Yesterday I had my first of six hours of work learning about how to put together a Teaching Portfolio. I think of this as part of the Professional Development stuff I have to do for my employer. It is also a way to force me think about what I do for a living and why.
The first task is to develop a Teaching Philosphy using either Daniel Pratt's model or some other one. So I took the Teaching Perspectives Profile last night and got a fairly flat profile. There are five possible categories and two cut-off lines. Any score over 33 indicates a dominant perspective. I had one of those at 34. Any score between 23 and 33 is a backup perspective, I had three of those. In addition there are some significant discrepancies in the pieces of the profile that make up these scores. This may both be because I did not follow one of the main rules of the "test". I did not answer the questions with only one teaching / learning situation in mind. There is a difference in how and why I teach based upon what I think the context is for the students as well as what the content is.
Based on content I have four different teaching / learning situations.
1) MS Office: Fall and Winter teaching
I teach a set of skills that students will need to use in other courses in their programmes and on the job. I have one stated objective: help them learn the skills, and one unstated objective: help students relax with the applications so they can learn more skills on their own.
2) Chemistry: Winter teaching
In this subject I am teaching students who are trying to get into various medical areas: nursing, paramedic, etc. They need to learn whatever it takes to get out of the course with a good mark. I try to teach them the necessary problem solving skills and I try to show them a little of the wonder I feel for how all of the pieces of reality fit together.
3) Business Systems: Fall teaching
In this course I am supposed to help students learn how Information Systems are part of the integration of modern business. They are supposed to learn what the role of Information Technology is in business. In this one I try to inculcate some of my own values about appropriate business behaviour, ethics, etc.
4) HTML: year round, both Introductory and Intermediate levels
In this course I am supposed to teach a set of skills so students can achieve a certain goal. I also try to help them see what an incredible invention the Internet and the World Wide Web are. In the Intermediate course I also work to show students how to make their sites accessible to all users of the Web.
I wonder if it is possible to integrate some or all of these different areas. I wonder if the switches I have to do in my brain when I switch from one subject to the other have more to do with switching teaching roles and styles and less to do with the content.
2009-01-22
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment