A lot of changes have occurred in the methodology of teaching and learning. Gone are the days of teacher faces students style of teaching. Just as one professor mentioned, teachers are not the teachers that we use to know before, but their roles have changed to become facilitators.
Students are responsible for their own learning. Teachers facilitate and guide them to the correct resources to make sure that they stay on track. That does not mean that the students will have no room for creativity at all. In that case, the teacher will have to keep them on track and at the same time un-prohibit their creativity.
Everywhere, people are talking about student centered learning. When I was a student, a friend mentioned that it is only a smoke screen to relieve the teaching job off teachers. It is just terms and nothing more. Not giving it much thought, I believed it too.
After one year of teaching, it is just sad to see students still cannot grasp simple concepts after drilling with them in class. I began to ask myself, "Is there something wrong in the way I teach?" Obviously, I lacked the skills of teaching. The concept of lecturing is only that - lecturing. One enters a lecture hall, whip out the slides and start to talk and talk till the end of the slides - without getting any feedback if the lecture was understood by the students.
Asian students, being Asians, are not that vocal in voicing out the clutters in their mind. So, that clutter remained as clutters - believing that by doing a self study and research - the clutters would be untangled. Quite a herculean task to do, especially when English is not their mother tongue. Why not just ask the lecturer - and get the jigsaw pieces in the correct space?
After equipping myself with the basics of paedagogy, yes, there are many ways to make my teaching as interesting as possible. First of all, teaching should not be one way. It should be interactive and experiential at the same time. It should include lots of reflective learning, where students are allowed to think and apply the basic tools out of the box.
Asian students, given the chance to perform, and to warm up to it, will tend to perform, sometimes, their acts surprise us. The diligent ones remained diligent, A is for an A. There are no other ways to explain it. The creative ones would add more details to it, "Air" sounds like the letter A, and the word Air begins with an A.
These are the qualities that educators would like students to develop.
Could it be due to the education system where the students are so used to? It has always been a one way affair between the teachers in class and their students. There were not much chance of pondering on the issues. The theories are taught, and immediately, exercises came. Practice makes perfect they say - that I agree wholly. But the rigidity of the practices may actually impede the chance to explore, especially those creative minds. As an example, engineering students may be given exercises to practice after every lecture or tutorial. They will be able to answer the same question a week later. Same values, same numerical facts and denominators. In the final exam, the same question structure is presented, very similar to the test that was given in the exercises. The only thing that changed this time, is the figures. In most instances, reporting experiences from other colleagues, half of the number of students, who have done well in the exercises earlier, fail at answering the questions.
Could it be that the students were actually memorizing rather than understanding the concepts behind the application during the exercises? Has the stance, practice makes perfect that we believed so much in backfired on us?
In that case, the students have not achieved a meaningful learning yet. That has to be the biggest challenge for all teachers. To achieve a meaningful learning experience, students will have to be responsible for the acquisition of knowledge. To be responsible means to care for and to be concerned with the right amount of information needed to achieve the objectives of the topic. Difficulty in understanding a concept will create anxiety in students, forcing them to come forward to look for their facilitators. They are being responsible. Students who could not be bothered with their learning will just give up and resist initiating to search. But, they cannot be blamed totally for it. Their environment may not cater for them.
As the world that has evolved, teaching too. Creativity that creates creativity - is good. But when an idled mind creates creativity - its not good.
Students are responsible for their own learning. Teachers facilitate and guide them to the correct resources to make sure that they stay on track. That does not mean that the students will have no room for creativity at all. In that case, the teacher will have to keep them on track and at the same time un-prohibit their creativity.
Everywhere, people are talking about student centered learning. When I was a student, a friend mentioned that it is only a smoke screen to relieve the teaching job off teachers. It is just terms and nothing more. Not giving it much thought, I believed it too.
After one year of teaching, it is just sad to see students still cannot grasp simple concepts after drilling with them in class. I began to ask myself, "Is there something wrong in the way I teach?" Obviously, I lacked the skills of teaching. The concept of lecturing is only that - lecturing. One enters a lecture hall, whip out the slides and start to talk and talk till the end of the slides - without getting any feedback if the lecture was understood by the students.
Asian students, being Asians, are not that vocal in voicing out the clutters in their mind. So, that clutter remained as clutters - believing that by doing a self study and research - the clutters would be untangled. Quite a herculean task to do, especially when English is not their mother tongue. Why not just ask the lecturer - and get the jigsaw pieces in the correct space?
After equipping myself with the basics of paedagogy, yes, there are many ways to make my teaching as interesting as possible. First of all, teaching should not be one way. It should be interactive and experiential at the same time. It should include lots of reflective learning, where students are allowed to think and apply the basic tools out of the box.
Asian students, given the chance to perform, and to warm up to it, will tend to perform, sometimes, their acts surprise us. The diligent ones remained diligent, A is for an A. There are no other ways to explain it. The creative ones would add more details to it, "Air" sounds like the letter A, and the word Air begins with an A.
These are the qualities that educators would like students to develop.
Could it be due to the education system where the students are so used to? It has always been a one way affair between the teachers in class and their students. There were not much chance of pondering on the issues. The theories are taught, and immediately, exercises came. Practice makes perfect they say - that I agree wholly. But the rigidity of the practices may actually impede the chance to explore, especially those creative minds. As an example, engineering students may be given exercises to practice after every lecture or tutorial. They will be able to answer the same question a week later. Same values, same numerical facts and denominators. In the final exam, the same question structure is presented, very similar to the test that was given in the exercises. The only thing that changed this time, is the figures. In most instances, reporting experiences from other colleagues, half of the number of students, who have done well in the exercises earlier, fail at answering the questions.
Could it be that the students were actually memorizing rather than understanding the concepts behind the application during the exercises? Has the stance, practice makes perfect that we believed so much in backfired on us?
In that case, the students have not achieved a meaningful learning yet. That has to be the biggest challenge for all teachers. To achieve a meaningful learning experience, students will have to be responsible for the acquisition of knowledge. To be responsible means to care for and to be concerned with the right amount of information needed to achieve the objectives of the topic. Difficulty in understanding a concept will create anxiety in students, forcing them to come forward to look for their facilitators. They are being responsible. Students who could not be bothered with their learning will just give up and resist initiating to search. But, they cannot be blamed totally for it. Their environment may not cater for them.
As the world that has evolved, teaching too. Creativity that creates creativity - is good. But when an idled mind creates creativity - its not good.
