Thank you EDS 111!

Thank you EDS 111– Principle of teaching for learning

Honestly, when I saw the modules of EDS 111, I felt that it was really difficult to pass this subject, besides I am working with 8 am – 6 pm (Monday to Saturday). But after finishing my module 1, I said to myself that I can do it. And now I did it.

EDS 111 enlighten me about teaching that it is not only becoming a teacher but also a parent to all my students. Time flies easily; completing 18 units as requirements for LET is not an easy task, and I am proud myself that I am almost there to close the door for PTC program. And welcome to my DMT program for this 1^st semester 2017-2018.

I am pushed to move forward and after studying this course, I feel confident that I can do it. I won’t say I have mastered everything but I can apply what I have studied and learn. It is just a matter of mind and heart to think and feel that with positive thinking, re-think and capability to reflect and acceptance, knowledge, skills and attitude to pursue my goal, I know I can be an effective teacher. There are still many things to learn, to reflect on and to do.

The style of instruction in UPOU has not only developed my knowledge about teaching, views of learning and teaching but my whole being as well. I learned that learning is best done when we are going to synchronize the use of our mind, heart and thinking. I realized that schooling is not as simple as listening to a teacher and memorizing what she wants us to memorize but also enhancing my cognitive learning and perception of teaching and continually improved my potential skills and EDS 111 has introduced me to the different teaching theories that have made my views of teaching more meaningful.

Thank you Teacher Roja for EDS 111. Being non-education graduate, I never knew such methods and theories of education and teaching.  I study principle of teaching, I have changed my perspective teaching and to construct teaching strategies and style to regulate and self-direct students learning and experiences. I realized that I am a learner who filled with ironic and interesting experiences from my previous knowledge

To conclude my EDS 111 course, my realizations after finishing all the requirements of this course, it is not just more than passing LET to be a good teacher but also to be more passionate, positive and creative, if we want the ideal teacher to be. I think, I don’t have to be very intelligent to become a good teacher but work hard, diligent in studying and reading helps a lot to grow professionally.

Thank you very much!

What makes a good teaching practice ; facilitates students’ effective learning?

So what makes a good teaching practice; facilitates students’ effective learning?

Great teaching is defined as that which leads to improved student progress; we define effective teaching as that which leads to improved student achievement using outcomes that matter to their future success. Defining effective teaching is not easy. The research keeps coming back to this critical point: student progress is the standard by which teacher quality should be assessed. Ultimately, for a judgement about whether teaching is effective, to be seen as trustworthy, it must be checked against the progress being made by students

Effective teachers can be identified primarily in terms of these aspects of teaching: classroom management, expectations of students, relationship with students, and personal qualities like fairness and respect. Likewise, teachers’ beliefs, practices and attitudes are important for understanding and improving pedagogical processes. They are closely linked to teachers’ strategies for handling with challenges in their daily professional life and to their general well-being, and they shape students’ learning environment and influence student motivation and achievement. For example, Instructional practices, in turn, depend on what teachers bring to the classroom. Professional competence is believed to be a crucial factor in classroom and school practices (Shulman, 1987, Campbell et al., 2004; Baumert and Kunter, 2006). Teachers’ professional knowledge and actual practices, most effective teachers have deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, and when teachers’ knowledge falls below a certain level it is a significant impediment to students’ learning. As well as a strong understanding of the material being taught, teachers must also understand the ways students think about the content, be able to evaluate the thinking behind students’ own methods, and identify students’ common misconceptions. And good instruction, of course, is not determined just by the teacher’s background, beliefs and attitudes; it should also be responsive to students’ needs and various student, classroom and school background factors. It includes elements such as effective questioning and use of assessment by teachers. Specific practices, like reviewing previous learning, providing model responses for students, giving adequate time for practice to implant skills and progressively introducing new learning or scaffolding are also fundamentals of high quality instruction.

Why are some teachers better than others? Part of the answer lies in the teaching strategies that they use; however, another part of the answer lies in the teachers themselves. Teachers must be a passionate people, they love what they teach, being teacher, challenge of helping each other students and contaminate their students with a desire to engage learning. Teachers need to acquire new qualities and continue to grow and evolve as they are role models for the students. (Celikoz, 2010). The teacher skills include staying calm, eliminating negative thoughts or feelings, disengaging stress, remembering that students have their own realities and are doing their best, not taking students’ actions personally, remembering that students are not bad rather just in the process of development, and maintaining a sense of humor. (Whistler, 1992). The need for support structures for educators include clear understandings that teaching involves more than just subject matter knowledge and classroom management skills, In particular, Shulman (1987, p. 8) calls the knowledge needed for effectively teaching a subject “technological pedagogical content knowledge” (TPACK) which represents the blending of technology, content and pedagogy into an understanding of how topics, problems, or issues are organized, represented, and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction to facilitate how learning been transferred by use of modern technology.

People are continually learning and constructing meaning throughout their whole life from communications within their community, environment and social interactions and now through the social network, internet and advancement of technology. Theories are constantly changing with the advancements of technology, like both cognitive and behaviour influences and benefits from technology is that of social learning. In learning by direct experience, people construct conceptions of behaviour from observing the effects of their actions; in learning by modelling, they derive the conceptions from observing the structure of the behaviour being observed. Usually, teachers guide the students to construct their own knowledge and meaning of their experiences, this essence relies on the knowledge that stresses the emphases on personal interpretation and belief the concept while reality exist separate from experience. Same with theory of knowledge of constructivism that knowledge is not passively accumulated, but rather, is the result of active cognizing by individual understanding.

Click to access Core2_Coe.pdf

 

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS

 Professional development for teachers is a key mechanism for improving classroom instruction and student achievement (Ball & Cohen, 1999)

 If we try to look back on our previous topic, there were different priorities for educators and schools: curriculum, assessment, instruction, students learning, classroom management and professional development. If we are given a chance to choose what would be our priority as an educator? Perhaps, we have different priorities to look into it. If I will choose, I will prioritize the Professional Development, why?

Professional Development involves its relationship to student’s achievement.  It has been concluded in the research that professional development activities experienced by teachers have a similar impact to school, teacher, student level related to the level of learning within the classroom, parent and community involvement, instructional strategies, classroom management, curriculum design, student background knowledge, and student motivation (Marzano, 2003).  Opportunities for active learning, content knowledge, and the overall consistency of staff development are the characteristics of professional development. Opportunities for active learning and content specific strategies for staff development refer to a focus on teacher application of learned material. Overall coherence refers to the staff development program perceived as an integrated whole and development activities building upon each other in a successive manner. However, that standardized staff development activities which do not allow for effective application would be ineffective in changing teacher behavior.

As educators, we cannot control student learning; only the student can. Student learning should be the ultimate goal and outcome of all of our efforts, but it is not what we do to get there. If we want students learn, we are the critical element of their learning, so, our professional development is the most important to help the students learn. Perhaps, students learning are bases for student’s success while school and teachers have an inspiration over students learning, there is nothing the teacher can do to make it happen. It is out of the control of teachers to make students learn; the students have to do it by themselves.

What matter most is what teachers learn, professional development should improve teachers’ knowledge of the subject matter that they are teaching, and it should enhance their understanding of student thinking in that subject matter. Aligning essential training with the curriculum and teachers’ actual work experiences also is crucial. Teachers changing goals for learning, connected with changes in curriculum emphasis and a deeper understanding of teacher learning and student thinking, have led to new findings about the impact of teacher professional development and how best to improve teachers’ skills and knowledge. The time teachers spend in professional development makes a difference as well, but only when the activities focus on high-quality subject-matter content. Extended opportunities to better understand student learning, curriculum materials and instruction, and subject-matter content can increase the performance of both teachers and students.

I believe that professional development and creating learning communities for teachers and staff will help students receive the best education possible. However, when people have developed these types of learning communities, there is no sense of strong leadership to set the example of what professional learning should look like. What leadership qualities would be most effective in inspiring a school to focus more on professional development? Perhaps, a strong leader should visibly model continual improvement him or her. A type of leader should be willing to admit mistakes and missteps when they occur. Strong leadership requires someone who is willing to show their human side, like the administrators must foster a continual improvement mind set for school which has resulted in excellent professional development. Most beneficial, if professional learning opportunities should originate from the administrator leading the educators through the school change process; however, there should always be professional development which originates from the educator’s individual needs and desire for improvement.

 

References:

Simon Quattlebaum: Why professional development for teachers is critical (2012)

https://evolllution.com/opinions/why-professional-development-for-teachers-is-critical/

http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/5-strategies-better-teacher-professional-development/

http://www.deped.gov.ph/sites/default/files/page/2016/EducSummitAddressingTeacherProfessionalDevelopmentIssues.Nov2_.pdf

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/southwest/pdf/REL_2007033.pdf

My Perception of Teaching

MY PERCEPTION OF TEACHING

 

When we say teaching, deals with students and learners, it is a process of imparting knowledge to the learners, while learning is a process of acquiring knowledge. Each person’s initial perspective on teaching was received without question or challenge and it was the result of being exposed as a learner at home, school and community or a moments responding to someone acting as teacher.

Teaching is an applied discipline and spreading the related practical skills. Teacher is identical to investigator, will always seek to widen the boundaries of owned knowledge. Teaching however is somewhat distinctive as the personality of an individual teacher will influence on how well they are able to use the established tools of good teaching. The hardest for teachers to learn is that the sincerity of their intentions does not guarantee the effectiveness of their practice. (Brookfield,1995). Basically, Teaching always takes place in social setting with all of the cultural, psychological and political complexities that complicate all human relationships including those between students and teachers. If ever, have a full awareness of how others perceive our action teaching in this way is inexperienced and potentially dangerous because it can lead to a misreading of what is happening in the classroom. Taking an undiscriminating view towards teaching can result in teachers being either unaware of, or unable to change, the blocks to learning experienced by their students. On the other hand, becoming a critically reflective teacher, one who continually seeks to understand what students are going through and how they can be helped to maximize their potential, can enable teachers to have be much more effective facilitators of learning.

When we say perspective of teaching, we are not only speaking the students, learners and teachers but also the inter-related set of beliefs, intentions that gives the meaning and justification and enacted activities like classroom which we considered as learning area between students and teachers, instructions which is one of the tools for learning and school, home and community which are the institutions of teaching and learning. We may not aware of a perspective because it is something we look through, rather than look at, when teaching and it becomes the object of our attention when we reflect our beliefs, intentions and actions. From watching others performing teaching, we can form an impression about what teachers do, what learners do, and how the process of teaching works and doesn’t work. Eventually, within individual, a set of conceptions related to learning and teaching evolves and is carried forward until it is challenged or perhaps when it no longer works or because of alternative perspective has been seen and seems better like contemporary teaching perspective approach.

Usually, teachers begin a course, students often ask the questions on what is it about? Means students do want to know something and eager to learn the knowledge. Then, students ask, how to do it? Means students wants to do things. Definitely, teacher should teach the students’ knowledge and skills, and the teacher’s challenge on how to teach them. Traditionally, teachers give those lectures, experiments, assignments and consultations and finally an examination, usually a closed-book examination. All these things are designed by the teacher. If somebody does not wish to learn something, you cannot teach her/him anything. If somebody really wants to learn something, however, she/he will learn it anyway. (King, 2005). As an educator, indeed, there are different teaching methods for different people. So our responsibility is to provide some knowledge and appropriate methods for the students to learn, and provide opportunities for the students to enhance their abilities which are useful in the future. From the point of view of student-centred teaching, we are guided by what is best for the students. Making decisions regarding content organisation and teaching approaches is largely determined by the students’ needs. Students are the centre and the teacher acts as a coach and facilitator. The goal of this type of teaching is the development of the students’ cognitive abilities. Student-centred teaching leads to ‘better retention, better transfer of knowledge to other situations, better motivation for further learning, and better problem solving abilities. And active participation by students helps them construct a better framework from which to generalise their knowledge.

In teaching and learning, we can have several different theories: behaviourist, constructivist, lifelong learning and student-centred learning and so on. To some extent, they are all right. Each has its strengths. We can also have many different approaches; each approach also has its advantages. A single approach may not be suitable for every course, every topic and all the content. In my opinion, our teaching responsibility is to make the content and process more interesting and more attractive, and we can combine different approaches to help develop the students’’ various skills. Whichever approach we use, at the end we should teach students knowledge and more importantly, the skills for survival. We should constantly keep this in mind.

Sources:

John McCerthy: Student-Centered learning

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-centered-learning-starts-with-teacher-john-mccarthy

What is your perspective in teaching?

https://teaching.tufts.edu/blog/what-your-perspective-teaching

What makes teaching effective?

What makes teaching effective?

The first thing to be said about teaching methods is that there is no law or rule that says teaching methods are determined by theories of learning.  Views about the nature of knowledge are likely to impact on desired teaching methods.

Basically, current students are different than the traditional students. Teachers must either engage students at their level with interesting learning activities to force them into compliance with worksheets and controllable activities. It is teacher’s responsibility on how he makes his teaching great.

Great teaching is defined as that which leads to improved student progress and we define effective teaching as that which leads to improved student achievement using outcomes that matter to their future success. The research keeps coming back to this critical point: student progress is the measure by which teacher quality should be assessed. Ultimately, for a judgement about whether teaching is effective, to be seen as trustworthy, it must be checked against the progress being made by students. Schools currently use a number of frameworks that describe the core elements of effective teaching. The problem is that these attributes are so broadly defined that they can be open to wide and different interpretation whether high quality teaching has been observed in the classroom. It is important to understand these limitations when making assessments about teaching quality. The most effective teachers have deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, and when teachers’ knowledge falls below a certain level it is a significant impediment to students’ learning.

The classroom needs to have a fun, dynamic atmosphere to capture and retain the interest of the students.  I consider the classroom environment to be a game of intellectual/mental stimuli where teacher and students raise thought-provoking questions and issues. The classroom atmosphere is mainly the sole responsibility of the instructor to create an environment where students are encouraged and comfortable in voicing their ideas, opinions and not be hesitant or tentative about disagreeing with either teacher or other students. If students just sit there, not actively engaged in the learning process, then the problem is with the manner in which teachers have managed and maintained the classroom – not with the students. The positive and negative behaviors exhibited by teachers determine, to a great extent, their effectiveness in the classroom and, ultimately, the impact they have on student achievement.

Effective teaching combines the essence of good classroom management, organization, effective planning, and the teacher’s personal characteristics. The classroom presentation of the material to the students and provision of experiences for the students to make authentic connections to the material are vital. The effective teacher facilitates the classroom like a symphony conductor who brings out the best performance from each musician to make a beautiful sound. In the case of the classroom, each student is achieving instructional goals in a positive classroom environment that is supportive, challenging, and nurturing of those goals. The best lesson plan is of little use if the classroom management component is lacking or the teacher lacks rapport with the students. Effective teachers seem to achieve classroom magic effortlessly.

 

 

Sources:

 

What is effective teaching?

https://federation.edu.au/staff/learning-and-teaching/teaching-practice/what-is-effective-teaching

Effective teaching

https://www.education.wa.edu.au/documents/2548175/2664299/Effective+Teaching.pdf/60edae76-9a7d-4e84-9e49-180ceb3f0a2b

DESCRIBING GOOD EDUCATION

DESCRIBING GOOD EDUCATION

Teaching, like most people professions, requires a range of abilities and skills that the practitioner carefully weaves together, in such a way as to provide the most meaningful experience as possible.

Knowledge base thinking is apprehended as all profession-related insights, which are potentially relevant to a teacher’s activities. With this perspective, it is reasoned that teacher applied knowledge should be included in the knowledge base, along with formal propositional knowledge. Although teacher knowledge is strongly related to individual experiences and context, there are foundations of teacher knowledge that are shared by all teachers or large groups of teachers, for example, all teachers who teach students of a certain age level. Nothing is ever simple in education, whether the teachers are subject specialist still there’s a need a wide range of different skills and attitudes if they are to assist students achieve outcomes. These should include relationships with students, subject matter knowledge and also the understanding of educational process to develop the understanding that is required. Should a teacher fail to have any of these, then it is likely that the learning in the classroom will not be as successful. However, it would be foolish to isolate one of these skills to the exclusion of all others.

Defining effective teaching is of course problematic. Ideally, we might define effective teaching as that which leads to high achievement by students in valued outcomes, other things being equal. We acknowledge that available assessments and particularly those that have been used for high-stakes accountability or in existing research studies, may not fully capture the range of the outcomes that we might specify as desirable aims for education (Popham and Ryan, 2012; Muijs et al, 2014; Polikoff, 2014). Wherever possible, it makes sense to judge the effectiveness of teaching from its impact on assessed learning. If the assessments and value-added models available to us are not good enough, we need to improve them. In the meantime we must exercise some caution in interpreting any claims about teaching effectiveness. A further concern is that in practice, any kinds of observational measures provide at best poor approximations to how much students actually learn. Whether they are based on classroom observation, student surveys, book scrutiny or other sources, their predictive power is usually not high.

To teach all students according to today’s standards, teachers need to understand subject matter deeply and flexibly so they can help students create useful cognitive maps, relate one idea to another, and address misconceptions. Teachers need to see how ideas connect across fields and to everyday life. This kind of understanding provides a foundation for pedagogical content knowledge that enables teachers to make ideas accessible to others” (Shulman, 1987).

There are times that our teacher commits a mistake in front of us; this will be the teacher’s worst nightmare – when a student corrects them. And even worse was when students pointed out the mistake, maybe it took a while to understand what exactly had done wrong. Maybe, we asked our self, why? We lacked knowledge of the content. We made the mistake of being too careless and taking such a casual approach, that we didn’t stop to think about how our lack of knowledge could affect the students. We need to reflect our lesson, what happened? What was the output of the activities? Are all relevant to the subject matter? Why I made a mistake? What should I do to prevent the recurrence? These are possible questions that need to answer for our teaching development. If we continuously commit mistakes in our class, this might affect the students learning, trust and motivation.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883035502000034

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0013189X031005003

https://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9219/base.htm

Effective Teacher’s Professionalism

Effective teacher’s professionalism

If we heard teacher’s professionalism, usually come in our mind on how teachers look or dress code. But actually this is some measures on how we judge about teacher’s professionalism, appearance is not most important but it is about a teacher’s knowledge, their self-governance and their colleagues. These will be considered as the key elements that lead more effective teaching.

Many of us teachers who have always been true professionals, we might thinking that there is something new in here, but actually, what is means to be a professional has not changed. As a teacher, we served as a role model to our students.  Failing to act professionally sets a bad example and may also cause us respect to our students. To retain the respect of our students and colleagues and to provide our students with the best education as possible, we need to demonstrate professionalism in all aspects of our career. It is essential that teachers’ voices are the driving force for educational improvement and development, particularly at a time when the education system faces so many challenges and conflicting pressures. Teachers are among the key guardians of education.

Knowledge and understanding of students as individuals requires teachers to communicate effectively, to inspire young people, and to have empathy and patience. Usually, teachers professionalism follows with this belief that teachers’ professional role is based on care for students and responsibility for their learning. As part of that, teachers need to build relationships with students, families, communities and other professionals. The teaching profession draws on theoretical understanding and knowledge in order to adapt teaching practices and methods to students need. Teacher professionalism is about exercising judgement on curriculum, assessment and pedagogy and teachers have to balance their own professional values against their responsibilities to the organisations in which they work. Different practices are an important basis for a quality teaching force and they also impact on how teachers feel about their work. Teachers are more satisfied and confident, and have a higher perception of the value of the teaching profession in society, when there is more support for peer system and development of knowledge.

 

https://www.atl.org.uk/Images/Teacher%20professionalism%20-%20April%202012.pdf

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1877042810025498/1-s2.0-S1877042810025498-main.pdf?_tid=5f3ee750-41f0-11e7-951a-00000aacb361&acdnat=1495788810_e05611f76d725877455c6338e1d695c2

Reflective Teaching

“Personal reflection enriches professional reflection”(Kottler, Zehm, and Kottler 2005).

This topic helps me to understand the importance of reflection and came to realized that it should be part of a teacher’s daily routine. Regardless of when and how it is done, it should reflect the teacher and the students learning and growth. We say that we don’t have time or a minute to reflect, probably, we won’t grow. We need to stop everything for a minute and reflect for what we did, this is part of making a reference for next plan.

The process of reflection for teachers begins when they experience a difficulty, problematic event and experience that cannot be resolved instantly. Reflection starts when one inquiries into the experience and relevant knowledge to find meaning in his beliefs. It has the potential to enable teachers to direct their activities with insights and plan concurring to objectives.

Reflective teaching looking at what we do in the classroom, thinking about why we do it, and thinking about if it works, and it is also a process of self-observation and self-evaluation. By collecting information about what goes on in our classroom, and by analysing and evaluating this information, we identify and explore our own practices and fundamental principles. This may then lead to changes and improvements in our teaching. Doing reflective teaching is a means of professional development which begins in our classroom. Maybe some of us will ask why it is important. Example, teachers observed that and talk to their co-teacher that, my lesson went well or my students badly behaved today, instead of spending time discussing what has happened, why not to think and jump into conclusions on why such things are happening. So, we can now relate that reflective teaching implies a more systematic process of collecting, recording and analysing our thoughts and observations, as well as feedback of our students. Likewise, if the lesson went well we can describe it and think about why it was successful. If students did not understand the point we introduced we need to think about what we did and why it may have been unclear.

I do believe that reflection is primary priority for teachers and a school, being reflective is essential to be an effective teacher. Teachers need to combine their knowledge and experience to solve different problems. However, reflection encourages critical and creative thinking by encouraging us to think and create new ideas. All educators need time in their day to reflect and think about the different ways they can be better. We usually ask this of our students, so why shouldn’t we do the same?

Too often, teachers cannot reflect on a lesson because they’ve forgotten exactly what happened in class and the details are important when trying to reflect and grow. We can overcome this situation, if we use a planner for our lesson, and put sticky notes for initial thoughts after the lesson and stick it in the planner we are using. We already knew that taking notes is important and this notes is a tool for us educator to remember certain aspects of lessons that might need to be addressed.

 

Sources:

Reflective skills of effective teaching: http://mvnu.edu/ncate/NCATE_standards/standard_3/orientation_powerpoint_presentations/Reflective%20Skills%20of%20Effective%20Teaching%20-%20Orientation.pdf

The Reflective teacher: https://teaching.temple.edu/edvice/reflective-teacher

What is reflective teaching and why is it important: http://www.richmondshare.com.br/what-is-reflective-teaching-and-why-is-it-important/

Introduction: Welcome EDS 111 – Principle of Teaching

“My name is Eulogio Prajes Jr. You can call me GIO. I am currently connected at Fujifilm Optics Philippines Incorporated with 8 am to 6 pm, Monday to Saturday working schedule. I welcome you all in my blog as my compilation of my learning journey in this course.”

From my readings and understanding, open learning is the removal of barriers to learning. This nature of learning is open to everyone. Ideally, no-one should be denied access to an open learning program.  In distance learning this is a type of education of students who may not always be physical present in school, students can study in their own time, at most convenient place of choice like home, work, learning center and other venue that will be suitable of learning. This is what I am now; eagerness to gain continual learning and career development and advancement prompted me to pursue my study in University of the Philippines – Open University.

As a student of UPOU, I am responsible for my own success in learning process; I should be actively involved in learning process and should perform correctly for a learning environment. I am responsible for the assigned task in the course, on time submission of reports, assignment and other task that was defined as tools for learning.

I was surprise the result when I took the Time Management Skill Test; I got 70 points which categorized as poor time manager. With the result, I was able to generalize that there are points in life that you felt that you did very well and in fact, came to realize that was not. I scanned again the test and gather some points for improvements. To enhance my learning skills, I should change something especially in my study habit. I should manage my social life to have an ample time in reading and doing my assigned task. Time management should be improved by making a time table, things to do and what to do.

As a student of this course EDS 111 – Principle of Teaching, I will submit all the requirements at given time and when times of uncontrolled situations, I will inform my FIC for whatever reasons.