Implementation-Teaching Methods 22.9. 2021
- Afnan Khan
- Sep 27, 2021
- 7 min read
Implementation and Teaching Methods was the third webinar of the Pedagogical Competence I course. The webinar of the course group started with talks at a general level and inquired about various issues participants faced recently. They mostly talked about the blogging process and how it works and put links to participants’ blog in an excel sheet. Instructors then briefed today's program and competence goals of the webinar and teaching exercise in the groups. The following were the competence goals:
Competence goal of the Implementation methods presentations on 22.9.2021:
You understand the principles, practices and forms of guidance in vocational education/higher education.
You understand the relevance of the learning process in the planning of pedagogically founded teaching and guidance.
There were four groups, and each group had their unique questions to address during the lecture. The fifth group, which was the "Amazing Group", has the special task to evaluate the lectures based on the criteria form provided by the tutors. The following are the group names and respective tasks assigned to them:
Group 5: What are group (or team) dynamics and what collaborative methods, or practices can be used in teaching? How can the teaching methods promote students' teamwork skills?
Group 1: How can the vocational/higher ed. classroom teaching methods promote individual learning process and personalized learning paths? What kind of methods can be used?
Group 2: How does the vocational teacher tutor and guide groups (teams)? How does the vocational teacher tutor and guide individuals? What kind of methods can be used and what are common guiding processes?
Group 3: What are pedagogical models? How can they help you to choose the teaching methods? Choose at least one model that you use in your teaching task!
Amazing Group: Special task shared by tutors. After the initial 30 minutes, everyone moved into their groups, and lecturing started.
I was in ROOM 1, and the first presenter in my class was Mahmood from Group 5.
He talked about collaborative methods used in teaching and the role in promoting teamwork skills in students. The framework of the lecture was provided at the start of the class. He also described that, he would adopt collaborative teaching and the jigsaw method and provided good references throughout the lecture. After the quick start, he shared the Padlet link and asked two main questions to the participants:
What are good and the bad experiences associated while learning in the groups?
Everyone told their personal and professional knowledge about learning in groups, and it was informative to discuss later on.
Later the lecture moved towards likes and dislikes in the group work. Mahmood has covered various benefits and disadvantages of working in a group. In my opinion, there were many points on both sides I agreed to. For example, on the advantages side, the best outcomes are formed when group members listen to all ideas without judgment and unequal distribution of tasks and work on the disadvantage side.
In the next part, Mahmood described how teaching methods promote teamwork skills. He has enlisted seven key points, which can enhance teamwork skills for students. These include complexity and clarity of task, argumentation - not arguing, grouping, accountability via a product, language support, time, and ask for help.
The whole presentation was well visualized and interactive and there were two discussion sessions and, in the end, a good question and answer session. The presenter responded to all questions well and prepared the topic well. There were camera problems and long lecturing at some points, but the overall experience and quality of information were good.
Eirini delivered the second lesson from Group 1. The start of the lecture was very interactive, and she gave some time to break and look around to relax. I think that was an excellent way to start with. Later she began with defining the goals of the lecture, and three main goals were defined.
She has talked about working methods vs teaching methods and later moved the discussion to teaching walk and independent study. There were many concepts discussed but somehow jumping from one idea to another was very quick.
The presentation was well visualised, and she used Peardeck website and application for lecturing. It was an exciting tool to use as everything was clickable in real-time by each participant. The approach was very proactive and interactive. For most of the lecture, everyone talked and discussed various concepts and even then, time was well managed. VARK model and its connection made teaching methods that can promote learning methods and personalised learning paths. The VARK model, introduced by Neil Fleming and Colleen Mills in 1992, comprised a visual learner, auditory learner, reading-writing learner, and kinaesthetic learner. Eirini has also discussed effective teaching and learning methods in vocational education in a very interactive way in real-time. Everyone told their personal experiences and opinions and discussed them in the lecture. Overall, I think it was a comprehensive and interactive lecture and well visualised.
There was 15 minutes break, and after that, the third lesson started with Group 2’s presentation.
The lesson was focused on how the vocational teacher or tutor guides groups (teams)?
How does the vocational teacher or tutor guide individuals?
What kind of methods can be used, and what are standard guiding processes?
Feroz opened up the session with a video titles as Anti bullying short film: The Bus stop (2017), which was about 17 minutes long video.
The theme of the video was bullying and the fight against bullying. It was an exciting and emotional video indeed. At the beginning, it felt like it had taken up much of the lesson, but later the question answering was interesting. Group 2 successfully connected the theme of the video with the theme of the lesson, in my opinion. Feroz used Piaget and Perry's Model of cognitive development to analyse the video's teaching methods and guiding process. He has talked about four main points from Piaget and Perry's work:
The curriculum should be restructured so that courses become progressively more structured
A diversity of learning tasks is required
Students need concrete learning experiences such as case studies, team projects, industrial experience etc
A learning environment which supports risk taking needs to be developed
All the participants contributed their thoughts and understanding about the video and connected it to the theoretical framework. Overall, it was also an interactive lecture in the relaxed learning environment.
Ivan delivered the fourth lesson from Group 3. I think it was the best lesson of that day. The lesson has covered the following three main themes:
What are pedagogical models?
How can they help you to choose the teaching methods?
Choose at least one model that you use in your teaching task!
The lesson started with a quick test of all participants about various learning theories. The test woke everyone up because it was so fast, followed by evaluation. It stressed out everyone, but at the same time, it was the trick to everyone get involved in the topic quickly. Before starting the test, an official table of various theories was been provided, and everyone went through it.
After the test was done, Ivan enlisted the learning goals of the lesson with a light discussion session. This briefing helped to understand the lesson, which comprised learning theory, teaching methods and pedagogical model. After that activity started in which there was the following scenario:
Each participant had to select one theory and convince the dean about that specific teaching method’s adaptation.
Ivan used role-play and hands-on teaching techniques to perform that activity. Everyone presented their assigned theories. My task was to convince the dean about the ‘Flipped Class Learning’ method. I gave my opinions and five significant arguments to defend my teaching methodology which was followed by debate and discussion. The summary of all five methods has been described and discussed. So, it has helped overall to recall all theories and practices. Personally, it was the rollercoaster and within the 40 minutes, and I enjoyed it the most.
After the four presentations, everyone moved backed to General Room in video meeting. Instructors gave their comments during each lecture and explained things briefly afterwards.
Feedback/assessment:
In the last segment of the day, all assessment group people briefly described their feedback. I have also explained the essential highlights of my assessment, the same as Silvia and Teija. Amazing Group submitted their evaluation in a week’s time in the general team's Group. The importance of learning outcomes and lecture structure in the start and video gestures has been discussed in the assessment part of the webinar. That was ending of the day.
The overall experience was good, all lessons were exciting. It helped to get clarity and different viewpoints about methods and theories involved in principles, practices and forms of guidance in vocational education and higher education. It has also enlightened me to the learning process in the planning of pedagogically founded teaching guidance.
References:
Aaltodoc.aalto.fi. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/4755/isbn9789526030357.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y> [Accessed 25 September 2021].
Biggs, J. (1999) Teaching for Quality Learning at University (pp. 165-203). Buckingham, UK: SRHE and Open University Press. https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE/aboutus/publications/teaching_eng/chapter14.pdf
Teaching Engineering - Wankat & Oreovicz Learning Theories Chapter 15
Teaching Engineering - Wankat & Oreovicz Models of cognitive development: Piaget and Perry 1994
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: New Trends and Innovations. University of Aveiro, 13-17. 2003.
The Education system in Finland in 2011 – Materials provided by OAMK instructors
Vocational Skills Demonstrations in Finland – Materials provided by OAMK instructors
Dreyfus, S.E., 2004. The five-stage model of adult skill acquisition. Bulletin of science, technology & society, 24(3), pp.177-181.
College, M., 2021. Blooms Higher Level Verbs | Curriculum | Mesa Community College. [online] Mesacc.edu. Available at: <https://www.mesacc.edu/employees/course-management/curriculum/resources/blooms-higher-level-verbs> [Accessed 23 September 2021].
Oamk.fi. 2021. Professional Teacher Education :: Oulun ammattikorkeakoulu :: Opinto-opas. [online] Available at: <https://www.oamk.fi/opinto-opas/en/school-professional-teacher-education/professional-teacher-education> [Accessed 23 September 2021].
About Author
Afnan is an RDI Specialist at the LAB University of Applied Sciences. His research areas include product and service development, innovations, knowledge creation, brain drain in Finland. He is also a work-life coach and multicultural trainer in Arffman (Barona Oy), Finland. Additionally, he has worked in five different countries and completed multiple university degrees in Finland and abroad. He has also worked as a researcher in Finland and Sweden. His blog series named Rooting for Pedagogy Science is his personal journey to learn pedagogy in Finnish perceptive.
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Hello, I have read your blog. Here are my thoughts and suggestions.
It's fantastic that you discuss the subjects and what you learned in the session in such a thorough and interesting manner. I appreciate how you used visuals to help you remember what you learned. It demonstrates your extensive knowledge and assists the readers in comprehending the subject. It's a good idea to include references so that readers can access the information.
Regards,
Feroj Mahmood