Course Contents

Course Content Unit 1 Teaching and Learning in School (2 weeks/6 hours) • Your experience as a student • Students currently in school • Published research • Observations in classrooms • Reflections on classroom observation by yourself and with others • Conversations with experienced teachers • Theories about education and instruction • The relationship between teaching and learning • Your experience as a student • Current students’ self descriptions • Published research, especially in cognitive and educational psychology • Observations in classrooms • Reflections on student interviews by yourself and with others • Conversations with experienced teachers • Theories about learning • Cultural influences on teaching and learning Unit 2 Classrooms are Busy Places • Classroom space is crowded • Work takes place in public: students don’t have offices • Teachers must simultaneously pay attention to a group and each individual in the group • Children are not carbon copies of each other • Resources are scarce: students have to share and often wait • Teachers plan but unexpected events upset plans often • Classroom activities do not occur one at a time: several different activities are in progress at the same time • Learn names, interests, & learning strengths fast • Establish rules and routines • Group students • Organize books and other materials for easy access • Create pairs of students to help each other Unit Three: Teacher-centred and Student-centred methods ( • Distinction between lower and higher order learning • Outcomes from lower order learning • Outcomes from higher order learning • Instructional activities that enable lower order learning • Instructional activities that enable higher order learning • Direct Instruction: a method to enable lower order learning • Inquiry Learning: a method to enable higher order learning • Different roles for teachers and students • Template for Direct Instruction lessons • Sample lessons • Template for Inquiry/Problem Solving lessons • Sample lesson • Inquiry, Problem Solving, Project: same or different? • Choice: Teacher –centred or Learner- centred? Or both? Unit Four: Lecture, Demonstration, Discussion, Questions, and Cooperative Learning • Peer teaching practice • Rationale for Cooperative Learning • Different models of Cooperative Learning • Cooperative Learning procedures • Incentive structure of Cooperative Learning • Limitations of Cooperative Learning • Checklists as assessment devices • Reasons to lecture • Structure of a lecture • Active lectures • Structure of a demonstration • Characteristics of good discussion • Purposes of questions • Questions in lecture, demonstration and discussion • Wait time • Open and closed questions • Lessons taught in class Unit Five: Teacher-Student and Student-Student Interactions that Support Learning in the Classroom • Respect • Credibility • Fairness (justice) • Trust • Interest • Enthusiasm • Adaptive teaching • Cooperative working relationships are central • Examples of cooperative working relationships • Feelings are the foundation of thought • Importance of trust and confidence Unit Six: Designing Instruction: Goals and Objectives; Assessment; Plans; and Materials (4 weeks; 12 hours) • Learning principles • Pakistan’s elementary school curriculum • Definitions of standards, goals, and objectives • Examples of standards, goals, and objectives • Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Goals and Objectives • Definition of assessment in schools • Personal experience with assessment • Assessment practices in schools in Pakistan • Purposes of assessment • Distinction between formative and summative assessment • Examples of formative assessment • Sources of instructional materials, including textbooks, in Pakistan • School budgets for instructional materials • Lo/no cost materials as a supplement to or substitute for materials provided by the government • Examples of materials created from local resources by teachers for mathematics, science, and literacy • Review of teaching methods and instructional and learning principles • Review of students’ current personal theories of teaching and learning • Search for synthesis • Complete instructional design project (lesson plan) • Presentation of lesson plans designed by students Unit Seven: Self-Regulated Learning • Becoming your own teacher • Parents and teachers attitudes toward self-regulated learning • Interdependence between learning and motivation • Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation •Mastery learning goals and performance learning goals

Course Synopsis

This course is an introduction to teaching methods used in elementary schools. Since you have been an elementary school student, you will recognize some of the methods but you know them from a student’s perspective rather than a teacher’s perspective. Teaching methods are often divided into two broad categories: teacher-centred methods (also called Direct Instruction) and learner-centred methods (also called Indirect Instruction or Inquiry Learning). An effective teacher knows several methods, some teacher-directed and others learner-directed. He or she would choose, from among these, the one method or combination of methods most likely to achieve a particular lesson’s objectives with a particular group of students. Because teaching and learning interact, a course about teaching must also be about learning. The content and structure of the course is based on two strong claims about learning. First, learning results from what the student already knows, thinks, and does and only from these actions of the student’s mind. A teacher enables students to learn by influencing what the student does to learn but the student has to do it. Second, as students progress through school they should learn to become their own teachers. That is, students should learn how to learn using their teachers as models.

Course Learning Outcomes

Course Objectives to be achieved: 1. A personal theory of teaching and learning based on a critical analysis of implicit theories formed as a student and modified/elaborated through reflections prompted by the work done in this course. 2. An argument paper that presents the pros and cons of teacher-centred and learner-centred teaching methods and states your position as a teacher 3. Records of structured, reliable classroom observations and conclusions drawn from reflection on these. 4. Participation in a Cooperative Learning group that planned, taught, and critiqued a lesson to college/university classmates 5. An elementary school lesson plan 6. A reflective journal