Sometimes I am asked by colleagues of all levels what do I do as a teacher leader. Where do I stand among my fellow teacher leaders. This questions sometimes baffled me. I believe I am deployed by the school in accordance with their interpretation and school needs, nevertheless it would be more relevant for me to clarify what I can and would like to do.
I am a senior teacher focusing on a specific area called learning needs or educational support. Basically, my area of development for myself as well as the teachers in the school is to address the process of THE ART OF LEARNING.
Let me bring out some examples.
When a student faces difficulty in learning a specific concept/topic of a specific subject, that students needs support. The key questions for me to address with the kid would be what processes / advise i can provide to help the student learn the content in question. While pedagogy is the ART OF TEACHING (delivery) by the teachers, I believe my focus should be on the ART OF LEARNING (receiving) by the students.
The questions to address would be. Is there a sequence of actions / thinking processes the students need to adapt to make his learning more effective? (UbD, 5E instructional model) Are there any habits of mind to be taught (eg executive function, metacognition) to make better learners out of the students?
One more dimension i need to mention. Learning is an emotional endeavour. I will often dabble in the area of motivation. How make lessons Relevant Appealing and Personal so students will be more tenacious in engaging with the learning process thus having a higher chance of success in their learning.
The work and research of the ART OF LEARNING is tied to what to be taught thus inform what pedagogy to adapt and tweak.
So what are the things i can/want to do?
METACOGNITION – To device a template to learning anything new. This will help students to form a schema. Apply this template in their learning experience. Always determine its effectiveness in relation to the learning objectives and make adjustments to refine that said schema. This continuous cycle will give the students an arsenal of different learning processes ready to use to absorb what they are to learn.
BRAIN BASED LEARNING – one important component in learning is memory. Here we focus on strategies that can help in students’ knowledge retention for easy retrieval and future application.
5E FRAMEWORK for engagement. This is my favourite strategy where i break down the lesson in the following part. Engage – to capture students’ interest and activate prior knowledge. Explore – to investigate the content through experimentation. Explain – or account the outcome due to the exploration before. Elaborate – to apply what was learned to a new context and Evaluate – to reflect on the prior experiences and see what to change for future experiences.
RAP – Sparking students’ engagement in the classroom through materials and experience that are relevant, appealing and personal
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