"Teaching the student, rather than just teaching the content"

I had the privilege to visit the CPUT Bellville campus today - 19 August 2016, to be part of a group discussion about "Teaching the student, rather than just teaching the content"

 Dr Virginia Lee was our host for this session.

Here is a little bio about Dr Lee but please visit her website for full bio @Virginiaslee

"Virginia S. Lee is principal and senior consultant of Virginia S. Lee & Associates, a consulting firm based in Durham, NC, specializing in teaching, learning and assessment in higher education. She has special expertise in faculty/educational development, inquiry-guided learning, course and curriculum development, program- and course-based assessment and the planning and implementation of institution-wide undergraduate education reform efforts including quality enhancement plans. A new and growing interest is how colleges and universities can support students’ broader development as human beings including their pressing questions regarding identity and life purpose. Over the past seven years she has worked with approximately 70 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, China, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. She is a Former President (2007-2010) of the Professional & Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education, the largest professional organization for faculty and educational developers in higher education in North America. She was selected as a Fulbright Specialist in 2010 for a term of five years"

What have I learned today:

Students and learners today faces a lot of challenges and might I include teaching/lecturing staff faces their own challenges, young and old

When students enter a higher learning institution they are bombarded with information and new strategies of learning/studying

They enter a whole new environment of education which was not introduced to them in school

They experience language barriers in class and emotional intelligent challenges

Some learners/students start their Higher education phase on a low due to previous stigmas to that specific course, as mentioned in the discussion where a Lecturer told students to look at the friends left and right from him/her because one of them might not be there at the end. This is degrading their motivation. (I would say ask them to take hands and carry each other thru)

Also telling the students that this subject has a low pass rate, there is no motivation in that. 

There are so many challenges that all of us faces and we have to adapt our teaching/lecturing style. As said today there are different ways to engage the student to what you are teaching or lecturing.

Here are some few methods as mentioned by lectures: 

One lecturer used "Jelly Tots" in a non-accounting class. It was a Public Relations class and she had to introduced some accounting and budgeting. The students were negative about the module and said if they knew there were accounting involved in this course they would not have cozen it. But she played a game with them with "Jelly Tots"

A word a Month, (Language Class). After every term the learners must come to class with 5 new words each, but where they found the word, what it means, etc. The learners enjoyed the exercise.

One lecturer asked his former students to come and discuss their challenges with the new learners and what they did to change it.

Then there was a “10 Test strategy” where the lecturer informs the students about 10 test he will be conducting during the year and it will not be announced before hand. Out of that 10 only 7 will count towards the continuous mark. (Best 7) If you only have 6 or 4 test marks it will be divided by 7.

Then there is the student test approach. After each topic, each student has to submit one question in a group of 10. No same questions per group. Then questions will be added to an informal test paper and the class/group write the test. The lecturer will decide before hand how much the test must count so the questions must adhere to mark allocation. By doing this learning take place.

To me this was very interesting and made me think on how to teach and interact with my learners at school and to assist them

I hope that I sparked some creative ideas to interact with your own learners or students.