We often hear about positive and encouraging feedback about the teaching quality from peers of academic faculty but is it really true?
Could students who enjoy a financially painless education, really care about teaching methods and do they care whether teaching methods need improvement? Could the education system be broken?
Even if all stakeholders care to fix it, could the problem be fixed among the primary stakeholder i.e students? Could standarising the method/process of teaching the teachers help?
Peers will agree that teaching quality is spotty: some is excellent; some is poor.
Students are reasonably aware of the quality of the education.
They can compare the poor courses with the good. However, they may not always be able to clearly articulate how to go about fixing the root cause of the problems.
Information from other stakeholders must be used to help determine the root causes of problems. Standardising the method of teaching is not the answer, as we need as many teaching styles as there are subjects.
Standardising the quality control is a better idea.
Peers will agree that teaching quality is spotty: some is excellent; some is poor.
Students are reasonably aware of the quality of the education.
They can compare the poor courses with the good. However, they may not always be able to clearly articulate how to go about fixing the root cause of the problems.
Information from other stakeholders must be used to help determine the root causes of problems. Standardising the method of teaching is not the answer, as we need as many teaching styles as there are subjects.
Standardising the quality control is a better idea.
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Yes I do think students do care about teaching methods as they play an important role with student engagement and student experience. Even if it was possible to standardize teaching methods, individuals will differ slightly in their teaching style. That is what adds to the diversity of the teaching and learning environment. For example at the University of Sydney in the area of pharmacy practice, various tutors running the workshops have different pharmacy backgrounds, some that work as hospital pharmacists, others in the areas of research or community pharmacy, yet the workshops retain the same material. The experience from each of the teachers in this area adds to the diversity of experiences that they can contribute to the classroom environment.
Establish teaching quality could represent some challenges.For example, changes in teaching quality may explain a small change in maths and reading. scores of students and there could be other factors involved. Likewise, observable teachers' characteristics may also explain a fraction of capacity of their value adding.
Do we have an understanding of what type of value adding measures could predict teachers' future success in classes and whether these values could be consistently applied to different students. For example , could successful measures that result in test scores of affluent kids be similar effect to the test scores of low income kids from inner city?.
Some education institutions may also consider fixing a percentage of passing as a form of quality control. It could represent a high level of passing per class and present a trend of high quality teaching. I guess It is a win win for teachers and places of learning but it may also hid the gaps between quality of teaching and actual comprehension level.
Teacher should be able to MAKE THE STUDENT WORK. Everything else is sheer bonus, but if teaching method fails in its primary objective, it is merely showbussines, nothing more.
I am very interested in teaching method that makes work a pleasure. But I am afraid that what we are searching for lies more in students than in teachers.......
Ow!
What is this "MAKE...?"
We are all standing at the edge of a vast unexplored country.
Will you push some one in front of you?
Or will you drag a student behind you by the ear?
What if the next step is a deep swamp or a bed of snakes?
How should we proceed?
Are you an adventurer? What have you discovered?
How much of this vast land have you already explored?
Can you speak of beauty?
Will you share failed turnings with successes?
If you find work a pleasure then all you need to do is let the students see that you do and they will imitate you.
Learning by imitation.
Lead on!
This conversation raises a number of fundamental issues about learning and teaching. I do believe that some pedagogical training is essential for educators working in higher education, both the for the benefit of students and the ability for academics to manage and enjoy their work. In the absence of this a number of simple initiatives would be a good start: for example. observe wonderful teaching; read about student-centred learning; look up the details of people who have won teaching awards; look for innovative texts and people in the discipline. It is important also to understand our students: why are they in our class? What do they expect to learn? How do they expect to utilise that knowledge? This information is not difficult to outline even with large cohorts, and it makes a huge difference to the approach we take with each class. Finally, by definition it is not possible to standardise student-centred learning.
Can anyone recommend papers or links to people and resources that illustrate quality learning and teaching? I will make a start with an online resource that outlines academics in Australia who have completed Fellowships in innovative T&L. You can find them and reports on their work at www.altf.org
I am sure we all know teachers who were fantastic and inspiring and teachers who were less good at it. Standardising methodology or teaching style generally only dampen the enthusiasm of the better teachers and doesn't improve the poorer ones.
As a teacher I try to be a good teacher by listening to my students. I know what they need to understand or know to be successful in their studies but how I teach that knowledge and understanding will depend on their interests and the "personality" of the class. That needs me to get to know my class and this is always a learning process.
I believe that students should feel some ownership of their education and that should include those who are not required to pay for their education.
The investment and "payoff" tends to be realized much later as students of any age do not necessarily reflect upon methods/pedagogy as they learn. In my experiences the more engaged the learners are in the process of learning and the more they are provided time for reflection (and "brewing time" to ingest and think more deeply about the material content and context), the more they are able to recognize best practices and to offer formative assessment. As to standardizing the process - other than the specific methods used - my experience suggests that every group of learners is very independent of any other with their own peculiar dynamics that are influenced from their own personal experiences, the setting, and as you might suspect: external items or forces that are present (all in the category of metadata). Hope this helps...
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