Principles Of Teaching And Learning 596mm

Principles of Teaching and Learning: Classroom Management Since my very first post, I am not quite aware about the comments that I have received from some of the readers who came across this blog. And I am glad to know that there are a lot of comments especially from my posts about principles of teaching. I personally believe that once an education student have mastered all the principles of teaching, he/she doesn't need to memorize all the facts (Well, if we are only talking about the courses Principles of Teaching 1 and 2...hehehehe. Memorizing some important facts is also very vital especially in Content Courses. If you'll ask and "idealist", he might say that facts are important building blocks for higher thinking skills.) In this regard, I am now going to discuss some principles in teaching particularly in managing the class (Actually this is a more comprehensive discussion of my previous post about this topic. In short this is just a repost. hehehehe) It is a cliche to say that a teacher must also be a good manager. Although we have heard this how many times, this is really so true (really and so...redundancy...hehehe...for emphasis's sake). What we have prepared for a day's lesson will be useless if our class is uncontrollable. Below are some of the principles of effective classroom management.

1. Proactive discipline over counteractive discipline. This means that we must do certain actions before disciplinary problems will occur. We must impose rules and policies inside our class and consistently implement these. We must not wait for troubles before we will take solutions. If pupils will be cleared with all the rules they need to follow, disciplinary problems will least likely to happen.

2. Routines are best ways of minimizing disorders inside the classroom. It is good to start the school year establishing routines with the students/pupils. These routines, like ing of the paper, reading textbooks, checking of answers, etc, can lessen interruptions and can save a lot of time. If the students/pupils are made to know what they have to do, the flow of the class will be more smooth and orderly.

3. Avoid having "dead air" in the class. The class must run smoothly so as not to give a chance for students to do unnecessary things. This makes the class's attention focused on the lesson and not making them restless. . 4. Make the activities interesting and challenging. Perhaps this is one of the primary principle in minimizing mismanaged class. If pupils/students are provided with various challenging and interesting activities, they will never think of doing things that may interrupt the class. These do not make them bored, because if pupils/students are bored, then expect chaos inside the classroom.

5. Teachers must have "with-it-ness" (LET alert...this always comes out in the exam... this..."with-it-ness"). When we say "with-it-ness", a teacher must be aware of what is going on inside the classroom. He/she must be vigilant and sensitive enough with his/her pupils/students. If the students/pupils feel that their teacher is watching over them, they become more conscious with their actions. As teachers, we must have eyes in our backs and make use of the whole classroom space while teaching.

6. Respond and resolve minor problems before they become a major one. We must not wait for our classroom to be out of control before we make a move. Let us put a small spark out before it becomes a fire.

7. Provide positive reinforcements for good behavior. Token management (giving of rewards) can be used. This is far better than giving punishments. However, positive reinforcements do not necessarily mean giving of material things. A praise or an approval is sometimes enough to do this. One thing to take note is that to make this more effective, it must be appropriately and sincerely given. Give pupils/students what is due to them. Don't underpraise nor overpraise students/pupils.

8. Treat minor disturbance calmly. Don't spend the whole class giving "sermons" because of an inappropriate behavior. (Some teachers are so guilty with this. They will give a long sermon and if it is time already, pupils/students will say "The mass has ended".hahahaha). If this can be settled even by just giving of a stern look or gesture, then it's over, done, finished, etc...hahahaha...

9. Check the physical environment. Sometimes, the main reason why the class is restless and noisy is because of the physical feature of the classroom. Perhaps the class is too congested, overcrowded, disorderly or hot. Fix these things and the class will be far much better.

10. The last but not the least, minimize discipline time to maximize instructional time. Avoid long sermons...period. hehehe...very self-explanatory,..no need to discuss... Posted by jay-l at Sunday, March 27, 2011

Principles of Teaching and Learning: Assessment of Learning Assessment of Learning is one of the, shall I say, "challenging" topics in education. This is so because it involves a little bit of statistics. Since, I lack time to discuss the various topics involved in assessment, I will just present the principles behind assessment of/for learning. that LET will not really focus on the technicalities, like what is variance, how to get the standard deviation, what is the difference among the mean, median, mode, etc. Rather, it is more focused on how will we interpret these statistical data in understanding the learner's achievement and to improve our instruction.

These principles are again, "adapted" from Corpus and Salandanan, 2007)

1. Teaching and learning is never complete without assessment. This means that assessment is an integral part of the teaching-learning process. We need to test how far the learners have learned, either before, during or after instruction, in line with our objectives. Thus, if learners are made to realize about this, negative attitudes about assessment will be minimized since the quizzes and tests will be just "usual" to them. They will come to realize the purpose of assessment, that is, to check how far they have learned.

2. Assessment tool and objectives must be colinear. The test/quiz or any assessment techniques must be in line with the objectives. This also includes the type of assessment appropriate for a certain objective. This is like a teacher who has an objective about "Singing the Philippine National Anthem". Which is more appropriate assessment tool: let the student write down completely the anthem, or let them sing the anthem? Reflect. Hehehe...

3. Assessment results should be fed back to the students. This is one of the mortal sins of some of the teachers. They will give quizzes, tests, projects, etc yet they fail to return these to the students, or to just inform the grade/score the students acquired. The purpose of assessment is to give learners a to what extent their learning is. How will the learners learn this if the teacher won't give their scores or return their papers?

4. In assessment, consider learners' multiple intelligences and learning styles. The traditional paper and pencil test puts verbally and linguistically intelligent students at the advantage. Let us take into the learners multiple intelligence and learning styles in assessment. Give various assessment techniques in order to cater individual differences.

5. It is wise to give some positive as well as constructive criticisms. Don't forget to praise the students on a job well done. This can boost their morale to study and appreciate the value of success. Further, let's give them some constructive criticisms on the areas they need to improve. that the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.

6. Emphasize self-assessment. Assessment must be intracomparative rather than intercomparative. In short, if learning is as well a personal process, then, let the learners assess their performance on their own against a certain criteria(is this "in short"? Hehehe). Let them be aware of and reflect on their own progress. Rather than comparing themselves with other people, let them compare their "then" self to their "now" self. Competitive nature of learning must be as much as possible avoided. If there is a competition, let this be between the students and their own prior performance. One thing more, always that self assessment must also be in line with teacher assessment. This can avoid overestimation or underestimation of students' performance on themselves.

7. Build the culture of success in the classroom. Avoid the bell curve mentality, or the belief that it is normal that some students while some fail. Have that mentality that ALL learners can achieve.

8. Never use assessment as a disciplinary action or a punishment. This distorts the true purpose of assessment. This will enkindle the negative attitudes toward assessment.

9. Assessment should be communicated regularly and clearly to parents. Take note however the importance of ability, transparecy and confidentiality.

10. Emphasize on real world application that favors realistic performances over out of context drill items. Hence, assessment must focus on real life application, as well as developing higher ordered thinking skills such as analyzing, evaluating and most of all creating. (Sorry if the explanation on the last principles are short, out of character spaces in my cellphone.hehehe...)