The first two days of vocational teacher studies had took place 5-6.6.2014 in Oulu. During these days we had orientation of the whole program, such as basic rules, contents of the program and the tools will be used in the program. The group of our class had different nationality backgrounds; From Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America.
We had introduced each other, and during our introduction we had been grouped into different groups and filmed our introduction. During the orientation day, we had checked adobe connect tool for our upcoming classes. To me it was the first time to use adobe connect tool. It was great experience.
At the lunchtime we went out of school, which was really quite interesting and fun. After the lunch we had been divided into groups and had given us an assignment to search QR codes inside the school building. This was really interesting task rather than sitting in the class.
We had been assigned to draw our first classroom or at least the one, which we still remember in our early childhood. The main idea behind this drawing was to understand the difference between a teacher centered and student centered classrooms, and how it will affect our future way of teaching?
The above figure is the class that came in mind, and it can be is completely a teacher-centered classroom. Almost all of the students’ drawing was same (teacher-centered class), and during my childhood education this approach was common in my country and still they are practicing it. Students were totally dependent upon to the teacher. He/she was everything in the class.
The challenge is how is how a person from completely class-centered will assure the balance between student centered class and teacher-centered class. The whole journey of this study is how to ensure that my future classes will be student-centered, where discussion, argument, analysis, independent thinking, creativity, etc. will be encouraged.
MY FUTURE AS VOCATIONAL TEACHER
I spent most of my life as student either formal or informal, and through that journey I met a lot of teachers. Some of the teachers had no influence on my life. They were just ordinary and teacher-centered and I even forget their names, while some of them had inspired and guided me. I couldn’t for get how they succeeded to affect my personal and professional life positively.
Indeed my dream is to be a mentor and adviser educator, who inspires his students and clients. My aim is to help the country of my origin and to be part of the education developers in there. The areas of my expertise are including internationalization of companies, Marketing, communication, customer care, entrepreneurship, project management, and personal training.
This diploma (professional teacher training) will give me an opportunity to utilize the above-mentioned expertise in my future career and to become a role model instructor and mentor.
Learning Theories
Behaviorism, Cognitivism, constructivism
Behaviorism ”focuses on one particular view of learning: a change in external behavior achieved through a large amount of repetition of desired actions, the reward of good habits and the discouragement of bad habits. In the classroom, this view of learning allow educators to assist their students in excelling both academically and personally. They praise for correct outcomes and immediate correction of mistakes. In the field of language learning this type of teaching was called the audio-lingual method, characterized by the whole class using choral chanting of key phrases, dialogues and immediate correction.
Within the behaviourist view of learning, the "teacher" is the dominant person in the classroom and takes complete control, evaluation of learning comes from the teacher who decides what is right or wrong. The learner does not have any opportunity for evaluation or reflection within the learning process, they are simply told what is right or wrong. The conceptualization of learning using this approach could be considered "superficial" as the focus is on external changes in behaviour i.e. not interested in the internal processes of learning leading to behaviour change and has no place for the emotions involved the process.”
To me behaviorism in education is a foundational way of introduction to learning. It is needed in primary education to prepare small kids for the journey of their learning. It allows small kids to feel good for the positive enforcement and rewards.
Today, this is adea is widely practicing in many countries for all levels of education, which is unfortunate. Gaining good marks is the main motive of learners and thus memorization is the best way to get high marks. Sometimes learners get pressure from their parents, because they are ones, who decide what subjects their children learn and what professions will have the future.
Learners have career models, which is based on having luxury hoses, latest cars and to be wealthy, and simply they follow what employers, teachers and parents say to get huge money at their earlier ages. Therefore behaviorism will remain in our education system and this will eliminate or reduce the creativity our societies.
Cognitivism: The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviorism in 1960s as the dominant paradigm. Cognitivism focuses on the inner mental activities – opening the “black box” of the human mind is valuable and necessary for understanding how people learn. Mental processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problem-solving need to be explored. Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions. Learning is defined as change in a learner’s schemata.”
Source: https://www.learning-theories.com/cognitivism.html
Constructivism - "At their core, constructivist perspectives focus on how learners construct their own understanding. ... learners construct knowledge based on what they already understand as they make connections between new information and old information. Students' prior ideas, experiences, and knowledge interact with new experiences and their interpretations of the environment around them. Research by Savery & Duffy (1995) suggests that learning how to use constructivist theories involves many interactions between the content, the context, the activity of the learner, and the goals of the learner. Cognitive conflict drives this knowledge-building process. Cognitive conflict occurs for learners when they encounter and recognize discrepancies between what they already know and new persuasive information that brings their current understanding into question
It seems difficult to see the difference between teacher's and student's role in Constructivism and Cognitivism. Constructivism seems to be even more personalized and individually orientated than Cognitivism, but how does the role of the teacher and learner differs?
Online Groups
Our group consisted of five people located in four different places; Helsinki, Vaasa, Kotka, and Italy. The challenge was how to prepare lectures, since we all live in different places. The idea of Skype came out for our discussions, but again the challenge was how to create the masterpieces of our presentation with equal input of all group members, then GOOGLE DOCS with Skype was the ideal and helped our online group working. We agreed to collect materials and share on each other through emails, and after reading we discuss on Skype, select the important parts from all of the groups’ materials and finally decide the design of our presentation.
What I liked and need to appreciate our group was common understanding, while all of us came from different culture backgrounds. No one was convincing to take his/her material to others for the presentation. The all group members collect huge information with different angels and tools, which could never happen while working alone.
Sometimes, in a group work you think that some ideas cannot work at the beginning, but may be at the end it will work perfectly, so always accept difference, creativity and be patient.
Brainstorming, Mind mapping and Step-by step discussion methods
In this assignment we asked to pick up three methods from Hyppönen et al. (Chapter 4; something you have never/seldom used yourself) and use it for this presentation!
We decided to pick up these three following methods:
- Mind mapping
- Brainstorming and
- Step-by-step discussion
Mind Mapping
In a mind map, the most essential subject is placed in the centre of the paper, to which subjects are connected in a tree-like form. The teacher can use mind maps to structure a presentation, to create a description during a discussion or to support the students’ activities or group work.
Brainstorming:
In brainstorming, the teaching group is divided into smaller groups, which are then told to come up with solutions, questions or factors. The groups think up their ideas simultaneously so that each member can write down their ideas. It is important to emphasize to the students that even the craziest ideas can be presented during brainstorming and that all critique is forbidden during the brainstorming phase. The ideas are criticised after the brainstorming session. After the ideas are assembled, the best suggestions are then found by voting or otherwise filtering the ideas.
Do`s in Brainstorming
- Capture everything
- Encourage participation
- Ask clarification
Evaluate everything
Force participation
sequence
Ask judging questions
After Brainstorming do these process
- Categorize
- Reduce
- Analyze
- Step-by-step discussion
The idea of the step-by-step discussion is to go through a series of questions either with the whole teaching group or in smaller groups. For the implementation, the teacher prepares a set of questions that follow one another, to which the students then find answers. The answers can be found by reading or through discussion or thought.
Strengths and challenges
This method can easily be used with varying group sizes. Because the questions are prepared beforehand, the teacher may lead the students through a selected train of thoughts. Preparing the questions beforehand also makes it possible for the teacher to predict the situation. The method’s major challenges include the creation of good series of questions. The answers to the questions should be readily accessible for the students, but they should not be too easy. Another challenge is how to reach the ultimate goal of learning from searching for the answers instead of just answering the questions. (Hyppönen et al 2009, 43.)
Inquiry Based Learning Theory
"Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.” The last part of this statement is the essence of inquiry-based learning.
Inquiry implies involvement that leads to understanding. Furthermore, involvement in learning implies possessing skills and attitudes that permit you to seek resolutions to questions and issues while you construct new knowledge. (source: thirteen.org)
Major difference between traditional way of learning and IBL:
Traditional learning focuses more on LEARNING ABOUT THINGS, while inquiry learning focuses more on LEARNING THINGS! Another useful way to contrast the two might be: Thinking WHAT as opposed to thinking HOW. (source: thirteen.org)
"The Levels of Inquiry-Based Learning:
There are many different explanations for inquiry teaching and learning and the various levels of inquiry that can exist within those contexts.
Level 1: Confirmation Inquiry. The teacher has taught a particular science theme or topic. The teacher then develops questions and a procedure that guides students through an activity where the results are already known. This method is great to reinforce concepts taught and to introduce students into learning to follow procedures, collect and record data correctly and to confirm and deepen understandings.
Level 2: Structured Inquiry. The teacher provides the initial question and an outline of the procedure. Students are to formulate explanations of their findings through evaluating and analyzing the data that they collect.
Level 3: Guided Inquiry. The teacher only provides the research question for the students. The students are responsible for designing and following their own procedures to test that question and then communicate their results and findings.
Level 4: Open/True Inquiry. Students formulate their own research question(s), design and follow through with a developed procedure, and communicate their findings and results. This type of inquiry is often seen in science fair contexts where students drive their own investigative questions. Banchi and Bell (2008) explain that teachers should begin their inquiry instruction at the lower levels and work their way to open inquiry in order to effectively develop students’ inquiry skills. Open inquiry activities are only successful if students are motivated by intrinsic interests and if they are equipped with the skills to conduct their own research study.[15]
Inquiry-based learning can be done in multiple formats, including:
• Field-work
• Case studies
• Investigations
• Individual and group projects
• Research projects"
(source: wikipedia)
I agree with the critics of IBL and it might lead to certain misconceptions of knowledge. I would see that IBL is a more appropriate method for advanced courses rather than the basic ones.
Effective Learning Methods
Do a teacher can inspire and facilitate learning?
Teacher can do a lot and use different methods and tools to activate learning. Thera are different methods that teacher can make learning affective, but these methods should be as fellows;
1) Teaching methods be adjusted and satisfied learners`culture and motivation.
2)Teaching methods should embrace different methodology and to fit student levels of development
3)Teaching should be designed the effectiveness of teaching method.
There are several teaching models that are believed to be effective: Progressive Inquiry (can be shaped as Flipped classroom or Problem-based learning); Scientific Learning Cycle; and Kolb's Learning Cycle. All of them are more or less designed under the Cognitivistic view.
Scientific Learning Cycle Theory
How this SLC can be applied in teaching? For example, first, students are introduced with some experiment or do certain simulation. Further their exploration is explained by scientific concepts and theory. Finally, students are asked to apply the received knowledge for new examples or develop the knowledge further and make ‘knowledge structure’ (key relation chart; memory board; concept maps or networks; etc.). (summarized from Wankat & Oreovicz, chapter 15)
Progressive Inquiry Theory
PI's goal is to find answer for the problem, which cannot be solved with extant knowledge. Process is collaborative and spiral: a group starts searching how certain problem can be solved; asks related to the problem questions; build possible hypotheses; read and search for relevant information which could help to solve the problem till conclusion about solution is reached. The answer to the problem might even be that solution is not possible. The most important thing is to build collectively and cumulatively knowledge and understanding about a certain challenge or problem. (summarized from class discussion)
Activating Teaching Methods
In my opinion discussion is a very useful tool to engage and activate the class. It is very important for a teacher to rise right and useful questions in the discussion and without this capability classroom discussion may not be productive, mind provoking, and will be waste of time. Teachers need to manage class discussions, because there are always students need to talk more, some of them are out of topic, therefore managing class discussions will be challenging. Finally discussion is useful method and encourage diversity of students and I liked it. It is not always easy and simple to manage class discussions, therefore it is needed to plan and set up guiding questions rather than to follow the new ideas generated form the class.
Learnng through discussion (LTD) is a model, which consist of 4 steps: 1) Students explore and do the research on given topic alone. 2) They compare their findings in pairs. 3) They gather with their findings into bigger groups, discuss and try to form a common agreement on findings. 4) Every student takes part in a conversation with everyone in the class room. This might be a bit chaotic sometimes, but it is very useful experience. This way more than just a few students will be activated into discussion compared to a normal teaching and reflecting situation
There are other methods that can be activate classes such as Self-Regulate Learning; teacher is like mentor who is observing students efforts to set certain goals for his/her own learning, process with investigation, and reflect on the learning outcomes against individually set criterion.
Please watch below video, and you will admire how teaching can be activated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dilnw_dP3xk#t=184
Different Learners
During our study of different learners we foung that For reading alone, the learner’s retention was 10 percent; for hearing alone, 26 percent; and for seeing, 30 percent. If the learner both saw and heard, retention was 50 percent; if the learner said something, retention was 70 percent; and if the learner said and did something, the retention was 90 percent. Thus, auditory styles of teaching should be heavily supplemented with visual and, to a lesser extent, kinesthetic learning opportunities." (Wankat & Oreovicz, chapter 15)
Therefore combining visual, auditory, and kinesthetic methods of delivering the information increases learning productivity dramatically! This means that opportunities for the student to speak, write, and solve problems should be incorporated in every course.
A short video about different learners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWybSdIDuRs
Differentiation of learners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkIQ6KiyA5U
COMPETENCES OF VOCATIONAL TEACHER
According to the education board of Finland, the competences of a vocational teacher consisted of four themes:
Figure 1 Competences of vocational teacher (FNEB)
Practical working experience:
In Finland, a vocational teacher should has at least three years of work experiences and to know how things done practically. Teachers with lacked of practical work experience and outdated knowledge & skills threat the quality of vocational education and training. A competitive vocational teacher should have practical working experience to teach learners practical knowledge.
Vocational knowledge and skills:
Generally teachers are expected to be experts, but the main traits that teachers missing are technological competences, new working methods for their fields, entrepreneurial teaching, ecological focus and wellness services.
Field development and continuing training:
Teachers were supposed to have the will to develop their own field and sense of responsibility for development of their own specialization area. The future prospects of different fields were not seen clearly and the economic recession was perceived to weaken the attractiveness of certain fields and to reduce willingness to study. Continuing training and development are essential for vocational teacher in order to teach his/her learners an updated information and knowledge.
Development of personal competence and cont. training:
The challenges for change in the world of work were considered to require continuous studying, updating of knowledge and skills in the relevant vocational field, organization of professional development placements at workplaces and participation of teachers in working life projects and international exchanges. Working and training are both needed to develop personal competences of vocational teachers.
Vocational Teachers are in charge of delivering the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills to their learners. They also have main responsibility for the learners and their overall progress. The question is how a teacher without the some above four components can ensure the progress of learners. The four competences of vocational teacher are interrelated to each other and cannot be separated.
A good teacher needs to possess a wide and deep knowledge and understanding of the professional field, personal and human growth and development and how to handle this growth by means of education and training. Furthermore, teachers need to have adopted the ethical responsibility of the profession. Finally, a teacher operates in a multi-dimensional context and must understand the dialogue and interlink between education, labour market and society to be able to promote the learners progress in life.
Teacher-centered vs. Learner-centered paradigms
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| Figure 1: Teacher centered class (Google) |
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| Figure 2: Student centered class (Google) |
Comparison of Teacher-centered and Learner-centered paradigms
(Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses by Huba and Freed 2000)
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Teacher-Centered Paradigm
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Learner-Centered Paradigm
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Knowledge is transmitted from professor to students
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Students construct knowledge through gathering and synthesizing information and integrating it with the general skills of inquiry, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and so on
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Students passively receive information
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Students are actively involved
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Emphasis is on acquisition of knowledge outside the context in which it will be used
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Emphasis is on using and communicating knowledge effectively to address enduring and emerging issues and problems in real-life contexts
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Professor’s role is to be primary information giver and primary evaluator
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Professor’s role is to coach and facilitate
Professor and students evaluate learning together
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Teaching and assessing are separate
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Teaching and assessing are intertwined
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Assessment is used to monitor learning
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Assessment is used to promote and diagnose learning
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Emphasis is on right answer
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Emphasis is on generating better questions and learning from errors
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Desired learning is assessed indirectly through the use of objectively scored tests
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Desired learning is assessed directly through papers, projects, performances, portfolios, and the like
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Focus is on a single discipline
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Approach is compatible with interdisciplinary investigation
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Culture is competitive and individualistic
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Culture is cooperative, collaborative, and supportive
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Only students are viewed as learners
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Professor and students learn together
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Teaching and assessing are intertwined, they aren’t separate.
Assessment is used to promote learning not to monitor the learning
Learning outcomes is assessed through authentic assessment, paper work, projects, assignments, portfolio, writing reflection, etc, not through objective score test.
The objective of assessment is not to judge the students, but to motivate the students and apply their knowledge.
Reflection:
Remembering my early classes, teacher-centered class was a common. The learner-centered class is the one we need to engage our students.
As you can see the three bold boxes on the table above are the most features on learner-centered class, that 21st century teachers are needed to consider deeply with the consideration of all others.
Teaching and assessing are intertwined
Assessment is used to promote and diagnose learning
Desired learning is assessed directly through papers, projects, performances, portfolios, and the like.
References
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/pedagogy/v003/3.1kain.html
http://assessment.uconn.edu/docs/TeacherCenteredVsLearnerCenteredParadigms.pdf
Traits of Good Teacher
Verbal ability:
Studies show that students taught by teachers with great verbal ability learn more than those taught by teachers with lower verbal ability (Rowan, Chiang, & Miller, 1997; Strauss & Sawyer, 1986). Therefore a great link exists between effective teachers’ vocabulary and verbal skills and student academic success, as well as teacher performance, because communication skill is a part of verbal ability, teachers with better verbal abilities can more effectively convey ideas to students and communicate with them in a clear and compelling manner.
Here are some characteristics of good teacher:
- Qualification
- Content Knowledge
- Teaching Experience
- Caring, knowing students
- Listening, understanding
- Fairness and respect
- Social interactions with students
- Enthusiasm and motivation
- Attitude towards teaching
Much of the recent research on teacher effectiveness focuses on relating teacher behaviors to student achievement. Studies suggest that instructional and management processes are keys to effectiveness, but many interview and survey responses about effective teaching emphasize the teacher’s effective characteristics, or social and emotional behaviors, more than pedagogical practices. These affective characteristics are difficult to quantify; however, characteristics such as love of children, love of work, positive relationships with colleagues and with children contribute to a teacher’s feeling of happiness. Noddings, (2005) explained that a teacher’s happiness could affect the classroom climate and therefore affect students. Moreover, the teacher’s psychological influence on students has been linked to student.
My reflection
Teachers are not machines, therefore it hard to quantify the characteristics of effectiveness. A good teacher is capable to recognize his/her own emotions as well as emotional atmosphere in the class. A good teacher is good a psychologist, who can see beyond the words said. Teacher should give the feeling of being cooperative and fair. With the respect of all other characteristics, I strong agree that social and emotional behaviors of teachers emphasize the students’ performance more than pedagogical practice. These characteristics include communication, listening, emotional intelligent, caring, respecting, cooperative, and fairness etc.
The activities of teachers vary from sector to sector.
References
James H., 2007. Qualities of Effective Teachers. 2nd Ed. Virginia: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD)
http://teaching.about.com/od/Information-For-Teachers/a/Twenty-five-Essential-Qualities-Of-A-Good-Teacher.htm
https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/resources/teaching/planning-your-approach/characteristics-effective-teachers
Volmari, K., Helakorpi, S. & Frimodt, R. 2009. COMPETENCE FRAMEWORK FOR VET PROFESSIONS: Handbook for practitioners. Available at: http://www.oph.fi/download/111332_Competence_framework_for_VET_professions.pdf
Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning is more than just putting students in groups and giving them something to do, but it is a tool which professional teachers use to encourage students and activate participation of all group members.
Increases Confidence
Liking for school
Improves complex thinking.
Interethnic relations
Moves away the negative competition and conflict
How?
Cooperative learning is not an easy task, while needed to implement it such questions needed to be asked wh to stress intrinsic or extrinsic motivation (Graves, 1990), how much choice to give students in such matters as how, about what, and with whom they will collaborate, and how tightly to structure activities to help encourage effective cooperation
Conclusion
Modern pedagogy seeks to help learners become more independent, and capable of being lifelong learners. Cooperative learning promotes that learners have a role in planning, implementing, evaluating, decreases dependence on teachers and hence it hence it gives learner more autonomy.
Flipped Classroom
Flipped classroom is a way of teaching. If traditional way of teaching is: lecturing in the classroom and doing homework individually at home; so, flipped classroom makes things just the opposite: students do the 'knowledge part' (read books on the subject, watch videos which teacher prepared, browses internet, etc.) at home and in the classroom practices and applies that knowledge on the topic which they gathered on their own.
Traditional classroom makes teacher as an intermediary between the knowledge and the student; while flipped classroom positions teacher as a coach (see good example of how it works here). This means that in flipped classroom teacher works with students individually depending on their need. Students, while doing 'knowledge part' on their own can explore material in their own pace (those who get things slower can re-read/re-watch the material, till they understand; others, might go for deeper and more challenging knowledge). In the classroom situation is similar: teacher, who acts as a coach, helps those students who need more guidance; pushes those who are comfortable with subject and requires deeper knowledge; and assists students who are dealing with the subject at a normal pace. In this way everyone is engaged and has a chance to progress at their own speed, but no one gets completely lost, as it is common in the traditional one-pace lecturing classroom where practicing the knowledge is done with no guidance.
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