Reflecting
upon Higher Education Learners
By
Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School
of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Post
266
Through
my many years of higher education teaching, lots of things have been fairly learned
and quickly assimilated to enhance my teaching style; then my teaching behavior
has adapted to new circumstances and to meet the new challenges of the
ever-changing deep learning process with new theories, new Web 2.0 approaches,
educational practices, etc. Here I present the reader with a rather small
collection of samples of pieces I have been using for some time now.
The
importance of knowing your learners
As Dr. Rafael Espinoza
(personal communication) stated in a qualitative research course I took with
him a couple of years ago, it is important to create an ethnography of one’s
class environment as well as of one’s students. It is not to know their
demographics; it is to know who they are, what they feel, how they behave, what
they aspire and want to learn, and so on. Through this qualitative research
exercise that can be a bit of mindful contemplation of what learners want to
tell you without words, you discover a lot of your class challenges and your
students’ strengths. Besides, one can get to discover how that information can
help to find ways to guide students towards deep learning experiences.
The benefits of switching from a
teacher-centered classroom to a learner-centered classroom
Teacher-centered
instruction, at least in my field language teaching, is simply the wrong
methodology, the wrong way to go about educating others. Education must be
geared towards helping students build their knowledge, skills, and
competencies. Otherwise, the purpose of teaching is defeated from the very
start. Teacher-centered instruction is to simply teach in automatic pilot, when
you are not really addressing student needs to quench their learning thirst.
How can deep learners be identified and motivated to go the extra mile and
become better at what they are acquiring? Learner-centered instruction is the
key. Empowering students with their capacity for self-regulation is the path to
be followed to supply them with what it is needed, deep learning experiences.
Changes
in your attitude toward your learners
My
attitudes toward my students have not changed at all. I would say that it has
become robust and more solid through the years. Since I have been using Kolb’s
Learning Model for a very long time, I am more convinced of its use and
importance in education and language learning. Kolb’s Learning Model can be a
solid foundation for any faculty member looking for leaner-centered instruction
techniques to boost student deep learning and content engagement, whether that
is F2F, fully online, or hybrid teaching/learning. It is certain that there are
other teaching backgrounds whose foundations are not Kolb’s; in spite of the fact
that many faculty members do not endorse Kolb’s teaching rationale, other
approaches can be functional because in the end it is the instructor who can
get to know that there are different ways to deal with students’ attitudes to
move them from one stage in their learning to another. As a conclusion, be open
to experiment with Kolb’s, Marzano’s, Bloom’s, and so on. Just be open to
different possibilities since it is you, the teaching professional, who really
know what happens in your particular teaching circumstances.
A new approach to incorporate into my
teaching to enhance student learning and motivation
Motivation
is key in learning, knowledge building, skills development, and the acquisition
of new competencies. Students must be taken out of their learning comfort zone
and move them into “serious” learning situations and tasks. Teachers can get
stuck in the creation of learning tasks for the sake of “killing time” while
trying to achieve course goals. The idea is to have students work and discover
their potential for knowledge building, and why not to move them to virtual
scenarios. Due to the amount of information available online, lots of
interesting apps can come handy to boost student learning and competencies.
The
act of learning is a fascinating self-treasured moment for any human being.
Getting to know a bit more every day makes the students consider the scope of
their learning process they have accepted to undergo in higher education. When
self-regulation is inculcated in their way of studying and seeing their
learning, the possibility to create meaningful learning experiences becomes a
nice challenge to face and very rewarding, especially when one gets to see the
results of one’s teachings materialized in skills and competences learners will
use at work.
Tuesday, May 03, 2016
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