Ross Woods, rev. 2018
This little book contains the kinds of things that I start with when training new teachers and instructors. They are mostly prefatory. You don't need to do them yet, but they relate to everything you do later on when you are learning to teach.
If you have never taught before, learning to teach is a major undertaking. Teaching is also an art, and you will develop your own style and preferences with experience. So how do you learn to teach?
Take advice.
This series of books and your instructor will help you with pointers. For example, it's good advice to take time in preparation and use good notes. Don't be swayed by a brilliant teacher who can teach on short notice without notes.
Match your approach to how people learn.
Some principles normally apply to all students. There are also different theories of learning, and each can offer you useful insights. (More about that later.)
Match your approach to your audience.
Some people and groups learn in very different ways from others. If you can identify how a particular student learns, you will better be able to teach him/her.
Observe how others teach and learn from them.
Following a real example is called modeling. It’s a whole person approach to learning from people. You will probably want to emulate teaching styles that you have seen and that you like, no matter how anyone teaches you to teach. Believe it or not, you unconsciously learnt from every lesson you ever took (a) the kind of person your teacher was, and (b) the way your teacher taught it.
When you watch someone teach, ask yourself: What did you like? Why did some things work so well? How did they use time and place most efficiently? What was confusing or unhelpful? How would you improve on it?
Be on the lookout for creative ideas.
Other teachers are always thinking up clearer or more interesting ways to communicate.
Teach lessons yourself.
You need to get practice in front of a class. Teaching is something you do, not read. Textbooks alone cannot make you into a teacher no matter how good they are.
Evaluate yourself.
You need to know what you did right and what didn’t work. You might also reflect on what you did, preferably in discussion with other trainee instructors. Ask what you have learnt about yourself as a person.
Go from easy tasks to harder tasks.
Start with practice exercises such as a little public speaking or tutoring individuals, then progress to short, simple lessons that you teach to other trainee instructors. Later, you’ll eventually teach more complex lessons to real learners. That way, you'll succeed at something before taking on something harder.
Start with the left side of this table then move toward the asterisked items on the hard side. (You don't have to be able to do everything on the hard side for the Certificate IV.)
You won't need any preparation time or a mentor to briefly tell a friend a piece of simple well-known information that he/she wants to hear. But by doing that, you would have done most of the left side of the table, so you'd already be on the way. Now it's just a matter of setting increments so that you move toward the right side.
| Easy | Hard | |
|---|---|---|
| Size of group | Individuals and very small groups | Large |
| Length of session | Short | Long |
| Amount of teaching | Public speaking (only expressing information) | Teaching (people have to learn something)* |
| Location | Familiar and "safe" | Unfamiliar |
| Students' learning difficulties | No learning difficulties | Learning difficulties |
| How well you know the students | Peers or people you know | Strangers |
| Behavior | Cooperative | Possibly unruly |
| Student motivation | High | Low |
| Amount of time for preparation | Enough | Not enough |
| You have help available | A mentor will help you | You get no help at all |
| Familiarity of content to you | Very familiar to you | New content that you must research during preparation |
| Familiarity of content to students | Had some previous exposure | Totally new |
| Your ability to anticipate what will happen | Easy | Difficult |
Several things will make you a more confident teacher.
First, good preparation is a lifeline, especially at the beginning. If you get stuck, at least you can go back to your lesson plan. You need a sound lesson plan with simple clear points, good examples, and workable learning activities.
Second, you'll teach more effectively if you have mastered your field. The old saying goes that you should know forty times more about your topic than you teach.
Third, you'll teach more effectively if you are enthusiastic about it. Being enthusiastic is easy if you're convinced that it is important and are still learning more about it yourself.
Fourth, there is no substitute for experience. With practice, you'll no longer be nervous about speaking in front of a group and be better able to anticipate how people will understand you.
Fifth, learn from your victories and defeats. You'll be more confident when you know that your lesson plans will work. That's why review is built into the process.
Sixth, it would be ideal to say, "A good mentor will encourage you and give you confidence." You can't expect this; people will want you to stand on your own feet. But a collaborative approach to teaching encourages you to seek that kind of support.
Check that you have all the necessary qualifications. This will vary according to your local regulations. For example, in one vocational training system, assessors must have a qualification in assessment to do assessments alone. In some cases, assessors must work under the direct supervision of someone who has.
Assessors almost always need other relevant qualifications in the kind of skill being assessed. These may be:
You also need to be able to apply other relevant policies, such as workplace health and safety, equal employment opportunity, and legislative or regulatory requirements.
Identify what you can do and work within your range. If you are a hairdresser and know nothing about welding, an assessment qualification doesn't make you ready to assess a welding project; assessing a welder is outside your range. If you have experience in assessing essays and classroom theory, you might not feel able to help assess a practitioner in the field.
In some jurisdictions, it is permissible to form a team where you have all qualifications necessary between the team members. Everyone has part of the requirements but no member alone has them all. You might be the assessor, and a qualified practitioner may help you. In that case, your job is to ensure that correct assessment procedures are used.
Schools are really there for the students, not to provide jobs for teachers. Reflect a student-focused approach to what you do. In one sense, the customer is always right, and dissatisfied students tend to leave.
Institutions ask people to give feedback so the whole program can improve. In managing quality, it is part of your job to evaluate feedback and act on it to improve the quality of your work. So make your students more satisfied than they are at present. Develop ways of evaluating what your institution does and build improvements into your practices.
Use students’ needs and expectations of to develop more effective practices. They may want new skills, or to achieve particular qualifications, start a new career, or advance in their present career. They might need better language, literacy and numeracy skills. Some students study for their own personal development. They may prefer particular learning styles or want specific learning support systems. They may have their own individual training needs or their organizations needs. They might be impacted by government policy and funding factors.
Develop effective communications strategies to establish relationships with students and maintain them. Different people and temperaments need different approaches, and you need to find out what works for individuals.
You might want to check that you both have the same purpose in what you are doing; keep in touch with their progress and continually give helpful feedback.
Clients may have a wide variety of needs and expectations. For example, they may have specific goals in terms of skills or a target qualification. They may want to advance in their current career or move into a new one. Some might just want to develop survival language, literacy and numeracy skills. Besides, some might have particular learning styles or need individualized support. Some might need your advice on courses, programs, qualifications and assessment.
Teaching is not about what you want to teach and expressing information, no matter how interesting it is to you or even how well you do it. Teaching is about what students need to learn and helping them learn it. You're there for the students.
Here are two teachers, both of whom were diligent in their duties and passionate about their subject. One is teacher-centered and the other is student-centered:
Ms. Bloggs loved giving lectures. She put hours into gathering huge amounts of information from the latest research on her specialized interests. She wrote detailed, polished notes (obviously for her next book), although most of the students didn't find them very helpful.
Her lectures were long and detailed, and she was careful to use the technical vocabulary precisely. She seldom allowed for questions, although she'd discuss her specialized field for hours with any students interested in it.
Ms. Bloggs was totally teacher-centered, putting her effort into expressing information regardless of whether students learnt it or not.
Melissa was quite different. Although she was enthusiastic about her field, she found out what students needed to learn. Her sessions simply covered the main points clearly and explained new terms and ideas in ordinary language.
During group discussions, she observed how well each student got each point and went over it again if they were stuck. She asked questions that stimulated discussion and made students think in new ways.
Although she never gushed, she made sure to encourage students to develop their own thinking on the topic, even if they didn't always agree with her.
Melissa was totally student-centered, making sure that students learned what they needed.
Moral of the story: What matters is not what you want to teach but what students need to learn. That's being student-centered.
delivery
Delivery is not about a guy in a car with a hot pizza. Delivery
refers the means by which you communicate with students so that they learn. It includes groups in a classroom, on-the-job, on-line, correspondence, individual mentoring, or any other way of teaching. There are some Immutable Laws of Delivery.
You can be flexible in organizational structures, location, scheduling and communication methods.
Besides running programs as internal activities on campus, you can offer training through employers, community organizations, through schools, international programs, or a combination of these.
Location is not restrictive either. Besides being on campus, it can be:
It can be either face to face, through distance learning, or though interactive electronic communications.
Scheduling may also vary; it may be partly or all self paced, or tied to a work or campus schedule.
Use your imagination to teach in many different ways, because using only one or two ways will bore your students.
Even if you are teaching face to face, you might not teach in a classroom situation. You might use:
Of course, many of these can be combined.
And then, even if you are in a classroom, the lecture or oral presentation is only one of many options. Consider the other possibilities, and ways that you can combine them:
You cannot use all possible delivery methods and learning activities. So how do you choose? That brings us to the Second, Third and Fourth Immutable Laws of Delivery.
The kind of delivery should suit what it is that students need to learn:
Those that involve students in speaking, questioning, answering, writing, doing, are more effective than those where you (as instructor) stand in front and perform.
How do you know that students even take notice of your lecture if you never stop for questions or discussion? In fact, some people have a personal rule that a lecture should never be longer than ten minutes. In a two hour class session, they use many use many other kinds of activities.
If students actually try putting the lesson into practice, they will learn more than just by hearing it or reading about it.
On the other hand, part of the problem is that most lecturers are pretty boring. Not many of them have a talent for giving inspiring and illuminating lectures.
People will learn more if you use a variety of appropriate methods, for several reasons.
Your areas of expertise and the relevance of your qualifications change over time. It is possible that you have lost skills over time, in which case you simply should not teach and assess those skills. For that reason, insitutional quality standard probably specifies that skills must be current.
In many cases, other factors come into play. Mature people develop expertise that is not represented in their existing qualifications. They are "stretched" into a different shape.
Brian graduated in the 1970s. He has not only been teaching and assessing, but has also kept his skills up to date. His field has changed so much that his formal qualification is no longer equivalent to the qualification presently required.
Brian's problem is that he must demonstrate that his knowledge and experience is up to date and suit the qualification that he is now teaching. This can be quite messy, as it might involve a long series of Professional Development courses, as well as personal reading and teaching, and some practical experience.
Fiona has a different situation:
Fiona graduates with a Certificate in Business and gets a job. She makes the adjustment and does well. She attends the professional development activities and the quality control meetings.
After a while, she is made responsible for several junior employees. She moves around in the company and learns several other positions.
When a management vacancy comes up, she applies for the position and gets it. Fiona does well at running the branch office and managing her staff, and is responsible for a substantial budget. She is involved in policy development and gives input to major budgetary decisions at company level.
At the end of the process, Fiona is not performing at a Certificate in Business level. In fact, she has forgotten some of the things she learned in that course. But she now has many other higher level skills.
Here’s another example.
Robert graduates from university and writes textbooks and training manuals in his field of expertise. He also contributes articles to various journals. As the field changes, he continually updates his skills. He takes interest in a new specialization and after a while is recognized as an expert.
At the end of the process, Robert is not performing as a recent graduate. He has forgotten some of his original university training, and some of the thinking in his field has changed so much that what he learned in his degree is now outdated. His greatest expertise is no longer represented in his paper qualifications, and is far more advanced than could be expected of a recent graduate.
In both Robert’s and Fiona’s cases, their actual expertise has changed substantially over time.
In these cases, the answer for a staff member is simple—get formally assessed according to your current expertise. In some institutions the assessment record will be kept and act much the same as a qualification. A better alternative, of course, is to gain a current qualification. This will be easier to use, taking away the messiness of the assessment record. It will more portable, and will be better recognized outside the institution.
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