Essential Task of the Educator
The essential task of the educator is to arrange conditions of the learner’s environment so that processes of learning will be activated, supported, enhanced, and maintained.†Also, the instructor must be able to demonstrate considerable knowledge of the principles and methodologies of effective teaching and
learning with demonstrated experiences in sharing that knowledge with colleagues through formal and
informal professional learning activities.
Oscar,
What are one or two of the specific things you do to "activate" the learning process in your classes?
Jeffrey Schillinger
Mr. Schillinger,
I find that changing the classroom environment keeps students on their toes and wondering what the lesson has in store for them today. Changing the layout of the classroom by varying desks and seating arrangements I have found arouses inquisitiveness. In addition, using various music and aromas could also energize or calm students to relate to the particular daily lesson. Rewarding students with tangible and/or edible items based on their involvement also evokes motivation and enhance the learning process.
Thanks, Oscar. These are things I used to do as a high school teacher that had a positive impact on learning. Sometimes career college classrooms do not lend themselves to things like varying the layot, but it sure is worth trying!
Jeffrey Schillinger
While I like the idea of keeping one's students on their toes, rearranging the desks works against learning. I want my students paying attention to the topic at hand, not their new perspective in the classroom.
I had an epiphany regarding teaching during my last quarter as an undergraduate. I was thinking about taking Beginning Filmmaking. A friend who'd taken the course said that the instructor isn't very good but I will learn a lot. I wondered how that could be true. After taking the course, I knew. The instructor wasn't conventionally good. That is, he wasn't entertaining. He misspelled words that he should have been able to spell (e.g., "focus"). But he created a learning environment that allowed his students to learn, as my friend said, a lot.
Creating an exciting, enjoyable learning environment is essential to student success, especially for adult students. "Edutainment" is a stated goal for a lot of teachers.
p.s. I had very good luck in rearranging classrooms and reassigning partners when I taught.
Jeffrey Schillinger
The first method is to break the class up into "families" and then assign various group projects.
The second method is to begin the first presentation on a topic with a "hook" to arouse interest. For excample, when introducing a class to opera, I use a recording of The Three Tenors, saying, "You are about to see a man who should be dead." Jose Carreres had cancer and was treated at Fred Hutchison. He had luekemia and should have died, except he underwent a total blood treatment and survived. Ergo, he should have been a dead man.
Robert,
The "hook" is an important strategy. Students won't learn well until they are engaged in the lesson. We used to reference this as "Grett and Grab;" with "grab" referencing attention.
Jeffrey Schillinger
This thread hit on activating, supporting, and a little enhancing. What about maintaining?Maintaining, to me, consists of keeping that edge: Instructor proficiency (subject matter expert), relevance (current to field), and motivated (rested and passionate about each delivery)...and provides the inspiration that learning is accomplished and sustained afterwards.
Francis,
We make professional development, (maintaining) a key preformance metic for our faculty members. We ask them to engage both in things tha will make them a better teacher and things that increase their knowledge inthe subject area.
Jeffrey Schillinger
