2010 rflection

Certificate in Tertiary Studies Reflection.

During this course my eyes opened up to different ideas about not only how to teach but ways in which to relate more effectively with the students. Some important issues were raised in regards to getting the learner to open up on the first day that they enter your class. I gained numerous ideas in this aspect from name games where they tell others information about themselves which that person then relates to the rest of the classs. Guaging students past learning experiences and valueing that also. Using light humour to break down barriers is a technique which I employ already as it is something that I feel comfortable with.
One idea which I took out of this course that stuck in my mind was that Adult learners enter your class on the first day as “the child” where they are almost afraid and have the past insecurities of learning still over their heads. Our goal is to break that thought and open up a new way in which to study. Giving them the knowledge that what we are trying to get through to them is about a possible vocation and the information is valuable. This I feel is where the older more mature students have a head start on the 16 – 18 yr olds. They are aware that in doing this course the skills learnt relate directly to their chosen industry.
After being introduced to the SOLO taxonomy this year I have tried to question my students with less leading questions and get them to think about the relationships between things. Moving away from yes no answers and asking questions that require an explanation and or comparisons.
This course has made me introduce my class to Emit as a resource. The only problem was that the information that was on my account and what I had been told was ready for our students was not available to them. This had the effect of making me look rather silly in front of my entire class. Even instructing the students to look up resources in the library computer that were there at the start of the year but had been moved to a completely different location requiring links through national databases. I thought my students were pulling my leg till I tried to find the resources. In the end I had to contact the librarians to find these texts myself. Very helpful they were.
Being introduced to the Blogging and wikis was an important part of the course. This has become even more so as our new course that is being designed now to be used next year will be implementing these as ways for our students to log or reflect on what they have done. Not only as individuals but as a group also. Although I will need to get more practise at this but on the job training should be fine – always been one to learn through doing. In 2011 I am looking forward to learning as much from my students as they learn from me.
MANAGEMENT – Time and classroom. Interesting ideas about how to manage my lessonds into time chunks that allow me to teach the required information in the aloted time. This also helps classroom management of annoying students as if you have the structure in the class you should be able to keep those people entertained and active enough so that they are les of a nuisance and more productive or involved with activities.
Revisiting the learning in short chunks to determine what has been learnt and reinforce the learning. Lots of begginings, middles and ends.
During 2010 I tried many ways to teach lessons. My favourite way that worked a treat once my students understood more about our course was to get them to do the asking. After brief overview of subject matter I got the students to give me questions that they wanted answers to. This worked amazingly well because all of a sudden they had ownership of their own learning. It kept them involved and interested in the class. After they found answers to their own questions they then answered them as a class group which opened up lines of discussion between them. Great way to inspire thought and communication.
In one of our classes this year a phrase came up that I tend to agree with. If you are enthusiastic others will be too – I called it infectious enthusiasm. The way that Nuddy made it seem like Bloggs and wikis were the most fantastic thing since sliced bread got me quite enthused by it.
The only real problem I found was that at the start of the course we were not informed very well of how we were to be assessed. If the training on the electronic logs happened at the start of the course and we could actually work on the blogs as we went through the course I would have had so much more practise using them. The initial training I feel needs to be done earlier on in order for the students to better understand the resource. It would allow us to get to grips with the blogging instead of being rushed into it at the end where we don’t even get the opportunity to figure out what we don’t know or understand.


Bjorn van Eunen..

Final reflection

I had a good time in the CTS class this year. I have used various methods to teach my class this year with varying degtrees of success. The class got into group work and worked well together. Only problems encountered with most of this was the noise levels that erupted( very vocal group).
Another idea I used was to tell the class what they needed to learn about and then send them to locate the relevant information. Once this was done we then discussed the answers with the class bringing on sometimes heated debates.
Tried SOLO questioning but found that the students answers were still short and sharp, not thought out.
As this was my first class that I have taught it went well and I will continue to learn and progress as I hope all my future students will as well.