Assignment One: Introduction

Introduction

This piece is an analysis of my experiences of teaching and supporting learning in Higher Education. These experiences have come out of my role as a Learning Technologist and have therefore involved designing and developing resources for use in meeting learning aims, delivering face-to-face teaching sessions, researching the uses of new and especially online technologies, and advising colleagues on the use of these technologies in their own teaching and supporting learning.

My role

It may be worth explaining role of a Learning Technologist further, so that the reader understands how these experiences fit in the wider higher education context. An academic member of staff might be expected to get involved with teaching, researching and writing on their subject. In comparison a Learning Technologist might be asked to be involved in advising and supporting the academic staff in their use of technologies in teaching and learning, and would be involved in researching and experimenting with the use of technologies generally.

The work with academic staff would include discussing if online and other technologies would help teaching and learning and choosing which technologies to use. It would also involve designing and creating resources, making the resources accessible to all students, supporting the staff and student use of the technologies through teaching them how and when to use them, and finally troubleshooting any related problems.

My philosophy of teaching

My philosophy of teaching relates to each of the situations and incidents that are explored and analysed here. It will therefore be introduced at this point so that in the evaluation, whether or not I'm achieving what I intend to achieve can be included.

The experience of Higher Education should allow and require the student to develop a wide variety of skills, abilities, knowledge and appropriate attitudes relating to their subject area. These should be developed to an appropriate level of complexity for the level of study, such as HE1, HE2, HE3 or M level. The reason or reasons for developing these skills, abilities and knowledge might be one or a combination of items such as to make the student more employable, to give the student the ability and motivation to learn throughout their life or because of the student's interest in the subject. The purpose of teaching is to help focus and guide the student so that the desired learning occurs through the student's activities and study. A teacher’s relationship with a student is to work in partnership with them. This involves the students working independently, to the extent described in the institution’s level descriptors.


Where technologies are introduced, the aim of these should be embedded into the curriculum, and should be to either prepare the student with skills that might help them in their later life and learning or make certain activities easier without removing important learning experiences. Technologies should also enable the students to do things (access materials, take part in experiences) that they would not otherwise be able to do, but which are in line with the learning outcomes of the course. While we have learning outcomes that we focus on, technology especially hyperlinked technologies encourage learning to be more chaotic and curriculum more difficult to keep students focussed on. Networks of people and knowledge develop more easily in this context and are easier to access. This means learning outcomes and curriculum need to focus on metacognitive skills rather than only specific knowledge which restricts the student to a certain learning path and is generally becoming out of date at a faster rate than in the past (Siemens, 2005).

Teaching should take into account different students’ needs, using a learner centred approach, which makes sure that learners are all valued and involved and that learning itself is valued (Waters, 2005). This taking account of needs and valuing learners requires flexibility of teaching so that it can suit different learners, and could be related to a student’s disability, which might require the course, or resources used in the course, to be presented in a way that he/she is able to access. The teaching strategy also needs to take into account the way students learn best, which will vary from student to student (Honey and Mumford, 1992). Therefore a wide variety of learning styles should be catered for where possible, to help different students access and connect with the learning resources.

The student needs to be aware of the learning outcomes of their course and elements within it, as well as why the learning outcomes are important. This motivates the student to get involved in learning activities, partly by showing them that each activity they are asked to undertake is part of the bigger learning experience.

The students should be able to reflect on their development through their course, as this helps them to appreciate, and take charge of, their own learning. The student should be encouraged to learn to identify which skills and what knowledge has been developed at different stages of their course. They can then see what their efforts so far have achieved, and take steps to work on skills and knowledge that still require development.

How this analysis will be organised

Some of the examples presented and analysed here will be critical incidents, by which I mean when there have been challenges where I was unsure of the best decision to make, or where there was a notable success for a student or group in relation to their learning.

When exploring experiences with the aim of analysing them and developing understanding, I find a structure helpful to guide me through the process. In this piece I have chosen the reflective cycle that Gibbs (cited in Ghaye and Lillyman, 1997) put forward. Gibbs broke the process of reflection and analysis down into the following 6 sections:

1. Describe what happened
2. Describe what you felt and thought
3. Evaluate whether it was good or bad
4. Analyse
5. Conclude what else you could have done
6. Create an action plan for next time

The final section will be left out of this particular piece and included in part 2 of the assessment, which is an oral presentation.