Don’t you always rely on one single teaching practice

Taken from https://www.natcom.org/CommCurrentsArticle.aspx?id=4074

Don’t you Always Rely on One Single Teaching Practice

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed. School of English Faculty of Social Sciences Universidad Latina de Costa Rica Sunday, May 22, 2016 Post 283

“Don’t you always rely on one single teaching practice; it may not work all the time for all of your students.” This is a statement I constantly heard from a colleague of mine who passed away some time ago. And he was indeed right! Learning outcomes can be assessed differently, but no matter what, they must be aligned with the right assessment strategy to benefit the student not the teacher.

Assessments need to be 100% aligned with one’s teaching and course objectives. Oftentimes I have heard ex-students of mine complaining that they feel that they are being graded unfairly because there is no consistency between what is being taught and the way it is being graded.

I must confess that I hardly ever use multiple-choice exams in my content courses. As a language teacher, in a regular English class, I may use this type of test.

However, as I stated before, I do not usually work on exams, but if I do, I also provide other types of exercises as part of student examination. Now, if I relate this to Andre’s class, I guess he could have been more productive trying a different kind of testing device such as Problem-Based Learning.

Had I been Andre, I would have used all these techniques to maximize student learning in my class.

PROJECTBASED LEARNING

PROBLEMBASED LEARNING

Collaborative learning is based on the view that knowledge is a social construct.

Consequently, knowledge needs to be built while Ss collaborate with one another.

Project-based learning is a dynamic classroom approach in which students actively explore realworld problems and challenges and acquire a deeper knowledge.

In problembased learning (PBL) courses, students work with classmates to solve complex and authentic problems that help develop content knowledge as well as problemsolving, reasoning, communication, and selfassessment skills.

• - The learner or student is the primary focus of instruction.

- Based on John Dewey’s idea that Ss are not passive recipients of knowledge

- While the content and structure of PBL courses may differ, the general goals and learning objectives tend to be similar. –

ROTE LEARNING

COOPERATIVE LEARNING

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

Definition.

Rote learning is the memorization of information based on repetition. The two biggest examples of rote learning are the alphabet and numbers

Cooperative learning is an approach to group work that minimizes the occurrence of those unpleasant situations and maximizes the learning and satisfaction that result from working on a highperformance team

Characteristics.

- Learning by heart.

- working in teams while developing a project or research project

- Ability to repeat information though it does not really mean the students knows why

- team members are meant to graded separately

• - Interaction and "doing" are of primary importance • - Working in groups is an important

- Used by Maria Montessori as a way to help children to develop their knowledge and learning

- PBL begins with the assumption that learning is an active, integrated, and

mode of learning.

Example.

- The alphabet in English - The numbers

Recommendations for its application.

abilities - Considered as a new fit for the 21st century education learning

- lab projects

• - Structured approaches to developing solutions to real-world problems should be incorporated into learning.

- peer learning

- jigsaws

- think-pair-share

- Scrapbooking

- Web Quests

- peer editing

- write-pair-share

- Parts of the body

- peer leading

- fishbowl debate

- Asynchronous forum discussions

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What do you think?

To use it combined with spiral learning to have students create an extensive wordbase.

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To be used along with class projects such as writing assignmen ts where Ss help each other To be used in activities such as role plays where a leader is needed

Students work on small groups to find solutions to problems such as a questionnair e connected to a reading that implies critical thinking

To be used to have students develop a project that consists of several steps that must be monitored to guarantee success at the end of the process

constructive process influenced by social and contextual factors (Barrows, 1996; Gijselaers, 1996).

- open-ended problems that require a variety of solutions

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To be used to discuss with Ss real problems that they face in their communitie s to provide solutions and an action plan to execute their suggestions