US7110 AS1 study, 9 May

Jovancic, N. (2019, August 6). Student Satisfaction Survey: 24 Question Samples + Template. Lead Quizzes. https://www.leadquizzes.com/blog/student-satisfaction-survey/

I'm putting together two surveys this morning, one for a student intern and one for the client, to gauge teaching effectiveness of student interns during supervised projects.  The sample size will be one person each.  This exercise is meant to get used to soliciting feedback and critically reflecting on our teaching practice.   The above website has sample questions that I will use to supplement the ones that I've already thought of:  

student intern survey questions by Traci

My skills were valued on this project

I learned new things from my supervisor

I needed more one-on-one time with my supervisor.

I needed less one-on-one time with my supervisor.

I got to try many new things on this project.

Student intern questions from (Puget Sound 2021)

1. 1.What did you intend to gain from the internship experience?
2. 3. List 3 Outcomes that you gained from your internship. Are these different than the ones you sought?
3. 5. I bring these three skills from my internship:
4. 
   
5. From Survey Monkey internship survey 
6. How well did the job duties you were given match your knowledge and skills?
7. How comfortable did you feel with asking questions during your internship?
8. How much did you learn during your internship?
9. How would you rate your working relationship with your supervisor?
10. Were you given constructive feedback?
11. I got a template here: http://www.nsHRtoolkit.ca which I am filling out with a focus on training/mentorship/teaching.

 client survey questions

Guidance of the student interns produced a satisfactory result for my project.

I would have more student interns work on future projects.

I am satisfied with the ratio of student intern to supervisor work on this project.

The student interns selected to work on my project were of good or better quality.

I would consider hiring a student intern after graduation to work for me.

This one is harder to conceptualise: what do I want to know?  What's going to help me in future with interns on projects?

The client survey went out and came  back super fast so I am now waiting on the intern survey.  I have feedback in the form of internal moderation so that's 3 pieces of feedback (with another 3 in the wings if I need them) to analyse for Part B.

Activity 4

Carry out further research on Smyth’s model of Critical Reflection on Classroom Practice. Make notes on your findings.

Dabell, J. (2018, July 20). Smyth’s model of reflection. John Dabell. https://johndabell.com/2018/08/12/models-of-reflection-2/

John Smyth says that if teachers are going to uncover the forces that inhibit and constrain them, they need to engage in four forms of action with respect to teaching.

1. Reflection should not to be restricted to examining only teciznical skills; it should equally be concerned with the etizical, social, and political context within which teaching occurs;

2. Reflection should not be restricted to teachers reflecting individually upon their teaching’ there needs to be a collective and collaborative dimension to it as well;

3. Reflection is a process that is centrally concerned with challenging the dominant myths, assumptions and hidden message systems, implicit in the way teaching and education are currently organised;

4. Reflection is also fundamentally about creating improvements in educational practice, and the social relationships that underlie those practices;

5. Reflection is founded on the belief that knowledge about teaching is in a tentative and incomplete state, and as such, is continually being modified as a consequence of practice;

6. Reflection occurs best when it begins with the experiences of practitioners as they are assisted in the process of describing, informing, confronting and re-constructing their theories

now choose to focus on one of the following practices.

Positive engagement with learners

• Variety of teaching/training methodologies

• Opportunities for learner interaction

• Programme based on learner needs

using Smyth’s model of Critical Reflection on Classroom Practice, critically reflect on your own practice in that chosen area using a recent teaching/training session.  As you reflect, note your thinking under the headings used in the model:

• Describing

Students in multiple classes came back from break with homework partially complete. They were not ready to progress to the next stage so we reviewed the lesson from before break and touched on the next step briefly.  The following lesson did not feel like a clean continuation but a constant circle back to explain to each student what they had not grasped in the group lesson.

• Informing

I am working from an assumption that adult learners are self-motivated and when given time off, will use that time to do extra study. I often set students up for failure because I spend most of class lecturing instead of providing a balance between tutorial and practical exploration of the topic. They are then expected to put these ideas into practice outside of class when they could get tutor support and feedback.

• Confronting

I came to be like this because I am work-motivated, I am a workaholic, extra study is how I conducted myself in the BSA, I have trouble taking time off for relaxation and expect the students to be like me.

• Reconstructing.

These ideas come from me finding solace in work when I was 13.  It gave me something to talk to people about and was a liferaft for me in a sea of adolescent social awkwardness.  I cling to this model because it helps me feel like order is being brought to chaos, that if I don't have students who produce huge results I am not doing my job and will be judged. If I work very very hard then I am good.  If I make my students work very very hard then THEY are good.  

Evaluate the effectiveness of this model by answering these questions:

How is it different from the standard lesson review?

The standard lesson review does not look at teacher motivations but cut and dried facts with judgement statements: how much time was spent doing x, how many students completed y, what were the end results z.  It's formulaic.  

How does it support the teacher/trainer to transform their practice to better meet student’s needs?

Reflection asks the teacher to interrogate their basis for decision-making.  If they can figure out what assumptions they're teaching from, they can make adjustments that will lead to better results for themselves and their students.

This was a good activity because its forcing me to consider that I am delivering everything to myself, the mature-aged student who was pursuing a 3rd degree a few years ago, and not my students, who are mostly barely out of secondary school and don't know what they want to do with themselves after graduating.  That means I am potentially REALLY over-delivering material and not giving them enough time to practice what I'm teaching them.

US7110 AS1 readings 8 May

 

This is related to Assessment 1.  I need to provide 5 examples of good practice and get feedback from 3 different stakeholders (students, colleagues, industry member etc).  

There are four parts to critical reflection:

DESCRIBE recognise how we are teaching

(what did you do and why?  What are the concrete events- actions and reactions.  Do this in my own words.)

INFORM consider ways that we are teaching and experience that we and others have of that teaching

(what meaning do these teaching events that I've just described have for myself and learners)

CONFRONT ask questions about the whys and hows of the way we teach

(how did things come to be this way?  What assumptions/values are at the root of this?  Are these assumptions correct?)

RECONSTRUCT use the answers to plan for the future and learn from them

(Could I have done this differently?  Theoretically, what would that look like?)

This reminds me of lessons from Landmark regarding what you know you know, what you know you don't know, and what you don't know you don't know.

Levels of Reflection

Reflection-in-action comes as I'm quickly responding to changing and unpredictable situations in the classroom like software/hardware issues or student response to the lesson.

Reflection-on-action is afterwards and is more in depth.  This is often a forgotten step.

Task for Reading 1: read first two pages of "Critical Reflections on Teaching" .

Answer:

What is Reflective Teaching?  Looking back and evaluating what happened so you can move forward and improve.

What are Levels of Reflection? You've got to reflect in the moment to things that are happening quickly (reflection in action) and then go back and evaluate what could happened, what could have been done differently, how you're going to proceed in future (reflection ON action).

Choose 3 of the following and provide an example of when I have used this level of reflection.

Rapid Reflection: I came into the classroom and found that I was not able to use the overhead projector because there was a problem with the associated tutor computer.  I quickly had the class convene on Discord which I was able to access from a student computer and ran the lesson from there so everyone could see what was happening. 

Repair: I had planned to spend one hour each on 3 separate steps of the process.  Students cues were that they were not keeping up and needed more time to put lessons into practice. I chose 2 processes and spent an hour and a half of the section on each one and let the class try them before moving onto the next.

Review: A group of students did not seem to be "getting" the information or implementing it.  I thought about it and discussed it with a colleague who was also teaching them.  We were able to devise a strategy to support the students comprehension across two classes.

Research: 

Re-theorising and reformulating:

Professional Development for Academics Involved in Teaching. (n.d.). Critical Reflections on Teaching. ProDAIT. www.prodait.org
Provided as part of SIT2LRN's US7110 paper "Critically Evaluate and Improve own Knowledge and Practice in Adult Education and Training"

Smart Goals

Stix, A., & Hrbek, F. (2006). Teachers as classroom coaches : How to motivate students across the content areas. ProQuest Ebook Central https://www.proquest.com

University College of Dublin. (n.d.). How to be critical when reflecting on your teaching. 

            http://www.ucdoer.ie/index.php/How_to_be_Critical_when_Reflecting_on_Your_Teaching

According to Brookfield (1988), four activities are central to critical reflection:

1. Assumption analysis – This is the first step in the critical reflection process. It involves thinking in such a manner that you challenge your own beliefs, values, cultural practices and social structures. The purpose of this is not, necessarily, to overthrow these beliefs and values but, rather, to assess their impact on our daily proceedings and thus be able to see more clearly causal relationships. Assumptions are our way of seeing reality and but if we are unaware of them they can trap us into false reasoning.
2. Contextual awareness – Realizing that our assumptions are socially and personally created in a specific historical and cultural context.
3. Imaginative speculation – Imagining alternative ways of thinking about phenomena in order to find better ways of doing things. This is really what is meant by the oft-use but little understood phrase “thinking outside the box”.
4. Reflective skepticism - Questioning of universal truth claims or unexamined patterns of behaviour and interaction through the prior three activities (assumption analysis, contextual awareness, and imaginative speculation). It is the ability to think about a subject so that taken-for-granted assumptions are suspended or temporarily rejected in order to establish the truth of an analysis or the viability of a proposition.

Stephen Brookfield has written a large variety of books about Adult Education.  

Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. ProQuest Ebook Central https://www.proquest.com

Stephen Brookfield shows how you can uncover and assess your assumptions about practice by viewing them through the lens of your students' eyes, your colleagues' perceptions, relevant theory and research, and your own personal experience. Practicing critical reflection will help you... Align your teaching with desired student outcomes See your practice from new perspectives Engage learners via multiple teaching formats Understand and manage classroom power dynamics Model critical thinking for your students Manage the complex rhythms of diverse classrooms

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The skillful teacher : On technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom. ProQuest Ebook Central https://www.proquest.com

Energize your classrooms with these key techniques for college teaching Students say the best teachers get them excited about learning, stretch their thinking, and keep them actively involved in class. But with increasingly diverse classrooms and constantly changing technology, each semester throws up new challenges for engaging students. Discover how to keep your teaching, and your students, energized with The Skillful Teacher, a practical guide to effective techniques, approaches, and methods for today's college classrooms.

James, A., & Brookfield, S. D. (2014). Engaging imagination : Helping students become creative and                             reflective thinkers. ProQuest Ebook Central https://www.proquest.com

Alison James, an expert in creative arts education, and Stephen D. Brookfield, bestselling author, outline how creative exploration can extend students' reflective capabilities in a purposeful way, help them understand their own potential and learning more clearly, and imbue students with the freedom to generate and explore new questions. This book: shows why building creative skills pays dividends in the classroom and in students' professional lives long after graduation; offers research-based, classroom-tested approaches to cultivating creativity and innovation in the college setting; provides practical tools for incorporating "play" into the college curriculum; draws on recent advances in the corporate sector where creative approaches have been adopted to reinvigorate thinking and problem-solving processes; and includes examples from a variety of disciplines and settings.

From Reading 1; Critical Reflections on Teaching

How past experience bears on future practice

Now use as your example a seminar or lecture that you are planning to teach. At each step of your plan stop and ask yourself:

a Why am I doing this?

b What belief that I hold about teaching does it exemplify?

c What alternative ways are there and why am I rejecting them?

More reading about international students and classrooms:

Chalmers, D. (1994) Local and overseas students' goals and management of study Issues in Educational Research, 4(2) 25–56.

• Chalmers, D. and Volet, S. (1997) Common Misconceptions about Students from South-East Asia Studying in Australia, Higher Education Research & Development, 16(1) 87–98.

• Hofstede, G. (1986) Cultural differences in teaching and learning, International Journal of Intercultural Relations 10 301–32

Why reflect? 

Jean Rudduck (1985) suggested that we critically reflect in order to challenge ‘hegemony of habit- the domination of routine practice’. Brookfield (1985) refers to ‘hunting assumptions’ and suggests that we should not take for granted what we have learned and always believed to be ‘good practice’ but subject what we habitually do to scrutiny. 

Ultimately, critical reflection should prevent us from doing what we have always done and lead to transformation of practice in order to enhance teaching and learning. 

From Stephen Brookfield's Getting Wisdom (1995)

We think that all resistance to learning displayed by students is caused by our

own insensitivity or unpreparedness.

I can relate to this because I blame myself for being a bad tutor when students don't respond the way I want them to.

Woods, H. B. (2012). Know your RO from your AE? Learning styles in practice. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 29(2), 172-176. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2012.00983.x

In this article, Kolb's cycle of learning is put forward as a useful theory to consult when planning information literacy or other teaching sessions. The learning cycle is contextualised and Kolb's and other theories are briefly explored. The author then considers how learning style theories can be utilised when planning teaching and learning activities. The use of planning tools is advocated and ideas for sessions are suggested.

Summary: Act, or life experiences, then lead to Reflect, or thinking about what was experienced, which leads to Conceptualize, or considering how the event fits into life in general , which leads to Apply, which is looking towards the future with how they will or won't repeat the Act.

Activity 3

Professional Development for Academics Involved in Teaching. (n.d.). Critical Reflections on Teaching. ProDAIT. www.prodait.org Provided as part of SIT2LRN's US7110 paper "Critically Evaluate and Improve own Knowledge and Practice in Adult Education and Training"

US7110 AS1 research and readings

Best practice criteria in adult learning is derived from the work of Malcolm Knowles, an informal adult education researcher and practitioner. 

Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy – infed.org:

citation: Smith, M. K. (2002) ‘Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. [https://infed.org/mobi/malcolm-knowles-informal-adult-education-self-direction-and-andragogy/.

The summary of Knowles' life is badly written and without much purpose compared to a discussion of his ideas on informal adult education. Below is an excerpt of his writings. 

Exhibit 1: Malcolm S. Knowles on informal adult education

---

The major problems of our age deal with human relations; the solutions can be found only in education. Skill in human relations is a skill that must be learned; it is learned in the home, in the school, in the church, on the job, and wherever people gather together in small groups.

This fact makes the task of every leader of adult groups real, specific, and clear: Every adult group, of whatever nature, must become a laboratory of democracy, a place where people may have the experience of learning to live co-operatively. Attitudes and opinions are formed primarily in the study groups, work groups, and play groups with which adults affiliate voluntarily. These groups are the foundation stones of our democracy. Their goals largely determine the goals of our society. Adult learning should produce at least these outcomes:

Adults should acquire a mature understanding of themselves. They should understand their needs, motivations, interests, capacities, and goals. They should be able to look at themselves objectively and maturely. They should accept themselves and respect themselves for what they are, while striving earnestly to become better.

Adults should develop an attitude of acceptance, love, and respect toward others. This is the attitude on which all human relations depend. Adults must learn to distinguish between people and ideas, and to challenge ideas without threatening people. Ideally, this attitude will go beyond acceptance, love, and respect, to empathy and the sincere desire to help others.

Adults should develop a dynamic attitude toward life. They should accept the fact of change and should think of themselves as always changing. They should acquire the habit of looking at every experience as an opportunity to learn and should become skillful in learning from it.

Adults should learn to react to the causes, not the symptoms, of behavior. Solutions to problems lie in their causes, not in their symptoms. We have learned to apply this lesson in the physical world, but have yet to learn to apply it in human relations.

Adults should acquire the skills necessary to achieve the potentials of their personalities. Every person has capacities that, if realized, will contribute to the well-being of himself and of society. To achieve these potentials requires skills of many kinds—vocational, social, recreational, civic, artistic, and the like. It should be a goal of education to give each individual those skills necessary for him to make full use of his capacities.

Adults should understand the essential values in the capital of human experience. They should be familiar with the heritage of knowledge, the great ideas, the great traditions, of the world in which they live. They should understand and respect the values that bind men together.

Adults should understand their society and should be skillful in directing social change. In a democracy the people participate in making decisions that affect the entire social order. It is imperative, therefore, that every factory worker, every salesman, every politician, every housewife, know enough about government, economics, international affairs, and other aspects of the social order to be able to take part in them intelligently.

The society of our age, as Robert Maynard Hutchins warns us, cannot wait for the next generation to solve its problems. Time is running out too fast. Our fate rests with the intelligence, skill, and goodwill of those who are now the citizen-rulers. The instrument by which their abilities as citizen-rulers can be improved is adult education. This is our problem. This is our challenge.

Malcolm S. Knowles (1950) Informal Adult Education, Chicago: Association Press, pages 9-10.

While the concept of andragogy had been in spasmodic usage since the 1830s it was Malcolm Knowles who popularized its usage for English language readers. For Knowles, andragogy was premised on at least four crucial assumptions about the characteristics of adult learners that are different from the assumptions about child learners on which traditional pedagogy is premised. A fifth was added later.

1. Self-concept: As a person matures his self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being

2. Experience: As a person matures he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.

3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles.

4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centredness.

5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal  

Citation: Knowles, M. S. et al (1984) Andragogy in Action. Applying modern principles of adult education, San Francisco: Jossey Bass. 

Knowles puts forward three immediate reasons for self-directed learning. First he argues that there is convincing evidence that people who take the initiative in learning (proactive learners) learn more things, and learn better, than do people who sit at the feet of teachers passively waiting to be taught (reactive learners). ‘They enter into learning more purposefully and with greater motivation. They also tend to retain and make use of what they learn better and longer than do the reactive learners.’ 

self-directed learning is more in tune with our natural processes of psychological development.

‘Students entering into these programs without having learned the skills of self-directed inquiry will experience anxiety, frustration , and often failure, and so will their teachers 

Malcolm Knowles defined andragogy as the art and science of helping adults learn as against pedagogy as the art and science of teaching children. 

Knowles, M. S. (1975) Self-Directed Learning. A guide for learners and teachers, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall/Cambridge. 135 pages.

9 Principles for Best Practice in Adult Education by Zepke, Nugent & Leach, 2011

• Enhance students’ self-belief

• Enable students to work autonomously, enjoy relationships with others and feel they are competent to achieve their own objectives

• Be ‘present’ for your students

• Create learning that is active and fosters learning relationships

• Create educational experiences for students that are challenging, enriching and extend their academic abilities

• Ensure that your classroom culture is welcoming to students from diverse backgrounds

• Adapt to students expectations

• Enable students to become active citizens

• Enable students to develop their social and cultural capital.

Review of their book with abstract and summaries of major points

Gilmore, G., & Connelly, D. (2012). Reflection to Transformation: A self-help book for teachers. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 47(1), 168-171. https://ezproxy.sit.ac.nz:2050/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Freflection-transformation-self-help-book-teachers%2Fdocview%2F1237818374%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D46872

What is SIT's criteria for best practices in teaching?  Is this on QMS?

Check out the job/position description for my job.  What does it list as key result areas or indicators of success?

AKO Aotearoa. (2020, November 24). National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awards 2021 Procedures, Guidelines and Criteria. Ako Aotearoa. https://ako.ac.nz/about-us/our-work/teaching-awards/

a) have maintained, over a significant timeframe, teaching practices that exemplify excellence (above what is considered good practice), foster confidence and promote effective learning appropriate to the particular context and level; 

b) are student-centred, meet the needs of students from different backgrounds and capabilities, encourage diversity and reflect on the Aotearoa/New Zealand context as appropriate; 

c) are proactive in their own professional development as teachers and content specialists; 

d) demonstrate leadership and have made a significant contribution to the teaching practice of colleagues (internal and/or external), to relevant communities and/or to their particular discipline/focus area; 

e) systematically collect and use information that informs their practice, from sources such as course/ outcome evaluations, research, self-reflection, appropriately informed colleagues, peer reviews, students, former students and other relevant stakeholders. 

 f) Support priority learners

Activity 1 on study guide.  What are best practice proposals and ways to put them into action?  (I think that's what prompt means in this context)