Photo taken over the Gulf of Mexico on
August 15, 2016 by Jonathan Acuña
Combining
WASs’ Attitudes with Teaching Strategies
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Post 294
As it was previously introduced in the
former post (293), Working Adult Students have a series of attributes (or
traits) that comprise the kind of learner s/he is, the essence of who they
really are in terms of learning and motivation. Recounting a bit of what this
WAS’s description includes, the following attributes are to be borne in mind: Knowledge and Abilities, Self-Concept,
Expectations, Needs, and
Attitudes. As suggested by Laureate Education (2016), there are different
ways to capitalize from all these abilities if the instructor is able to
envision the kind of strategy or strategies that can accompany it to have the
WAS fully profit from his or her experience.
The following chart intends to explore
on the possibilities of adding teaching strategies for the WASs’ knowledge and
abilities attribute. Though this is not a conclusive set of strategies, three
are correlated with the chosen attribute: schema activation, case studies, and
project-based learning (PBL) tasks. Each one will be outlined individually for
a better grasp of the possibilities behind each teaching strategy.
To
conclude, any of the WASs’ attributes (Knowledge
and Abilities, Self-Concept, Expectations, Needs, and Attitudes) can be used in combination
with learning strategies or teaching method. What is suggested here are three
different strategies that I have found useful among the English Teaching
Learning major students, who also happen to be sitting in any regular course at
the university and mostly at night. I am almost certain than more approaches to
teaching can be used with the attribute I decided to work on, and needless to
mention that you are bound to find more to say in regards the other attributes
that were not taken into account for this reflective exercise. Based on my personal
experience with language learners and content courses, using schema activation
as a simple prior knowledge enlivening technique, lots can be gained with WAS.
Cases studies and PBL tasks are wonderful to prompt learners to start using
what they are learning in combination with their empirical expertise gained at
work.
Happy
teaching!
References
Activating Schema. (n.d.). Obtenido de TesolClass.Com: http://www.tesolclass.com/lesson-planning/activating-schema/
Cased Study. (n.d.). Retrieved from
BusinessDictionary.Com:
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/case-study.html
Problem-Based Learning (PBL).
(n.d.). Retrieved from Learning-Theories.Com:
https://www.learning-theories.com/problem-based-learning-pbl.html
Saturday, September 17, 2016
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