Make the most of the teaching and learningthrough motivation and enjoyment
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Learning constitutes a key process in our life; therefore getting right about learning is essential. I believe that learning will flourish in motivated individuals. That is the reason I consider motivation to be the first and the most essential aspect of learning and teaching. For effective learning to take place, student and teachers should both discover and maintain their motivation in the first place before trying to teach or learn the subject matter. This can be done, for example, by frequently asking ourselves such a question as “why do we do what we do”. Once we found the answer to the question, the next step then is to find out on “how can we do it our best”.
Being motivated, a teacher can transmit the positive spirit to the students and create a favorable environment in which learning will germinate and flourish. Motivated learners will gain much more beyond what teachers invest. That applies to me as a learner: when I found myself internally motivated to learn about something, I will try as hard as I can to pursue it. Such a principle more or less applies to most people. Being motivated I usually enjoy every little step in the learning process: discovering and constructing knowledge, thinking over and reflecting it to my experience, applying them to the real world, as well as in evaluating it.
I consider enjoyment as an important issue, especially for something that I do on a regular basis. And that is how I view teaching and learning processes should be, including when I have to run every single day of class session, in managing the overall course in a semester, and even in pursuing my lifetime learning and occupation. Having the spirit of enjoyment, in my view, does not necessarily imply that everything has always to be easy. Things can sometimes be tough or challenging.
To be effective, based on my experience and observations, most learners get benefit from multiple exposures to the subject matter and also the use of multi-media. I am convinced that there are only a few students who will be able to learn effectively if a teacher, for example, monotonously uses a single approach to teach, be it lecturing, discussion, or applying other methods. Teaching method, in my view, should be adjusted with the learner’s condition and the subject matter, among other aspects. As generally known, every individual has a different style and preference in which effective learning can take place. A good teacher, therefore, should make the best effort to accommodate such individual needs if teaching and learning are to be effective. Using a variety of methods in teaching will likely increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning, and at the same time also address the different learning styles of individuals in the group. Embracing diversity, especially related to learning style, is not only important but also will increase the effectiveness and the value of learning.
While I am sure that technology can aid learning tremendously, I am also convinced that we should not become dependent on it. On the one hand, when I consider appropriate I will make use of the available modern information technologies such as weblog or e-Portfolio to monitor student’s personal development, Wikis® to collaboratively produce something useful for communities, Blackboard® or Scholar® for course management and various other tools. On the other hand, I also believe that learning should not be dependent on the availability of technology. I am convinced that when managed properly, even in the absent of modern technologies such as what typically happen in the remote area settings, learning can happen as much or even beyond those in campuses equipped with the most modern technologies.
In group learning, such as in a class, I would consider the group as a learning community where take-and-give processes are happening and should be promoted for and by everybody, including the teacher. In addition to achieving personal objectives, the community should try to identify and achieve the common learning goals. Every student coming to the class brings unique expectations, questions, experience, knowledge, ways of thinking, ways of learning, and massive amount of resources that each of them has accumulated in life. It would be too bad if such rich resources are ignored, as typically happens in most instruction-centered teaching. In the beginning of a learning process, I think it is extremely important to jointly identify the common learning goals, and somehow agreeing on the approach used to achieve them. Along the course, I will encourage contribution from everybody to the class. Constant and close communication between teacher and students, as well as among students should be part of the culture nurtured in the learning community. Honest evaluations should regularly assess how, or if, learning is happening; and how effective the learning process is for everybody. This will shape the subsequent learning processes, as part of the adaptive learning management, to make sure that the students, as an individual and as a group, can achieve the learning goals.
Ultimately, I believe that learning best happens if it is reflected to, and applied in, the real world. Therefore, being able to relate the learning subject to the real life situation is the best way to learn. Even better if the subjects or examples somehow relate directly to something that every individual student is familiar with. That way we can evaluate the relevance and effectiveness of the subject we learn that, further, will lead to the learning as a mechanism to produce knowledge and thinking.
All in all, I consider myself a lifelong learner. So, I will consider everything I do, teaching included, as part of my lifelong learning. While teaching, I also want to maintain my learning. That is why I expect and would encourage everybody to contribute in the learning community.