Personal Reflections on Teaching Design - Essay Example

REFLECTION ON TEACHING DESIGN Goodyear (2005, p. 82) defines teaching design as the method of representing theoretical knowledge in a way to suit a teacher’s target group. It is an educational strategy describing and showing how theoretical knowledge can be passed to pupils effectively. Such a strategy includes employing excellent explanation techniques such as videos, tables and charts and models to communicate to the pupils. Teachers are expected to construct a comprehensive teaching design in order to realize their intended objectives in the teaching career. Employing an effective teaching design to pass information across to the target group will aid in the learning process as pupils will be able to grab much of what they are being told (Agostinho, 2006). Moreover, teachers will be able to pursue their careers with much ease as they provide quality education without investing a lot of time. The core purpose of a teacher is to offer quality education to his/her students. This can only be measured through the outcomes of an assessment exercise (McAndrew, Goodyear and Dalziel, 2006, p. 216). I believe that a concerned teacher will offer an assessment exercise to her/his pupils after a lesson to assess how much the pupils have understood what has been presented. Consequently, the teacher’s satisfaction will be attained if only he/she will find out that the pupils have extensively comprehended what was taught. Waters and Gibbons (2004, p. 57) state that a teaching design can be conducted in order to: illustrate the tasks assigned to the pupils, the resources available to the students to assist them in carrying out those tasks and how as their teacher, you are going to offer them support. As a primary teacher I have had to go through a lot of challenges in my teaching career. While in college we were taught on how to prepare prior to conducting lessons (Goodyear, 2005, p. 85). Among the things you have to do before undertaking a lesson is to prepare a simple lesson plan. A lesson plan is to give a teacher a guideline on the sequence of events during the lesson and what he/she has to accomplish at the end of a lesson. During the early years of my teaching career I had problems with preparing a lesson plan because I considered it to be time wasting. With five years of practice in the teaching field, I understand only too well the essential role of a lesson plan (Waters and Gibbons, 2004, p. 61). Dealing with a young mind I have to be very careful with what I do or say. According to Goodyear (2005, p. 101) children in primary schools completely look up to their teachers for almost everything. Sociologists have said that primary school life is the main socializing period in an individual. This is the time when a child wants to know how things are done and what society expects of them. Having that in mind I had to set a perfect example for them to emulate. I have also come to realize that dress code is a very critical issue in the teaching career (Bataveljic, Eastwood and Seefried, 2006, p. 267). This is because a teacher can dress in a particular way that might consume completely his/her pupils’ concentration. As a teacher you need to be modest, presentable and smart before your students. Preparing in advance what I am going to teach by designing a simple, but comprehensive lesson plan is very important. Mainly because it gives me an easy time to collect the necessary information needed in that topic, I am also able to design appropriate techniques for use during my lesson (Agostinho 2006). In addition, it will ensure that my lesson is well utilized and the overall lesson objective is achieved. For instance, on preparing for a class seven lesson to teach on the topic “The Heart”, I will divide the class into groups and tell them to draw a well labeled structure of the heart. This is because over the years I have realized that the best teaching design for the topic is through a chart presentation. Having done that I will subdivide the topic and assign each subsequent lesson a particular subtopic. The first lesson will be to do an intensive introduction to the topic. Waters and Gibbons (2004, p. 65) concur that the overall objective of the lesson will be to ensure that the pupils have a clear visualization of how a heart appears and enable them label the different parts of the heart. Teaching through charts has an advantage over the normal theoretical teaching because a pupil will be able to conceptualize on what is being taught (McAndrew, Goodyear and Dalziel, 2006, p. 226). Upon the successful coverage of a lesson, I will tell the pupils to place the charts on easily accessible places so that they can be referring to them frequently. Agostinho (2006) asserts that teaching design also entails carrying out an intensive literature review. Doing a literature review means one will research on the studies that have been carried out on a particular topic and their respective findings. Though the primary teaching field has an overall curriculum guide on what to teach, this does not condemn one from doing related studies. I will go to the library and do a comparative study on the topic to gather as much information about the topic as possible (Waters & Gibbons, 2004. P68). From the information gathered, I will be able to come up with the most appropriate information for my class. As a teacher you are not expected to complicate things for your pupils but rather simplify them. I will consequently go over the suggested teaching designs and choose the best. McAndrew, Goodyear and Dalziel (2006, p. 231) explain that each topic needs to be taught using the best design in order for the pupils to be able to understand it well. For some topics I will prefer to use class presentations while other I would go for video viewing sessions. I can as well gather information from other teachers in the school who have taught the topic before. The teachers can be able to give me ideas on how they handled the topic during their time. Teaching resources and ideas of other more experienced people in the field play a very important role in my career life. I believe by critically incorporating others’ ideas to my field is one way to grow in the career (Agostinho, 2006). What mainly influences me to choose a particular teaching design over others is my target group. A particular teaching design may be the most appropriate to employ in the upper primary but not the best to use in the lower primary (Bataveljic, Eastwood & Seefried (2006. P268). This thus suggests that one has to learn his/her target group before settling on a particular teaching design. Furthermore, I have learnt in a classroom pupils have varied comprehension capabilities: some are fast learners while others are slow learners. As a result, I have to choose a teaching design that will favor a majority of them, my aim is to see that a remarkable number of pupilsa in the class has got the concept I am passing across. The available teaching materials also determine whether it is possible for me to use a particular design or not. I cannot decide to use a particular teaching design if I know I will not able to access the suggested materials it uses (Bataveljic, Eastwood & Seefried 2006. P269) For example, I cannot organize for a video session when I know my school does not have the necessities required to view the film. As an understanding teacher I have to choose the most appropriate design taking into consideration the materials available. In addition, you will have to ensure that the available materials will be sufficient during your lesson. By so doing I will avoid last minute frustrations that might ruin my lesson in the long run. My teaching experiences have been teaching me great lessons. I have learnt to take any challenge I face as a launching pad to the next level. This is because the challenges I have faced presented me with concrete positive ideas out of it. Agostinho (2006) affirms that teaching is all about creating a positive attitude in all that you encounter. At one time you will be considered the best teacher by producing the best results and at other instances you will be the worst depending on the performance of your subjects. Then the question is, “Does it mean when you are the best you relax or when you are the worst you give up?” What I learnt is that by being the best it means you have to work harder and maintain the best performance. On the other hand, being the worst demands sacrificing your whole self in order to get things back to normal as you aim the highest (McAndrew, Goodyear and Dalziel, 2006, p. 42). If you have performed the worst it means you have generally to change your teaching designs. Unfortunately, this is not the case in most cases. A research done on this has indicated that teachers just like pupils are motivated or demoralized by what is being said about them. Bataveljic, Eastwood and Seefried (2006, p. 272) observe that some have been seen to give up and accept that they are the worst performers. I have come to learn that this thought might be the worst attitude towards the teaching career and can even cost one a career. In summary, teaching design plays a very important role in the field of teaching. Choosing the best design to employ in your lesson means that you have taken into consideration your target group and you have chosen what you think is the most appropriate for them. Hence, the outcomes of so doing are most probably going to be positive. Not taking your time to choose the best design might lead to omission of some essential information on a particular topic. Moreover, it may lead to many pupils not being able to understand what you are teaching, thus missing the overall goal of teaching. Finally, I have learnt that you should always have a positive attitude in the career because it is not an easy way to tread. Reference list Agostinho, S., 2006. The use of a visual learning design representation to document and communicate teaching ideas. [online] Available at: http://www.academia-research.com/filecache/instr/p/1/650895_p173.pdf [Accessed March 14, 2012] Bataveljic, P., Eastwood, M. & Seefried, H., 2006. An approach to teaching object-oriented analysis and design, Journal of Information Systems Education, 17(3), pp.267-272. Goodyear, P., 2005. Educational design and networked learning: Patterns, pattern languages and design practice, Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 21(1), pp.82-101. McAndrew, P., Goodyear, P. & Dalziel, J., 2006.Patterns, designs and activities: Unifying descriptions of learning structures, International Journal of Learning Technology, 2(3), pp.216 – 242. Waters, H. & Gibbons, S., 2004. Design languages, notation systems, and instructional technology: A case study, Educational Technology, Research and Development, 52(2), pp.57-68. Read More