Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Adult Education Theory

My aim as a carpentry lecturer is to do the best job I can in giving our students a good learning environment so they can have an enjoyable and productive learning experience.

This will be possible if I can develop as a lecturer and offer a blended and varied delivery of quality information. I will use the  aid of You Tube for some practical and manufacture detail, good effective power points and our main practical based learning by way of our project houses, so our student have the opportunity to learn both kinaesthetically and reader writer as set out in Neil Fleming’s (2001) VARK learning model.
After reading Michael Lueck’s teaching philosophy I feel he has a great foundation to emulate and his base for teaching goes like this;
“My Teaching Philosophy is based on five main pillars Respect, Passion, Innovation, Challenge and Excellence. All five pillars are seen as equal and mutual i.e.; from the students and the teachers perspectives. They are closely linked, and cannot be separated.
RESPECT- I strongly believe that providing a relaxed learning environment is the most effective way of teaching. When the instructor respects students and their opinions, it is very likely that students in return have respect for the instructor
PASSION- Passion is arguable the most important ingredient to every good teaching. This can be twofold; Passion for teaching and passion for the subject area.
INNOVATION-While I believe that it is vital to have a personal touch in every class and in-class lectures cannot be replaced by information technology I equally believe that the rapid development of I T offers an enormous chance for instructors to improve teaching.
CHALLANGE- Teaching at tertiary level should not only be the transfer of knowledge it should also encourage critical thinking and challenge students intellectually. From day one of every paper, I explicitly make sure that students know that they shell not see everything I say as a rule and the only solution.
EXCELLENCE- Teaching is more than providing a lecture. It involves lecturing, interacting, supervising, marking, guiding and to a degree counselling. I believe that a teacher in every class I learn as much as my students do. It is my aim to strive for improvements in teaching with every new semester (http://www.mlueck.org/philosophy.htm, retrieved on 12/07/2011).

5 comments:

  1. I can see the passion you have for teaching in this post Kevin. An excellent description of your teaching philosophy - your students are very lucky. Yes I agree the personal touch is very important - information technology should only be used to enhance what can be done more effectively in the classroom. what sorts of things could you do to enhance the classroom experience?

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  3. To enhance the classroom experience I try to deliver an enjoyable and varied lesson. Subject matter can help. Most building construction is really good to help keep the students interested, but with cranes for example you have to work a bit harder. With short modules and the old You-tube, "Cranes falling over", it seems to help keep the focus and the students can see what not to do which I suppose is still good learning for them.

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  4. Yes seeing "what not to do" is great learning. It sounds like it could be sort of funny too.

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