Teaching/Demonstrating Skills for Technical Officers

1
Teaching/Demonstrating Skills for Technical
Officers

• Ionad Bairre,
• The Teaching and Learning Centre,
• UCC
• Bettie Higgs, Marian McCarthy, Robert Cosgrave

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The session will include aspects of

• Assisting with lab based teaching
• Supervision of lab based research
• Effective Presentations
• Use of Virtual learning Environments and internet
  resources in teaching and learning
• Assisting students with group work and
  problem-based learning

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Learning Outcomes

• On completion of this workshop, participants will
  be able to
• Apply various teaching/learning methods in
  laboratory, field or classroom situations
• Underpin their practice with relevant theory

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What types of teaching do you do?

• Safety
• Good lab practice
• Demonstrate safe equipment usage OSH
• Running lab Practicals
• Lab Prep Work
• Setting up labs
• Adapt specimens to fit in to change in teaching
• Running Fieldwork
• Oversee practical projects

• Practical tips and advice reality vs. manual
• Course Development
• Adjusting practical course to reflect changes in
  lecture course
• eLearning Programme Development
• New experiments
• Improve learning outcomes
• Induction for first years
• Computer skills to undergrads

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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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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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What do I understand really well?

• Driving
• Music
• Fishing
• Chemical reactors
• Crochet
• Trout-angling
• Making cakes
• Cooking
• Juggling

• Gardening
• Dancing
• General electronics
• Basic electrical
• bag-pipes
• Nutrient analysis
• Photography
• Vintage cars

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How did you develop that understanding?

• Grew-up with it
• Observation
• Practiced
• Experimented
• Reading about it
• Trial and error
• Doing it
• Repetition
• Making mistakes

• Looking for the best
• Adapting in light of mistakes
• Survival/necessity
• Testing the theory
• Developing my own
• Being creative
• From peers
• Formal education

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How do you know you understand it?

• It tastes well!
• It becomes natural
• Validation
• Recognition
• Competition
• Comparison
• Results are consistent
• An ability to solve it
• Apply knowledge in a new situation

• Can see it
• Succeeding
• Tested
• Explain it
• Recognise your mistakes
• Can read the game
• Feedback

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Assessment

• Can be
• On-going formative assessment
• Summative assessment

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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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Challenges in Teaching

• Time constraints
• Students on a conveyor
• Setup on laptops
• 24 weeks teaching year
• No time to get the basics solid need to retrain
  each year
• Large Groups
• Class sizes Sci1 440 students
• multiple practical runs
• Student engagement
• Funding software, equipment, old gear,
  resources, students horrified by limited
  resources
• Student Issues
• motivation
• Students expect to be spoonfed
• Poor IT skills
• Different abilities and skills in a group

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Formative Assessment ( CAT Classroom
Assessment Techniques)

• Ongoing assessment
• Giving students opportunity for feedback
• Getting students to write their thoughts/problems
• Muddiest point
• One thing you understood from the teaching, and
  one thing that was unclear
• Collect data feedback can be used as evidence
  of student learning

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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
• Questioning and talking to students

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Document the teaching and learning What
surprises you about the teaching session?

• Start collecting your evidence from day one
• Write briefly after each session about the
  following
• What went well?
• What didnt work?
• What surprised you?
• What action needs to be taken in the light of
  this reflection?

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Assessment and 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

• Do students have the time to make connections?
• Do I build reflection into teaching routine?
• Do I ask for regular feedback
• Establish criteria How clear are criteria for
  students?
• Develop criteria with students

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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?

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Qualities of a good teacher

• Got information out clearly
• Good interpersonal skills
• Knew their stuff
• Engage with you
• Listening
• Passion for the subject
• Approach topic from different angles Multiple
  Intelligences
• Document your practice to demonstrate how you are
  becoming a good great teacher

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Coverage - the great enemy of learning

• Be selective choose one small piece to work on
  that is representative of the material
• This will allow you to focus on the student
  response rather than your prepared lecture
• RE assessing work Uncover trends in the work and
  share these with all the group
• Model the practice for the students show them
  examples of good work and discuss why it is good
  

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The Skillful Teacher Stephen Brookfield (2006)

• Skillfull teaching is whatever helps the students
  learn
• Skillfull teachers adopt a reflective stance
  towards their practice
• They need a constant awareness of how students
  are experiencing the learning and perceiving
  teachers actions

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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
• you are the role model

• Before class careful 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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Demonstrating (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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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 connected to prior
  knowledge
• Unlearning what is already known is often more
  difficult than learning new info.
• 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
• Interactionlearning

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Buzz and small group teaching

• Usually pairs, threes or fours to brainstorm
  and stimulate discussion
• Research indicates that any kind of discussion
  stimulates higher order thinking .. the
  thinking is filtered ..

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The Tutorial or Seminar (Fry et al, 1999)

• 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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Multiple Intelligences Theory (Gardner 1983/99)

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

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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 away from lectures/practicals
• 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/demonstrator cant be blamed!

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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 teacher(Students perspective)

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

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