HWG702 University teaching for teaching assistants
Part 1 Teaching Philosophy and rationale
I believe that students learn most effectively by an active, constructive, cumulative, goal-oriented learning process during which students have the opportunity to reconstruct these knowledge by their own(Shuell, 1988). What matters during the teaching process is what students do rather that what teachers do, since after all the teaching process is aimed to let students acquire the knowledge. Therefore, we should develop methods through the use of student-centered learning, as one of the experience-based method(Conklin, 2012). In this kind of method, student not just passively accept knowledge that was taught to them, however, they construct …show more content…
Listening to the students is a student-centered approach, and this could let the teacher to be more clearly about how students are to learn, which is also helpful for designing the aligned assessment task. During the talking process, students also got the opportunity to rethink the course content and reorganize these knowledge in their own logical way. Listening to the students and letting students to talk are two aligned approaches.
Creating time for students to do independent work is another thing that should be kept in mind. The teacher should be less directive and creative opportunity for students to learn by their own rather than delivered by the teacher(Conklin, 2012). To achieve this, some pre-reading materials could be given to students and small group learning and collaborative learning could be placed in the class. Through these methods, the intended learning outcome are embedded in the teaching and learning activities.
Contents in the course should be delivered in a coherent and logical way so that the students could construct their own perspective. It is better for the course to introduce new knowledge start with relating this to previous knowledge, such logical transition will help students to construct their perspective about the course(Conklin, …show more content…
Well-designed assessments could encourage students adopt more deep learning. Therefore, I will put lots of energy on designing more reasonable assessment, which could link knowledge points in the course together.
It is more useful to offer hints rather than answers when you raised a question that need independent critical thinking. A hint is far more valuable compared with an answer(Conklin, 2012). From the hint to the final answer, students will go through the process of constructing their own logical scheme of this course, which will be very helpful for them to apply their theory into practice in the future. Through this, student could be more intellectually active to construct their own understanding.
Part 2. Aims and learning outcomes
Micro-teaching topic: introduction to nuclear engineering research.
Aim: This course is mainly about introducing basic knowledge of nuclear engineering. Besides, three main research area of nuclear engineering will be briefly introduced.
Learning outcomes:
If you successfully finished this course, you will be able to
1. list main components of typical PWR (Pressurized Water