Teaching learning strategies.

Today i will try to list some teaching learning strategies which you can use in your classrooms. Most of these are pertaining to the constructivist approach(i am assuming here that most of the people reading this are teachers and so i will take the liberty of using jargon!:) do let me know in case any of the words here are unfamiliar to you and i will try to clarify!) So one must choose an appropriate teaching learning strategy depending upon the purpose...for example,before starting a class, if you want to see how much students recall from last class...then you can use clicker questions. These are also called multiple choice questions. And the strategy that you can use could be a think pair share:

THINK PAIR SHARE:

Description of strategy: Think-Pair-Share is a strategy designed to provide students with "food for thought" on a given topics enabling them to formulate individual ideas and share these ideas with another student. Rather than using a basic recitation method in which a teacher poses a question and one student offers a response, Think-Pair-Share encourages a high degree of pupil response and can help keep students on task.

Number of participants: 2.

Type of activity: Group activity

Time limit: Give students at least 10 seconds of think time to THINK of their own answer. Then, ask students to PAIR with their partner to discuss the topic or solution. Finally, after 60 seconds, call time and ask the others to share their ideas.

Role of instructor:

1. Assign Partners -Assign discussion partners rather than just saying "Turn to a partner and talk it over." When you don't assign partners, students frequently turn to the most popular student and leave the other people out.
2. Announce a Topic-Announce a discussion topic or problem to solve.
3. Give Think Time-Provide adequate "think time." The instructor could generally have students give a thumbs-up sign when they have something they are ready to share.
4. Allow discussion- Ask students to PAIR with their partner to discuss the topic or solution.
5. Monitor Discussions - Walk around and monitor the discussion stage. The instructor will frequently hear misunderstandings that she can address during the whole-group discussion that follows.
6. Ask students to SHARE ideas: randomly call on a few students to SHARE their ideas with the class.
7. Randomly Select Students -During the sharing stage at the end, call on students randomly. This can be done by calling out student names or numbers (One number for each student in the class, according to their number on your roster.)And ask that person to tell what their PARTNER said. If this strategy is constantly used, the students will learn to listen to their partner.

What is Education Technology?

Education Technology, simply stated, is the way in which we can use technology to improve the teaching and learning of any given subject domain. People from a variety of disciplines can contribute to the ongoing research in this field. Depending upon their domain expertise, one can choose their research area. For example, people from a computer science background can contribute to developing intelligent systems or work towards developing software tools like spoken tutorials, automated text book generation. Apart from this you could also look into the cognitive aspects of science or towards addressing scientific skills in class rooms or in distance learning programs. So also, one can try to evaluate the effectiveness of certain tools that already exist or try to see how these tools can be used to address other abilities such as better conceptual understanding or enhanced problem solving/experiment designing skills. You could also try to see how students learn a certain topic or what are the cognitive processes involved in this. Then you could come up with instructional strategies that target a certain purpose such as reduction of misconceptions or better conceptual understanding.

Education Technology, formally stated, is a combination of processes, strategies and tools involved in addressing educational needs and problems, with an emphasis on applying current tools.(-M.D.Roblyer, Integrating educational technology into teaching, 4th ed.).

In this field, you not only get an insight into how people learn but also how technology can be used for evaluation, communication, learning and providing feedback. It also addresses how knowledge can be extended to masses using adaptive instruction so that students can learn at their own pace and at what ever time is suitable for them.

Haven't you always wondered why you liked that 'one' prof better than another?? though both of them are equally knowledgeable? well, its here that you could get answers to not only that but many more such questions that crop up in your minds, which ever side of the table we may be on, teacher or student...For the former, it provides and insight into the minds of the students where as for the latter, it tells you ways in which you can learn a topic more effectively, or even better, provide opportunity for research in this area!:)
If you always wanted to bring about that change in the way instruction takes place, this is the place to be!:)