Curriculum, learning and teaching
No longer a case of ‘Do as I tell you to do’ Natalie Shaw on the implementation of DesignBased Education at ITEps (International Teacher Education for Primary Schools) “I could give them detailed instructions on how to hold the bat, where to stand, … never letting them hold a bat until they had heard several lectures on the subject. Or, I could give them a bat and allow them to take a few swings” (Bain, 2004: 110). Not the words – as one might be forgiven for thinking – of a baseball coach; rather, the teaching philosophy of Harvard professor Michael Sandel, one of many teachers featured in Bain’s study on higher education teachers who consistently achieve exceptional transformations of students’ levels of conceptual understanding. With Michael Sandel, we as Winter
Summer |
| 2018
teacher educators believe in the power of learning through challenging and relevant experiences, in activating and building upon prior learning – and, in doing so, in conveying trust in our students’ abilities to successfully manage these complex learning situations. As our subject is teaching and learning, we are further aware that our instructional approach, in addition to transporting our essential beliefs about human learning and understanding (Krull, 2012), provides powerful and lasting examples which may in turn shape the way that our graduates conceptualise, organise and guide teaching and learning in their own international school classrooms
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