrator

• Marian McCarthy, Ionad Bairre,
• The Teaching and Learning Centre,
• De Vere Hall 18-10-07

2
Ear to the Ground

• Sometimes Ive wondered am I supposed to be a
  bridge between the department and the student, or
  am I supposed to be a screen so that the
  professor doesnt have to bother with student
  concerns
• Im always struggling to find a balance between
  authority and tyranny and to respect the
  motivations of individual students
• Being a TA is scary for shy people
• Im not shy and being a TA is still scary
• Forget Red Bull Teaching gives you wings!

3
What is the most important lesson you have learnt
so far as tutor?

• Be prepared
• Mixture of abilities in class
• Allow freedom to talk and ask questions
• Find out what they know
• Have patience
• Give them time
• Ask do you need help?

• Use different ways of explaining
• Dont overestimate
• Make the students feel comfortable
• Dont panic!
• Respond to the needs of the group
• Be flexible
• Be inclusive
• Dont be afraid to say I dont know

4
The qualities of good teachers

• Think about good teachers who stand out for you
  from your own learning experience
• What characteristics made them good?
• How did they help you as the learner?
• What lessons are there in this for you as a
  beginning teacher?
• Write an inscription for your classroom!

5
The Skillful Teacher Stephen Brookfield (2006)

• Skillful teaching is a highly variable process
  that changes depending on any number of
  contextual factors. What does remain constant is
  its three assumptions
• Skillful teaching is whatever helps the students
  learn
• Skillful teachers adopt a critically reflective
  stance towards their practice
• They need a constant awareness of how students
  are experiencing their learning and perceiving
  teachers actions

6
Understanding Our Classrooms Classroom Research
and Assessment

• There are many strategies that we can use to
  gauge what and how students are learning
• The One Minute Paper
• The Muddiest Point
• The Learning Audit
• Student Learning Journals
• The Critical Incident Questionnaire ..
• And there is questioning and talking to students.
  Get to know your students!

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Tom Angelos Teachers Dozen

• Active Learning is more effective than passive
  learning.
• Learning requires focused attention and awareness
  of the importance of what is to be learned.
• Learning is more effective when learners have
  explicit goals

• New information must be meaningfully connected to
  prior knowledge
• Unlearning what is already known is often more
  difficult than learning new info.
• Info that is organised in personally meaningful
  ways is more likely to be retained, learned and
  used.
• Learners need feedback on their learning early
  and often

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Angelos Principles about how students learn

• The ways in which learners are assessed
  powerfully affects the way they study and learn
• Mastering a skill or body of knowledge takes time
  and effort
• applying knowledge and skills to new contexts
  needs practice

• High expectations encourage high achievement
• To be effective, teachers need to balance levels
  of intellectual challenge and instructional
  support
• Motivation is alterable
• Interactionlearning

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A Teaching for Understanding exercise

• What do you understand really well?
• How did you develop that understanding?
• How do you know you understand it?
• What key lessons do you take from this about
  understanding?
• What are the implications of this exercise for
  your teaching and student learning?

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Multiple Intelligences Theory (Gardner 1983/99)

• Linguistic
• Logical/Mathematical
• Visual Spatial
• Musical
• Bodily Kinaesthetic
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalist

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The Tutorial or Seminar (Fry et al, 1999)

• Academic tutorials are used to
• further discussion
• clarify and take remedial action
• To explore problems, questions and the
  application of information

• to integrate theory and practice
• to have student led debate and presentation
• feedback from and to students
• feedback on progress to staff

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Helping Students to make the most of tutorials
(Race Brown, 2005)

• Help them see the purpose of tutorials
• Avoid temptation to to elaborate on lectures
• Have a definite purpose for each tutorial
• Let students know the agenda

• Encourage students to sort out what they dont
  understand
• Get feedback
• Help them work together
• Capture their learning
• Bridge the gap re the programme

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Laboratory or Practical class (Fry, et al., l999)

• training in techniques
• learning the ideas of the subject
• learning how to carry out experimental inquiries
• Remember - you are the role model as demonstrator
  !

• Before classcareful planning and organisation
• During class purpose of this series? Is it a
  controlled exercise, an experimental
  investigation, a mini- research project?

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Demonstrators (continued)

• The two main responsibilities after the practical
  work are to assess student work and to evaluate
  the teaching session.
• How do you know as demonstrator that you have
  done a good job?

• Demonstrators are now considered to be an
  integral part of the teaching team and lecturers
  have high expectations of the quality of their
  contribution to student learning.

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Assessment as a process with students at centre

• The word assessment comes from the Latin
  assidere to sit...assessment truly does require
  sitting beside a student to look at the work.
  ...in the classroom the teacher and student are
  potentially on equal footing. It is both a
  relationship and a process that includes looking
  (at what students do) listening (to what students
  say) and puzzling (to figure out learning) Harris
  Stefanakis (1995) The Power in Portfolios A way
  of sitting beside each learner p.3

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Feedback

• Valuable feedback comes from many different
  people teachers, peers, outside experts and
  students self-reflections and evaluations.
  Assessments can be formal and planned, such as
  those related to exhibitions and presentations,
  or they may be casual and spontaneous, as when
  students make connections in discussions

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Practising on-going assessment

• Make time for Reflection Do students have the
  time to make connections. Do I build reflection
  into teaching routine?
• As for regular reflection/feedback
• Establish criteria What am I comparing the work
  to? How clear are criteria for students?
• Develop criteria with students

18
Some Myths re Teaching in Higher Education

• Effective teaching is indeterminate, indefinable,
  since learning is the students responsibility.
• Teaching is not important, since much learning
  takes place apart from lectures
• Learning is what students do, its relation to
  teaching is unproblematic
• Bad teachers are better-students learn for
  themselves!

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Myths -contd.

• Misconception re teaching it consists in
  presenting or transmitting information from
  teacher to student or demonstrating the
  application of a skill in practice
• 3rd level students should not be too closely
  supervised -they become dependent learners
• Learning is separate from teaching-lecturer
  cant be blamed!

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What Teachers would rather not know

• While teachers are lecturing, students are not
  attending to what is being said 40 of the time
• In the first ten minutes students retain 70 of
  information, in last 10 mins-20
• Student attention levels drop as lecture proceeds

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Good teaching (perspective of lecturer)

• Desire to share your love of the subject
• Ability to make subject stimulating and
  interesting
• Engage with students at their level
• Explain material plainly

• Make clear what has to be understood
• Show concern and respect for students
• Encourage student independence
• (Ramsden, 1999, Chap. 6)

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Good Teaching ( lecturers perspective)

• Use teaching methods and academic tasks that
  require students to learn actively, responsibly
  and cooperatively
• use valid assessment methods

• Focus on key concepts and students
  misunderstanding of them, rather than covering
  the ground
• Give quality feedback
• Learn from students/ other sources about the
  effect of teaching and how it can be improved

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The good lecturer(Students perspective)

• Is Organised
• stimulates interest
• gives understandable explanations
• empathises with students needs
• gives feedback on work
• sets clear goals

• Encourages independent thought
• (Students can distinguish between good and
  popular lecturers. Therefore lecturers
  personality and humour are not top of the list)
  (Ramsden, 1992/99)

24
Scholars and Teachers

• We need our best scholars to be our teachers ,
  and we need them to give the same creative energy
  to teaching as they give to scholarship. We need
  to identify, support, and reward those who teach
  superbly. There is no antithesis between
  teaching and research. Great teaching can in
  fact be a form of synthesis and scholarship.
  (Frank Rhodes The University and its Critics in
  W.G. Bowen and H.T. Shapiro (Eds) Universities
  and Their Leadership Princeton, 1998)