EDU654 Highlighted Handouts by ZE BA

Lesson 24 · PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES & TECHNOLOGY IN CLASSROOM · Quotation:

“Science does not purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It is a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It is a system of testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match.”

Isaac Asimov

More on the above quotation:

By using technology, people can be provided with the platform where they can test their knowledge and observe if their misconceptions are contradictory. Can a student test his hypothesis on the basis of daily life questions? If the purpose of hypothesis testing is not accomplished then our education is useless.

A born child is always very creative in mind. The book, “Out of Our Minds-Learning to Be Creative” by Ken Robinson, It is written that, one can learn creativity and enhance the power of capability.

“There is a paradox: as children most of us think we are highly creative. As adults many of us think we are not. What changes as children grow up? Organizations across the world are competing in a whirl that is changing faster than ever. They say they need people who can think creatively, who are flexible and quick to adapt.”

Too often organizations say they cannot find creative people. Why not? That is the basic question. In this provocative and inspiring book, Ken Robinson addresses these three vital questions:

Q1. Why it is essential to promote creativity?

Q2. What is the problem? Why do so many people think they are not creative?

Q3. Young children are buzzing with ideas. What happen as we grow up and go through school to make us think we are not creative? What can be done about it?

If a student is a slow learner, a teacher must provide him with a choice to learn on his own pace. All students cannot learn at the same level of understanding. Secondly, immediate feedback must be given to the students. Unless a student does not try to do a conscious effort to erase the deepen misconceptions in his mind. Through the use of technology, teachers can bring students to the same level of learning. In short,

Let students learn at their own pace. Let them get intermediate feedback to realize their misconceptions and wrong connections between different concepts.

Pedagogical strategies should be developed that allow:

Individual learning pace Instant feedback Excitement, wonder and enjoyment of students in classroom.

Hypothesis testing:

Hypothesis tests are procedures for making rational decisions about the reality of effects. A problem can have multivariable solutions. But there is a dominant answer to every question.

Lesson 25

COMMANDMENTS FOR TEACHERS FOR AN EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM

When a teacher enters a classroom, he must create a learning environment where students learn by interest, enjoyment and wonder. But unfortunately, today most teachers deliver the lecture in such a way that lacks student interest. Talent of the students is destroyed.

Two equations were given to the students to solve, which are:

Y= -2x + 7

Y = -4x + 11

plot them in the graph and then solve to get the answer. Point of intersection is to be calculated.

Q1. Think what would be the major obstacles of learning to solve the given problem?

Q2. What pedagogy would you use to address the above mentioned problems of learning?

Q3. What specific features of power point 2010 would you use to support the pedagogy to address the problems of learning?

Student must try to find answers through hypothesis testing. Hypothesis tests are procedures for making rational decisions about the reality of effects. Secondly, students are able to do problem solving. For problem solving, they need to develop a hypothesis to get answer to the question. Hypothesis testing and problem solving go side by side. When a problem is proposed to the students, they think of a possible answer, but at the same time if their mind is stuck with another daily life observation that contradict with the answer, now here the thinking process starts that proceeds with problem solving and hypothesis testing.

There is a need to develop thinking process in the minds of students today. Thinking process among students can never be developed by proving the students with:

Air conditioned classrooms Beautiful architecture Fashionable teacher Computing lab Second issue in Pakistani schools today is that teachers come to the classroom delivers a lecture conventionally. There is no collaboration among students in classroom. Designing a collaborative classroom is very hard for teachers. It is assumed that whatever a teacher speaks in classroom is understood by the students. Such lectures are never interactive, which means that students forget the previously learnt material after sometime and as a result they are not able to understand a new concept. In classroom learning environment,

the first thing is that we must measure what students have learnt today in classroom and are they able to relate this information with the previous one to solve problems. If teachers are not available in classroom, students must be involved in learning activities. When homework is assigned to the students, it must be kept in mind that will the students be able to complete their homework on the basis of the concepts learnt today in the classroom. All the above three steps are integrated, how effectively he completed his homework. What mistakes are dome by him while doing his homework are all associated with the learning in classroom.

10 Commandments for Teachers by Bertrand Russell:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything (means learn to tolerate ambiguity, learn to have open mind about all questions)
2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contemporary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is for more inconvenient when you try and conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.