Teaching and guiding: Planning

Learning from teaching

In the following section, I describe what our group has done for our teaching session and what I have learned from preparation and implementation processes.

How do different learning theories and views of learning affect the planning of the teaching in your particular vocational field and in competence-based education?

The topic of teaching in this week was learning theories and how they can be applied in vocational education. We started getting familiar with the learning theories which are commonly used in current vocational education.

Inquiry-based learning

Inquiry-based learning is a pedagogical method which is based on constructivism. Compared to direct instruction or rote learning where people required to memorise information from instructional materials, inquiry-based learning encourages learners’ active participation and developing knowledge through approaches similar to scientific inquiry (Pedaste et al., 2015). Development of technologies has expanded the potential of inquiry-based learning as it allows us to effectively collect support materials for our inquiry (Edelson, Gordin, & Pea, 1999).

  • Processes include:
  • Creating questions of their own,
  • Obtaining supporting evidence to answer the question(s),
  • Explaining the evidence collected,
  • Connecting the explanation to the knowledge obtained from the investigative process, and
  • Creating an argument and justification for the explanation (Pedaste et al., 2015).
  • Merits of using inquiry based learning method are:
  • Developing inquiry skills, such as identifying problems, formulating questions and hypotheses, planning and carrying out experiments, collecting and analysing data, presenting the results, and drawing conclusions.
  • Specific investigation/ experiment skills, such as controlled experimentation.
  • Contribute to knowledge acquisition process by providing meaningful contexts.
  • Students active involvement which can increase motivation and engagement level

Example cases in digital fabrication activity
Investigating mistakes/ reasons of failure/ causal (relations) analysis. When a project did not work, student start creating questions, such as “What is the most logical reason of the incident?”, “Why it did not work?" “What did go wrong?”. Students build hypothesis of possible reasons of the failure. Student collect evidence to support the hypothesis by searching similar cases and issues from online resources. Student connect knowledge obtained from the investigation process and creating an argument and justification for the explanation of the most logical reason of the failure.

The key for successful inquiry-based learning is amount of teachers’ guidance. As open inquiry requires high level of engagement of students, teacher may need to support inquiry process such as providing pre-defined question or resources (guided inquiry) (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006; Schmidt, Loyens, Gog, & Paas, 2007). Depending on students’ cognitive and motivational levels, teachers need to consider carefully about the type, quality and quantity of guidance required to achieve specific learning outcomes.

Constructive alignment

Constructive alignment is a system which all aspects of teaching and assessment are tuned to support high level learning. Constructive refers to “the idea that students construct meaning through relevant learning activities. That is, meaning is not something imparted or transmitted from teacher to learner, but is something learners have to create for themselves.” (Biggs, 2003, p.2). Alignment means“what the teacher does, which is to set up a learning environment that supports the learning activities appropriate to achieving the desired learning outcomes. The key is that the components in the teaching system, especially the teaching methods used and the assessment tasks, are aligned to the learning activities assumed in the intended outcomes.” (Biggs, 2003, p.2).

  • Processes include:
  • Defining Desired Learning Outcomes (DLOs) including topic content and level of understanding.
  • Setting up environment which maximise the likelihood that students engage in the activity designed to achieve DLOs.
  • Setting up assessment tasks which tell how well students have attained the DLOs.
  • Grading the students according to the result of the assessment tasks.

It is important to define declarative knowledge and functional knowledge in DOLs. Knowledge can be divided into declarative knowledge and functional knowledge. Declarative knowledge is knowledge that we can declare, telling people about it orally or writing. It is usually second hand knowledge, which means knowledge is what has been already discovered. For example knowledge of academic disciplines, maths formula or history events, is declarative. On the other hand, functional knowledge requires students to put hat knowledge to work, to make it function. Based on deep understanding of knowledge, students are able to perform or behave differently.
Verbs to describe different levels of understanding in curriculum: pre-structural (miss point), uni-structural (e.g., identify, do simple procedure), multi-structural (e.g., enumerate, describe, list, combine, do algorithms), relational (e.g., compare/ contrast, explain causes, analyse, relate, apply), extended abstract (e.g., theorise, generalise, hypothesise, reflect) (Biggs, 2003).

Example cases in digital fabrication activity
DLO is "students are able to hypothesise the amount of the current in a circuit and choose a correct resistor according to the calculation using Ohm’s law". In learning activity, students are given an example circuit and asked to calculate the required resistor in the circuit. Assessment task is “Add a correct resistor to create a working circuit”.

Lesson plan and materials

After familiarising ourselves with the topic, we started developing the lesson plan and the materials. I suggested to introduce learning outcomes to students in the beginning of the lesson because according to Biggs (2003), defining DLOs is one of the key components in constructive alignment. I included both topic and level of understanding in learning outcomes. Topic was defined by tutors as our teaching topic, and I chose verbs from the ones which are introduced in Biggs (2003), which determine different levels of understanding. Other group members also had similar thoughts with me and we agreed to set the following learning outcomes: 1) Students are able to explain learning theories which are commonly used in the current vocational education (constructive alignment, inquiry-based learning), 2) Students are able to apply the learning theories into  planning of the teaching in (competence-based) vocational education in their particular field.

We decided roughly contents and time considering overall time (45 minutes), number of students (2-4 in each group) and environment (teaching in virtual environment through Adobe Connect). We wanted to make the session interactive encouraging students’ active participation and discussion. We designed three main part: intro, explanation and activity. We used Google Slides as our main tool of teaching because we have shared Google Folder and Google Slides is easy to collaborate in this environment.

The aim of the intro part (10 min) is to activate students existing knowledge, as constructivism highlights learning is connecting new and existing knowledge and make meaning of it. So we decided to show a short video of learning theories and give the following two questions to reflect what students already know: 1) What is the role of the student in these theories in general? 2) How can the teacher be effective in learning process through use of these theories? We used YouTube video: A Brief Overview of 4 Learning Theories as it is short, comprehensive and easy to understand big picture of learning theories.

In the explanation part (15 min), we introduced the two learning approach based on learning theories (inquiry-based learning and constructive alignment) with concrete examples of competence-based vocational education. This was more or less traditional lecture style. We learned learning theories from scientific papers. Some of them were introduced by tutors in the vocational teacher website. In addition we found related papers as listed in Reference section.

In the activity part (15 min), we asked students to discuss three questions regarding the topic: 1) What is an example of Competence-Based Education in your field / subject? 2) How would you apply the learning theories we have just discussed in your vocational field? 3) Which method seems more practical for your field / subject, and why?

Reflection
Planning went smoothly and I am happy that all our group members are very efficient and supportive. It is very easy to work together. The time limitation was the only problem as we did not have enough time to modify before Sunday and did not send to the tutors as we were supposed to do so. Especially this was the first time of our teaching as a group, so we needed to create shared understanding as well as practical tools such as lesson plan and materials. But next time, we can re-use some of the materials and modify based on the reflection of the first teaching. We had three times of group meeting to prepare for the lesson but I suppose it can be reduced as we have now developed shared understanding basic procedure and working style of each other.

Implementation

In the online teaching session, I had 4 students from other groups and I was the only person from our group. I controlled pages of shared document: the PDF version of our slides and looking at the notes in our actual slides in the Google Folder. I said to students that they can always interrupt me and ask questions but there was not questions while giving lecture.

Reflection
Implementation of teaching went smoothly as planned, but I found some things to improve.
Firstly, I was worried about time calculation. I presented after the break, and there were some students who were late to come back to the session. Also before starting lecture, I shortly introduced our topic and what I am going to teach so that students can clear idea of what is going to happen. So I did not have full 45 minutes. I found that I do not have skill to estimate and adjust time flexibly when unexpected things happen. Next time I will think which part of the lecture can be shortened or lengthened when I need to adjust time. And perhaps prepare some additional materials or information as well.

Secondly, the video link did not work for one student for security reason. Luckily the student was familiar with learning theories as she described by herself, it was not a big problem this time. In order to make sure every student has the same understanding, I should have had a time for short summary or ask questions to students after the video. Next time, when we use videos, we should prepare back up materials (e.g., summary document) in case the video does not work or some of the students are not able to watch it.

Thirdly, discussion was not as active as I expected. Students did not answer to the questions we prepared for discussion, but gave comments for the lecture and slides. I have not found concrete reason of that but next time we can try to integrate the activity in the lesson by bringing it in the middle of the explanation, not at the very end of the lecture. Or we can ask students how they think more often while explaining.

Lastly, I found it challenging to give lecture not seeing students reaction. In a way, I felt easier because there is less information coming while taking, but in other way, I was always wondering whether students understand what I am talking or not. It might be better to ask questions or students opinions more often or do more interactive activity in the middle of the lesson so that I can see students reaction and adjust my teaching.

Learning from other groups

In the following section, I describe what I have learned from other groups' teaching.

How do the official documents and regulations affect the planning of the teaching in your vocational field? Where can you find all this information?

Important notes from the lecture

I learned that as a teacher we need to follow both national level and institutional level regulations. National level documents can be found in Finlex.
For instance:
Universities Act covers regulations in Universities in Finland.
University of Applied Sciences Act covers regulations in University of Applied Sciences in Finland.

Additionally, legislations and policies can be found in:
Ministry of Education and Culture (early childhood education, general education, vocational education and higher education)
Key legislation of general education in Ministry of Education and Culture website
Finnish National Agency for Education (basic education)

Institutional level documents can be found in each institution’s website.
For instance:
Oulu University of Applied Science
University of Oulu

Those regulations are not for limiting teaching but providing teachers with framework to plan, implement and reflect teaching. Especially such framework is important for early stage teachers, like me, to develop teaching which is suitable for objectives of the institution.

Good practice

It was good that teacher introduced contents (what he is going to talk about) in the beginning so that I was able to have brief expectation of overview schedule and contents.
It was good that teacher shared concrete examples of official documents from universities and universities of applied sciences in Finland. It helped me to connect general concepts which teacher explained with concrete practices.

How will you promote learning and competence using a classroom and virtual settings?

Important notes from the lecture

One of the biggest differences of classroom and virtual settings is whether students and teacher are physically in the same space or in different locations. Reflecting the group’s lecture in our online session, here I would like to consider the ways to promote learning and competence especially focusing on this specific difference. The group introduced eight different roles of teachers: facilitator, planner, manager, assessor, resource, co-participant, questioner and motivator. I also write about which roles of teacher are more emphasised in classroom and virtual settings.

Classroom settings

Promoting learning
VARK (Visual, Auditory, Reading/writing, Kinesthetics) model: Especially as students are physically in the same space, it is easier to implement kinetic activity.
Active learning which encourage students’ active participation is another good approach for classroom settings.
Also learning in classroom settings can easily be enhanced by using collaborative learning approach.
Promoting competence
In classroom settings, demonstration of the competence is easier compared to virtual settings. It is also beneficial for students to see other students’ demonstration in order to reflect and improve own practices.
Teacher’s role
Teacher’s role as manager and co-participants are especially enhanced in classroom settings. Teacher needs to manage students physically in the same space and it may require more effort compared to virtual settings where students are sitting behind the screen and not able to see each other. In classroom settings, it is easy to collaborate as students are in physically face-to-face situation. Also teacher can participate in the activity and give instructions and assistance as co-participant.

Virtual settings

Promoting learning
In virtual settings it is effective to use application software to support distance collaboration. For instance Google Drive and Office 365 are good comprehensive platform where students can collaboratively work on assignments, such as collaborative writing or making presentation slides, as well as store their work and sharing resources.
In addition, in virtual settings where students are in different locations, learning activity and assignments can be designed putting emphasis on individual students’ learning. Virtual settings may allow students to focus on the task in their own pace. For instance, teacher can explain to a student without disturbing other students. It is also possible to review the recorded lecture again when a student finds difficult to understand specific part of the lecture.
Promoting competence
Some competences, such as operation of the machines and tools, are difficult to demonstrate in virtual settings. For those competences, decent documentation of the processes will be one way to show acquiring the competence. With this way demonstration of competence does not take as much time as each student demonstrating the competence in the classroom.
Teacher’s role
Teacher’s role as resource and facilitator may be especially enhanced in virtual settings. In virtual settings, it is easy for individual learners to learn in their own pace which may require more effort for personal assistance.
Also, role as motivator is quite important in virtual settings. Compared to classroom settings where students gather in the same place, in virtual settings, it is easier to lose motivation (I dropped out many online courses…) and to be distracted by surroundings (Facebook, WhatsApp notifications…). It is important to keep students motivated and focused on learning.

Good practice

It was good that teachers asked us in the middle of the lesson if we had any questions. It helped me to reflect my understanding.
It was good that teachers asked students’ opinions about teacher’s role in the middle of the lesson. It helped me to connect my experience and what teachers explained.

However, there were some moments which distracted my knowledge construction. The group had three members in the room, which means three teachers were teaching together. Because of that there were technical issues, such as teachers’ voice was not stable as three teachers turn on the microphone. In addition, it seemed that teachers had not had clear division of which part of slides each of them would speak. My knowledge construction path was not continuous but cut separately when teachers had communication issues and they needed to talk something different from actual teaching topic (discussing who is going to explain the next slide etc.). As a teacher, we should prepare not only materials but also division of roles in the lesson in the occasions where there are co-teacher.

References

Biggs, J. (2003). Aligning teaching and assessing to course objectives. Teaching and learning in higher education: New trends and innovations, 2(April), 13-17.
Edelson, D. C., Gordin, D. N., & Pea, R. D. (1999). Addressing the challenges of inquiry-based learning through technology and curriculum design. Journal of the learning sciences, 8(3-4), 391-450.
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75–86. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1
Pedaste, M., Mäeots, M., Siiman, L. A., De Jong, T., Van Riesen, S. A., Kamp, E. T., Manoli, C. C., Zacharia, Z. C., & Tsourlidaki, E. (2015). Phases of inquiry-based learning: Definitions and the inquiry cycle. Educational research review, 14, 47-61.
Schmidt, H. G., Loyens, S. M., Gog, T. V., & Paas, F. (2007). Problem-Based Learning is Compatible with Human Cognitive Architecture: Commentary on Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006). Educational Psychologist, 42(2), 91–97.

(Last update: 23.12.2019)