Session 7

Today Kate Slattery gave us some paper sheet and asked us to describe and write down what we knew, what we wanted to know and what we learned in terms of reflective practice. A lecturer suggested that we should use learnt instead of learned.

From this course I found out the following:

1. Students actually learn by doing exercises.

2. Ask students to give feedback at the end of the course therefore the teacher/instructor will plan the sessions more effectively.

3. SOLO taxonomy and 80:20 principles.

Later Kate asked us to write down on the white board of what we had been doing in terms of teaching, learning and education. Here are the ideas that we have written:

Wikis and blogs, eMIT, SOLO, 80:20, e-portfolio, interactions and activities, active learning, rewards, building relationships with students, time management, food and drink, sense of humour, teacher power sharing, organization and time management, allow students to ask questions, trying new teaching techniques, and so on.

Later in the session Dean Nugent from Auckland University of Technolgy came and shared his experience on teaching. In his presentation he mentioned that knowledge is produced in response to questions. Once students learned how to ask relevant and substantial questions, they have learned how to learn and no one will keep them from whatever they need or want them to know.

After Dean's presentation Kate has shown us a video presentation about an individual named Matt who had travelled to 42 different countries performing a dance. The title of the video is called “Where the hell is Matt?”

Kate asked us to write down in what ways Matt’s achievement was like our development in designing lessons-or not? Here are my ideas that I learned from the video:

1. Confidence and competent on what we are teaching.

2. People will be bored if the teacher/instructor just talk and explains. Students like to learn from fun activities.

3. Responsive to all audiences.

4. Sense of humor.