Comments on last session

Comments on last learning session with Nuddy
Role play

Our group had to play out the senario of two teachers and two students discussing teaching and learning in a course they were involved in. The teachers and the students had different perceptions about the way the class was going and they were meeting to share meaning and communicate their differences in perception to each other.
Kamla and Earlene were from the student’s body sharing their perceptions on the way the classes were going. Joanne and Marlene were the teachers to whom the complaints were laid. They said the students were complaining that the lessons were boring so they got very sleepy during class. Students were just not motivated to learn.
The teachers were adamant that the lessons were going well and that they were not doing anything that they hadn’t always done. Their teaching style was upfront and had always worked before. They had been taught in that manner and look where it got them, they were teachers and had been for a long time.
One of the student’s said that they had heard of a teacher that was using new strategies to teach, where there were lots of different interesting activities for the students and that the classroom was very interactive. There were lots of beginnings and endings. The students used different media, such as e-portfolio to present their assessments.
Teachers who have not kept up with the latest teaching methods may still be working from the old model where the teacher supposedly had all the answers. Their style was usually lecture style and there was not much interaction nor reflection on what was working for the students to enable them to learn.
Much research has been done on why and how students learn or don’t learn. Teachers are now expected to look at themselves if the students are not learning continually reflecting on their teaching. Teacher and learner share responsibility for learning.