SEMESTER OUTLINE

Unit 1    Teaching and Learning in School (2 weeks/6 hours)

You have been in school for at least 12 years.  If you are like other prospective teachers, you probably have a personal theory about teaching and learning that was formed by your experience in school as a student.   You may not be aware of all of these thoughts and beliefs but some of them may interfere with learning to teach.  In this unit you will examine and write in your journal about your existing theory about teaching and learning so you become fully aware of it.  Then

you will compare your personal theory about teaching with other perspectives on effective teaching.  You may want to modify your theories.  You will also learn how to observe teachers and students at work in classrooms.

Unit 2   Classrooms are Busy Places (2 weeks/6 hours)

Teaching is a universal human experience: parents teach their children; brothers and sisters teach each other; friends teach friends; employers teach employees; and colleagues teach each other. These examples of teaching usually involve a few students at the most and occur in the setting where the learning is used. (For example, young children learn about collecting water with their mother at a stream or well, or a child learns a new game from a group of friends in a

playground.)

Classroom teaching is a special instance of teaching.  First, the group is large and diverse creating management challenges for the teacher.   Second, learning takes place in an unnatural environment creating motivation and attention problems for the students.  People who have not been responsible for teaching in a classroom have difficulty appreciating the complexity of the work.   The purpose of this unit is to introduce you, a prospective classroom teacher, to the complex environment in school classrooms

Unit Three:  Teacher-centred and Student-centred methods (2 weeks/6 hours)

These two methods are a good place to start your study of teaching methods because they are usually seen in opposition to each other when they may be seen as complementary.  Teacher- centred, Direct Instruction is used to help students acquire knowledge and skills. Student centred, Indirect Instruction (Inquiry/Problem Solving) is used to help students understand the physical, social, and psychological world in which they live.  In addition to different goals, the

methods derive from different theories about learning and employ different practices.   The Unit is organized around the view that both methods belong in schools.   Knowing and understanding are different but related mental processes; each is a legitimate goal of schooling for all students.

Unit Four:  Lecture, Demonstration, Discussion, Questions, and Cooperative Learning

(3 weeks 9 hours)

As the previous unit illustrates, the method or practice that a teacher chooses depends on the goal s/he intends to achieve with a particular group of students.  Teachers have choices not only about teaching methods but also about how they group students for instruction: whole class; small groups; pairs; or as individuals.  A teacher’s decision about grouping is usually determined by a lesson’s goal or objective.  For example, if a lesson requires that every student in the class have information that is not easily accessible and requires interpretation, the teacher will

probably decide to construct a lecture followed by discussion, including questions, for the whole class.

This Unit has ambitious goals and complicated logistics.   Each of you will be assigned to one of six cooperative learning groups.  Each group’s task is to create a 15 minute lesson using one of the methods in the Unit title (lecture, demonstration, or discussion) for a total of six lessons (two for each method).  All six lessons will include questions.  One person from each of the six

groups will teach the lesson to the rest of the class during the third week of the Unit (week nine of the course).   Three class sessions will be devoted to the lessons the  (2 lessons per day) leaving 15 minutes day for discussion of the lessons and 15 minutes for continued study of questioning strategies.  There are handouts for this unit that facilitate the work of the Cooperative Learning groups.  Persons who will teach the lesson from each group will be

selected by drawing one name from an envelope that contains names of everyone in the group at the beginning of class on the day of the lesson.

Unit Five: Teacher-Student and Student-Student Interactions that Support Learning in the Classroom (2 weeks; 6 hours)

While studying Unit 2 in this course, you had the chance to watch a teacher and students at work in 2 different classrooms and discuss the observations with your colleagues.  Hopefully, you

could see that classrooms are unusual social environments.  One adult is expected to allocate

limited resources (space, time, learning tools, and attention) equitably among 40 (more or less)

students.

Students are expected to sit for long periods of time and pay continuous attention to their lessons.  Each student’s competence is on public display all the time.  The teacher is supposed to have eyes that rotate 360 degrees so that s/he knows what each student in the class is doing most of the time.   In this unit you will learn that a teacher and students can turn an unusual social environment into an environment that supports learning

You and your partners will observe in two more classrooms during the next two weeks.  In each classroom you will observe a teacher interacting with two students and those students interacting with each other.  In each classroom the teacher will choose the students whom you will observe.

Unit Six:  Designing Instruction: Goals and Objectives; Assessment; Plans; and

Materials (4 weeks; 12 hours)

Teachers started using learning objectives (also called learning outcomes) to design lessons about

50 years ago.    Previously, lessons were named by the topic rather than a learning outcome. For example, ‘Addition of two-digit numbers’ rather than ‘All students will correctly solve at least 8 out of 10 problems involving the addition of two-digit numbers’.  Teachers have more than one way to write learning objectives.

You have seen different formats for lesson plans: some plans have more parts than others. Though there are differences in the number of parts a plan may have, all lesson plans have objectives, a sequence of activities for obtaining the objectives including materials that will be used; and means for collecting evidence that students achieved the learning outcomes.  In this unit, you will learn how to write learning outcomes and choose or create assessments.  You will use knowledge you have acquired about methods to create and write a teaching plan.  You will learn to find or create the materials that you need to use your plan.  You will do some work on the lesson plan in class with the two people with whom you have visited schools. During the last week of the Unit (week 15 of the course) you will review what you have learned about teaching methods and learning and instructional principles in the course and compare that knowledge

with your current personal theories of teaching and learning.